I hear you
I say “I hear you” all the time. When I noticed how often, my first reaction was to be a little embarrassed. Then I looked at where it shows up, and I stopped being embarrassed.
It shows up when a student is scared or tired. It shows up when a score came back lower than the practice tests, when the plan isn’t working, when the test is next week and one section still feels impossible. Anxiety, nerves, stress, pressure, or burnout come up with most of my students. Only the review itself comes up more, and that includes timing and every question type. If this book only covered the logic, it would cover less than half of what happens in a coaching session.
I handle nerves the same way I handle a missed question. I name it, ask a question, give a rule, and set the next step. This time the subject is a person.
Is it possible that you may be experiencing a little bit of burnout?
Maya, ninth session. She’d come off a month-long break three weeks earlier, and she was drained. She said nothing mattered anymore, that she felt stuck, and that more breaks would just make it worse. She’d done a practice set that morning and it had gone badly.
I didn’t start with the practice set.
“You’ve been putting in the work. Is it possible that you may be experiencing a little bit of burnout once again?”
That’s the deposition, pointed at a person. I’m not telling her she’s burned out. I’m asking whether it’s possible, and the question gives her room to say yes without admitting anything. She pushed back on breaks, and I pushed back on the push.
“Well, I know, but there’s a balance to strike. I agree that you can’t take too many breaks, but you also can’t take too few. I mean, you took a month away from it.”
Then I pulled up the calendar and walked her through the timeline, and then I gave the rule.
“You deserve a break for at least the weekend. A couple days here and there won’t derail you. If you’re showing up and within the first couple of minutes you’re realizing that you can’t move forward with the session because you’re drained from how the practice set went, I think that suggests that a break is in order. And I’m not saying it’s not difficult. I’m not saying that it’s not draining, but I want you to come into this feeling energized and excited.”
We didn’t do the session. I sent her home for the weekend.
I warn about burnout a lot, and the prescription is almost always less: fewer hours, and a day off that’s actually off. Hannah was studying eight to twelve hours a day with two canceled scores behind her. I told her:
“Eight to ten hours a day is too much. It’s a recipe for burnout.”
The number I give most students is lower than they expect.
“I typically recommend spending no more than five to six hours a day studying, and that includes review.”
“There’s nothing worse than reaching the week before the exam sick of the LSAT and barely able to look at another practice test because simply all the tests kind of run together.”
The scores are real, and here’s a truer read
Priya, fourth session, two weeks out from a test. She’d been scoring 169 to 171 on practice tests and was nervous anyway. She worried those tests weren’t representative, and this was the last test she’d planned to take. She asked for mindset tips.
I started with the thing that was true.
“You got great scores. It’s worth being happy about those, of course.”
Next came a rule to make the number more trustworthy, which is what she was really asking for.
“Now, I would say just to get the more accurate read, which will boost your confidence further, is to see: are there any tests that are more recent that you could take?”
She’d been treating practice tests as verdicts, so I changed what the tests were for.
“The purpose of taking practice tests is not just to see where you stand. It’s also good to work on pacing and endurance and discover mistakes to review later.”
And instead of a tip, I asked a question.
“Have you ever done anything like mindfulness meditation, focusing on breath, things like that?”
She had, a little. So the prescription was specific and small.
“That would be a good thing to work on, just maintaining a few minutes a day that can help center you. If you’re in a stressful situation, when you’re doing a full test or of course on test day itself, it can help you get out of the quicksand. If you’re getting bogged down or stuck or spiraling, or you’re worried about how things are going, it can help you let go of what’s been before and then focus on what you’re going to be doing going forward.”
Validate first, then the method, with a reframe somewhere in the middle. When I look back at how I handle anxiety, timing, and plateaus, the thing I do most is give a concrete rule, a number, or a deadline. Reframing comes second, a diagnostic question before any advice comes third, and a plain pep talk barely registers. I’d never have guessed that, and I think it’s right. I don’t do pep talks.
The backup date
The single most effective thing I’ve found for test-week anxiety is a second registration. I’ve recommended a backup date to Maya, Hannah, and others, and when Claire turned up having already booked one, I told her why it was the right call. The reasoning is the same every time:
“If nothing else, then just to have the peace of mind knowing that it’s not all riding on this one date, and you still have plenty of time before applications open.”
Maya, days before her test:
“It never hurts to have another test in mind for the future, even if you’re not actually going to take it, just because it can give you some peace of mind to know that the test in front of you is not your end-all, be-all. It’s not the last chance.”
Law schools go by your highest score. For a nervous student, that one fact changes test day more than anything else I can offer, because the test becomes one attempt among several. Lucas, who’d nearly quit in our fifth session, was describing it as one swing of a few by our sixth.
No lingering doubt
Eli, last session, the week of his test. I said something I say to most students that week, and it’s the closest thing I have to a policy on nerves:
“If there is a question keeping you up at night, just reach out. I don’t want you walking into test day with a lingering doubt unresolved in your mind.”
Nerves feed on open loops. The week before the test is for closing the ones still open. I told Hannah the same thing in her last session in almost the same words: we don’t want to leave open loops here, we want to close things and wrap them up.
That week is not for new methods. Keep fixing the questions you know give you trouble, with the method you already trust.
“This is why in the final weeks before the exam for a student, I do not recommend radically changing your approach because it can only serve to sow seeds of confusion and doubt when you were already in a pretty good place.”
Nerves on test day are normal, and I say so in the plainest words I have. Sofia, last session:
“I think you’ll be nervous. That’s totally normal. You’d be crazy not to.”
Walk you off that ledge
I’ll end with the lowest point I’ve seen a student reach, because it’s the clearest example of what “I hear you” is for.
Lucas, fifth session. He’d had three practice tests at 165, 167, 167, the previous year’s real test had come in six points under his practice average, and he’d started to believe he just couldn’t do this test. He said so.
I told him I’d walk him off that ledge, and then I did the method. I asked what was actually happening in his misses. I told him the truth about his level:
“This is normal. When you’re already in the 160s, especially the high 160s, when you’re getting questions wrong, a pattern won’t necessarily become readily apparent, because you’re not getting them wrong because of the type of question.”
I gave him the winding road from chapter 11. Then I raised something he hadn’t considered, a later test date. The pressure dropped visibly. The later date did what no reassurance could have.
His score band didn’t move in the end. You’ll read about that in chapter 14, because it’s true and it belongs in the book. But he walked into that test no longer believing he couldn’t do it, and I count that.
Run it yourself
If the test is more than a month away, register for a backup date now, even one you don’t intend to use, and notice what it does to the next practice test.
If the test is within a week, write down every open loop. A question you half understand, a rule you’re not sure of, a section you’ve been avoiding. Close each one, in writing or with a partner, before the day before. Then take the day before completely off. If not studying would stress you more than studying, do ten questions you’ve seen before and stop.
