Online commentators have spilled a lot of digital ink over how to balance bar prep with a lifestyle that’s physically and mentally healthy. Despite all the good advice out there, it may seem impossible to prevent the bar exam from taking over your life. You might be tempted to shut out many of the things that matter most to you while you’re on this all-consuming journey.

For the most part, that’s probably okay! It really won’t matter a year from now if you ate takeout seven nights in a row or didn’t see the sky for a few days. Once the immediate stress has passed, you can cook some healthy food, get back to your exercise routine, and generally resume your normal activities.

But there is one area of life where bar prep can have a lasting impact if you’re not mindful of it: your relationships with friends and family. People are (obviously) more complicated and less flexible than habits and hobbies, and it can be hard to navigate their expectations and emotions while you’re under so much pressure. So let’s talk a little about how your relationships might fit into the bar-prep puzzle and how they can emerge from this experience as strong as ever.

Connect when you can (or when you need to).

You do have to take the bar exam by yourself, but you don’t have to feel lonely or isolated while you’re preparing for it. Absolutely reach out to friends or family for support when you’re having a tough time! If you struggle with a set of practice questions, there’s nothing like a pep talk from Grandma to restore your confidence. And law school friends who are working through the same process can be an invaluable source of encouragement and camaraderie. They can also provide those reality checks you need occasionally when your perspective gets a little skewed.

But don’t wait until there’s trouble to contact someone you care about. Our relationships are crucial to our happiness and wellbeing. Don’t forget that fact just because you’re spending hours each day cramming real property estates into your brain. Reach out and connect just because you can and because it feels good to do so.

Set healthy boundaries.

Of course, too much of a good thing is, well, too much. If you find that family-and-friends time is starting to interfere with your bar prep, it’s okay to set boundaries with the people you care about. It’s more than okay—it’s important for your exam performance and for the health of your relationships going forward.

Figuring out when and how to set those boundaries can be tough, though. And the answers are often different depending on whether the person in question is an “insider” who’s also preparing for the bar or an “outsider” who’s unfamiliar with what you’re up against.

Insiders: Remember, results may vary.

Fellow bar-preppers are uniquely positioned to offer you solidarity—but also to stress you out in a couple of predictable ways.

Take your law-school friend, Joe. Joe calls every night to talk about bar prep, and it’s clear he’s breezing through the curriculum. He’s doing 200 practice questions a day, getting all of them right, and drafting MEE essays that read just like the analyses on the bar examiners’ site. You’re thrilled for Joe, but constantly hearing about his success is planting seeds of doubt: Why am I only getting through 40 questions and missing half of them? Am I doing the wrong things? Am I not doing enough? Am I doomed to fail if I can’t keep up with Joe?

This scenario highlights a crucial tenet of bar prep: resist the urge to use someone else’s progress as your measuring stick. For every tool and strategy, results may vary. People study at different paces and in different ways, so head-to-head comparisons don’t mean much. You aren’t ahead or behind based on what Joe’s doing. But if hearing what Joe’s doing all the time is messing with your head, consider putting the brakes on those conversations.

Also recognize that your emotional ups and downs might not coincide with the ones your friends experience. At some point, Joe is likely to call you in the middle of a meltdown (they happen to almost everyone eventually!). If you feel like you’re in a good place to support Joe through his crisis, he’ll appreciate it. But if his negativity starts to bum you out and distract you from the task at hand, it may be time to step back.

The key thing to keep in mind with fellow examinees is that they should understand where you’re coming from if you say you need some space. You are all under similar stress, and you should all cut each other some mutual slack. If sharing bar updates every day is too overwhelming, maybe you can agree to confine your talks to other topics. If that doesn’t work, maybe you should just make plans to catch up and celebrate when it’s all behind you!

Outsiders: Help bring them in.

Family members and friends outside of law don’t have the advantage of familiarity with the bar-prep process. They don’t necessarily understand what’s consuming so much of your time and energy, and that can make it harder to explain why you can’t come to dinner or meet for coffee. You’ll know best how to address these issues with individual people in your life, but there are a few general things it may be helpful to emphasize.

First, they’ll care about two simple points: it’s nothing personal, and it will pass. Be sure that Mom and Dad and Aunt Sue and your childhood best friend know that you’re telling everyone the same thing and that you’re looking forward to spending more time with each of them soon.

Second, try to explain what your days look like right now and how intensive the bar-prep process really is. The best way to do that is often to analogize to each person’s own experiences. Friends who have taken the medical boards know exactly what it’s like to have practice questions haunting you night and day for months. (If you want question-bank sympathy, that’s a good place to turn!) Maybe another friend is an accountant who is used to 20-hour days during tax season. Maybe Aunt Sue scrambles at the end of every quarter to meet her company’s sales quotas. Invite each person to project whatever’s most stressful to them over a three-month period to approximate what you’re immersed in. That’s likely to push some empathy buttons and help them see why you need to focus on the task at hand.

Finally, talk about the fact that this is really important to you. The bar exam is something you’ve worked toward for years. It’s the culmination of so much effort, the last thing standing in the way between you and your profession. Explain to these folks what the consequences are if you don’t pass the first time around. Tell them how you feel and what you’re worried about, if you have that kind of relationship with them. These are people who care about you and want you to be happy. It will be easier for them to give you the space you need if they recognize that doing so brings your dream one step closer.