Start a Bar Exam Journal

Keep a journal.

If you are feeling worried, anxious, nervous, and/or depressed about the bar exam, don’t keep it bottled up inside. Start a journal.

Why journaling?

Journaling is the systematic recordation of your thoughts and emotional responses to those thoughts.

By creating a record of your thoughts and emotions related to the bar exam, you will be able to prevent anxieties and worries from becoming debilitating. When you bring these concerns into the light of day they cannot hide in the shadows, menacing you.

When you keep a journal, you will cleanse your mind of whatever it is that has been troubling you – whether consciously or unconsciously – that day. If you had anxieties, they will be lessened; if you were over-confident, it will be tempered.

After completing a journal entry, you will be able to see the progress of your test preparation more clearly. You will also see what may be troubling you beyond simply the amoutn of material you need to learn.

Journaling is especially important to those who feel they do not have anyone to talk to about the bar exam.

The process of journaling can lessen your feelings of isolation because the cathartic act of expressing your feelings is a form of dialogue between your life and your mind. Unlike the Socratic method as it is normally misused in law schools, the trajectory of the journaling dialogue is entirely under your control.

Get started

You can keep a journal as a word-processing file, but I recommend hand-writing.

If you are like most bar takers, you probably sit in front of a computer all day, making outlines, watching video lectures, etc. Get away from the electronica and let your thoughts flow.

Get a notebook of some kind, whether a cheap one from a drug store or an uber-fancy journal, and start writing down your thoughts.

Resources:

The Bar Exam Mind Bar Exam Journal: Guided Writing Exercises to Help You Pass the Bar Exam.

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