Last week, I had a made a post on the mistakes I made as a law student. These experiences, I have been told by your overwhelming response, provide value to students in general. So, here is the part two as promised. (Psh, in the event you missed the earlier one, here it is!)

1. CONCENTRATING ON GRADES TOO MUCH
   • Flashback to the time when I was a fresher in law school. I was the typical bright-eyed student who dreamt of perfect grades. But when results came, I was devastated. Everything I had worked hard for fell in shambles. It seemed like I was the dumbest student out there. And so, I stopped studying all together for one year. This was obviously a huge mistake. My grades dropped lower and the vicious cycle continued until I realized that grades don’t determine my self-worth. It is not the be all, end all.
   • Also, because I was concentrating on grades so much I found that I was paying attention to what everyone else was doing instead of worrying about what I was doing and sweetie, when you do that, there is absolutely no peace of mind.
   • Recently, I found out that as soon as I stopped concentrating on my marks as frequently as I used to (I am still not perfect at it.) I found my grades to have improved significantly. I will admit I am not the best out there, but I am trying to do be the best version of myself. And dearie, that is more than enough.
   • So please repeat this mantra with me: “My grades don’t define me.”
2. UNDERSTIMATING THE COMMITMENT REQUIRED FOR LAW SCHOOL
   • This is something I feel a lot of students are guilty of. We tend to underestimate the amount of work and commitment law school would requires and moreover, we forget that “Law is a jealous mistress, and requires a long and constant courtship. It is not to be won by trifling favors but by a lavish homage.”
   • Continuing my story from the first point above, when I stopped studying I started devoted more time to art and research on optimizing my study techniques. Needless to say, both of them though worth my time and effort were not exactly bringing me the results I desired in life. I wanted to learn law not run away from it, but the sheer workload had scared me off. This is mistake I regret deeply.
   • If you are under bone-breaking academic pressure and expectations, don’t derail like me. Take a break, do some introspection exercises, journal, or think about it.
3. UNDERESTIMATING THE VALUE OF ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS
   • The year 2019 has been phenomenal for me. Never in my wildest dreams I would have ever thought that a single year could change me so much and lead me to feel such a wide range of emotions. I have had months of relentless productivity and positivity, wherein I would wake up at 4.30 revise my lessons, teach lessons work and study for 8-10 hours a day with some time for my cats and family to spare. I have also had months that felt like eternity of misery, suffering and random mental breakdowns where I would be so dissociated that I felt detached and attached all at the same time. It was horrid, I cant say they don’t visit me now. They do, but now they are less frequent as I have come to understand they are guests of my choosing. I don’t have the company of better friends to have and as result they became my constant companions. (Do we get a Hello darkness, my old friend memes here?)
   • I don’t in any way mean to tell you that we should be so preoccupied that we don’t have time to feel these feelings, on the contrary this is exactly where organizing skills come in play. Every time, we sit down to organize, we journal and reflect on how we are feeling that day. This daily mini introspection keeps the feeling in check. Unless, if you are like me and still overthink then both of us are just feeding our anxiety. When I can actually come up with a way to cut this food supply to the anxiety, I will be sure to write a blog post. Until then, let us just be happy that we have defeated at least a few of our devils. (LEVEL UP!)
   • Whenever, we plan out our day we have foreseeable future in sight and that feeling of control over our time gives us immense power. The power gives us confidence and the confidence boost is the knight in shining armor that will rescue you from the grasp of despair and indiscipline.
   • I started taking planning my day seriously just this year and I am happy to report that every time I make to-do lists or time-table I am way more productive and on days I don’t, I am back in the slump.
4. NOT CONCENTRATING ON HEALTH
   • This is something I cannot label as a learning experience. Because this is definitely something that fills me with remorse and guilt at having treated my body the way I did. Ever since the start of my education, I have neglected my health so immensely. This has resulted in me suffering from skin problems for the past nine years but even then I refused to look at health as something to be cared for. The last straw on the camel’s back was when I suffered from fever continuously for one year. One whole year. It has taken such a toll on my immunity system that I could not even go outside without being ill or exhausted in some way. Not even a walk.
   • Added to this list of horrendous habits was my pathetic posture. I was unable to study for longer than thirty minutes at a time.
   • So please, please take care of your health and posture, if not for yourself, do it for the money you can save without going to the doctors or buying all that medicines.
5. NOT TAKING HELP OF/ INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY
   • It was around February this year that I actually owned a personal smartphone and in July I pestered my parents into buying me a laptop. Earlier than this, all we had was a run down PC with irregular internet access and I hated using it because my back and elbow would hurt so much. This was primarily because of the bad posture I had and the uncomfortable position of the PC didn’t help much either.
   • However, ever since I got my gizmos I must say my life has become so much more easier. To begin with, extensive research is a breeze, I get access to much more material than I earlier did, I started a blog that forced me to keep myself accountable, I joined a fantastic online community where everyone egged each other on to be better than before.
   • So, if you can (and it suits you) please invest in technology. In this digitized world it is highly important that we keep up with the times. In my butchered  version of a quote from ‘on the basis of sex’ movie –  

Hope you found this useful! Tell me about your learning experiences in the comments below! And until next post, HAPPY HUSTLIN’ HON!