Being flexible can set your free. Practice being flexible in everyday life and it will help you on your journey. We can’t control everything so don’t waste energy trying to.
When training for a marathon you need to follow a training schedule; however, you also need to be flexible. While you can’t just wing it and run when you feel like it, if the weather doesn’t cooperate or you are traveling for work or were out late at a wedding the night before, you may need to shift the day you do your long run. Or if you suffer an injury or are sick, you may need to take a few days off and adjust your schedule accordingly. The other day there was a thunder and lightning storm and I couldn’t run outside as I had planned. So instead I ran on the treadmill. Not as good as running outside and very boring but it was better than giving up and not running at all that day.
Law school is stressful enough even when things go as planned. However, anticipate that things may not always go as planned. You may get the flu in law school or a cold and miss a class or two or have to attend a family wedding. You may get sidetracked, you may have a health or personal issue that puts a kink in your study schedule, probably more than once along your journey, but you can’t be so rigid that it will throw you completely off.
The night before my marathon, I discovered that the device with my backup music was not working. Although that could have thrown me off, I was flexible, I came up with another option–to use my phone. It turns out neither worked out, but during the race when I realized that I would have to run without music after my watch’s music stopped, it was ok and I kept running without music. Not having music is certainly not a huge deal compared to other things that can go wrong, as it wasn’t life or death.
Life happens when you are busy making other plans. We are often such perfectionists that we define success in only one way and are not flexible. How do you define success? Is it perfection? Would it be a success if you completed the race or must you get a PR in the race? How do you define success in law school? For example, in your first year you will engage in a moot court exercise and give an oral argument based on a client’s case. Do you define success as standing up, giving it your best effort, and answering the judge’s questions to the best of your ability? Or do you define success as winning the best oral advocate award? While it is good to strive to achieve the best, how you define success could impact the amount of pressure you put on yourself as well as the sense of accomplishment you will feel after it is over. Be flexible along your journey.