LSAT is torturing me (burnout) ;-;

farahbi0

Hi guys,

I am in a bit of a pickle. For whatever reason, I cannot study LSAT anymore. I can't focus, and I feel like studying is torture.
I took a week break (by break I mean that I was studying a lot less, I think I studied 2/7 days for 2 hours a day). I still am having an incredibly hard time.

Prior to this, and probably the reason for my burnout, I was studying 3-5 hours a day after working. I would also have my LSAT Prep class twice a week, and once a week I would take an exam. I did this for 2.5 months straight with a few days of rest here and there.

Do you guys have any tips for how I can get my motivation back? Or any words of reassurance? I am trying my hardest, but I cannot be productive anymore. It is really worrying me, as I feel behind. My first LSAT is in August, and I want to take another one in December.

Thank you so much in advance!
Farahbi

yuzhou_guo

it is hard. i understand that. what works for me is that you need to remind yourself why you want to be a lawyer at the first place and let that motivate you to study!
hope it can help! i am taking the lsat in august too!

Matt Sorr

Sometimes focusing on a particular section/question-type for a day or two and seeing improvement helps to motivate me. Additionally, I often try to reframe my mindset for each section to help with burnout. For LG and LR, I find it fun to sometimes think of them as stress-free games. LG is like a puzzle and LR is like a flaw-finder game. For RC, going into the passage with the mindset that you're going to learn something new about a topic you know nothing about motivates me.

Cant Get Right

When I first started studying, I was working about 70 hours a week. It was incredibly difficult to give what little I had left after work to the LSAT. I feel you. But I managed to study pretty effectively and added about 15 points from my diagnostic during this period of my studies. I started out putting too much on myself: 4 hours of studying after a brutal 12 hour shift was only going to sustain for so long. I burned out hard.
So I adapted. I tried a number of strategies, but what worked best was setting very low minimum time requirements for each day’s work. I started planning for 30 minutes. That was all I held myself accountable for. This had a couple primary advantages. First, I always felt like I could actually do it. Even if I was totally exhausted and expected to hate every second of it, I could always power through for 30 minutes. That means I could always get started. That was usually the hardest part, so this helped me overcame a huge problem. And at the end of the 30 minutes, I had satisfied my obligation and that was that. I wasn’t trying to trick myself, I really was done. But sometimes, I’d’ve gotten interested in whatever I was doing. If I wanted to, I allowed myself to continue studying. And I often wanted to. Other days I was just glad to be done and put it away without guilt. This method helped me manage burnout on a day-to-day basis rather than trying to plan for longer periods of time.

We aren’t machines, and I think the failure to acknowledge reasonable limitations on our capacity is a problem many of us deal with. You can’t treat this like some Herculean task to be overcome with superhuman strength of will. We all love the idea of that, but it isn’t a real thing. We aren’t superhuman; we are human. Work within your means. Work sustainably. And work within your limitations.

LSATcaterpillar

I am in the same boat where I have been doing nothing but studying around 85 hours a week. What helps me the most is to take short breaks hourly (this helps especially with my ADHD) and also be on zoom/go to a cafe with a friend in order for us to keep each other focused. It also helps a lot if you guys ask for help on certain concepts/questions