I think it is important to understand and know WHY you are doing what you are doing? What drives the goal? Once you get to a deeper, and I mean several layers, of asking why this and if that then how would that make me feel? etc.. then you will get to the emotion of why and that will make ALL the difference. Last year, I was walking down the hallway at one of my kids school, feeling particularly discouraged about law school and trying to decide if it was really something I wanted to do, hanging on the wall was a poster the kids had drawn and illustrated that asked a question, If failure was NOT possible, what would you do? My answer was immediately Law School! so realizing the fear of failure is a foe helps to declutter the mind from emotions and feeling so we recognized exactly what they are, fear can be paralyzing.

It is also important to remember that standardized tests only measure certain things (stamina, ability to focus, etc..) not intelligence nor any other skills necessary for a successful life. As a mentor, I always tell everyone, specially my kids, when they don't understand something instead of saying I cant.... they must always add YET at the end. Many of us can't raise our scores YET, may not fully understand LR YET, may not be fast enough YET, etc...

So my advise to all, as a mentor is this: you can be a dragon slayer because that is what those negative thoughts are, dragons. So first and foremost yell it out loud every day, I am a dragon slayer and when a negative thought comes to your mind write it down, tear it up and then write down the exact opposite + add a physical attribute as well so if you think " I am so stupid" then write down, I am brilliant and I look good! repeat three times every morning and night. You will rewire and create new pathways in your brain and change its chemistry over time. You will feel way better too.

So lets keep focused on improving our ability to crack the darn test. Also, I took a three month break from Feb to April and it was the best thing I did! Now i am going about 30 hours a week but yesterday I had to take a break too, my back was thankful. Good luck to all cracking the test and slaying dragons!