Of course I want to wrap you all in a cocoon of all the faith I have in your greatness, and guard it fiercely until you have been safely delivered through every trying pace of your test. And really it’s all trying, these last days, and every moment in every test center where you’ll be sitting all over the country, putting everything that led you up to this moment out there, along with your deepest hopes and your greatest fears. But here is the moment where I move to the side so that you can assume a more prominent role in your story, because apart from my investment and regard for your spirit, this is all you.
A few last things before you take the baton:
Nothing great ever followed “What if I fail?” Do not sink into asking that question. Just don’t allow it. Certainly do not succumb to answering it. We don’t fail. Not that it hasn’t happened, but that is not what this day is. Hold that thought for results day. But on this day, in these last few sacred “all that are left days,” right through the moment they call time, you own every magnificent thing you did that allowed you to even sit for this exam, and then all the minutes within it that you kept fighting. Honoring that is the platform for self-respect, which is the platform for greatness.
Another platform for greatness is owning your agency in this test. It’s a rehearsal for the negotiations you will have to make with yourself over what you can and cannot control in your law practice. You cannot control the conditions or the substance of the exam, but you CAN control your breath, your timing, your determination to finish, your ability to navigate your strategy from one question to the next, your word choice, your ability to hold onto your self-belief in moments of doubt, what you choose to focus on, and what you allow to disrupt your focus. Don’t run out of time. You control that. Don’t quit if you feel a momentary pang of defeat. You control that. Don’t stay stuck in paralysis; move on if you must until you regain composure. You control that.
This test is just an amplified and concentrated version of all the micro decisions you made to get here. And they were brilliant. And you are brilliant.
Make good choices. Know your power to do that is present, stable, and always available.
Deborah Sanders is owner of Bar-None Prep and has taught the bar prep method she created for her own bar exam for over twenty years. She is based in New Jersey. In addition to a regular column, she is writing a book on “The Spiritual Path to Passing the Bar.” You can contact her at passthebar@barnoneprep.com.
