Your Competition Isn't Other Law Students

Law school is obsessed with winning and losing.

The best exam score leads to the highest GPA, which earns you a certificate, distinction on your transcripts, and pretty chords to wear around your neck at graduation, which everyone will acknowledge. 

Competing with others for these coveted things is essential to these achievements.  

But what if the traditional ways we’ve excelled in law school are flawed?

A More Unconventional Path

I remember sitting at my law school Orientation and hearing the 'experts' say, “Look to your left, look to your right--only one of you will be here at the end of the year.”  

They were reciting the same old playbook, and it felt gross. It was like they were training us to think of one another as rivals for the limited seats on the legal lifeboat.    

It didn't take me long to realize that my true competition wasn’t my fellow law students.  

Competing with myself was the only rivalry that made me a better student (and human).  

Competing With Yourself Is the Better Path

So, what does wholesome self-competition look like?

Your competition is:   

1.  Your Procrastination: Set up a daily study system so studying becomes as simple as waking up, looking at your calendar, and jumping right to it.  Make learning each topic in every class a habit—habits are hard(er) to break.  

2.  Your Negative Self-Talk: You are what you think, so be kind to yourself. To maintain mental wellness, become self-aware of your inner critic, reframe your thoughts, go easy on yourself, find gratitude, practice self-care, help other law students, and go for a walk to assess your self-talk.

3.  Not Having a Study System in Place: It takes ten minutes at the start of the semester to look at your syllabi and identify every topic you’ll learn in your classes.  Then, create an outline for every topic that includes everything you learned, and transform it into an essay approach that mirrors how you'll write it on the exam.  What a relief to have clarity, understand the subject framework, and know which topics you’ve already covered and where you’re headed.  I can't imagine a better feeling than walking into your final exams knowing you gave 100% to learn and write every topic.  

Changing the Culture

Genuinely championing others and competing with yourself isn’t easy.  Old ways creep in here and there.  

But there's a better way that fosters your own happiness, health, growth, and self-love.  It’s about being the best version of yourself and supporting others along the way.  

Learn from your past self, compete with your current self, and set that bar for your future self.