Your Hero’s Moment Is Now: Letting Go After the Bar Exam and Learning to Trust Yourself
Sara Santoyo
March 26, 2025
If you’ve recently taken the bar exam, you might be feeling the unmistakable weight of post-bar-exam regret, which is that fun mix of anxiety, self-doubt, and obsessive second-guessing that sneaks in just when you thought it was safe to relax.
You replay exam questions in your head, convinced that you misunderstood something critical. You debrief with peers, only to hear someone mention a rule of law, or an issue you possibly missed. And after hundreds of hours of nearly nonstop studying, you suddenly have “free time.” But with no structured goal, you feel adrift, asking yourself “Wait, what do I do with my life now?”
After coaching students at the top of their class, the bottom, and everywhere in between, I can tell you that everyone feels this way. So if you’re wondering why, despite knowing this post-bar identity crisis is totally normal, it still feels nearly impossible to relax and return to everyday life… you’re not alone.
Ultimately, post-bar exam stress is a mix of habitual overachievement, uncertainty about the future, and a deeply ingrained fear of failure. No wonder it’s so hard to let go!
Letting go takes time, but more importantly, it takes permission. You have to give yourself permission to believe that you did enough.
And how can you trust that you did enough?
Let me share a simple but powerful concept that I teach my coaching clients (bar takers and young professionals alike). It’s a mindset tool to build real self-trust, even when you’re deep in uncertainty.
It starts with what I call our Hero’s Moments.
The Power of Hero’s Moments
During a grueling season of bar prep while also caring for our eight-month-old daughter, my husband told me one morning that he and his coworkers had been asked for the company newsletter: Who’s your favorite superhero?
He proudly told them, “My wife.” (Major kudos to my hubs.)
That response stopped me in my tracks because I didn’t feel like a superhero. I felt overwhelmed, depleted, scared, and constantly questioned whether I was doing anything well, let alone heroically. But in that moment, I realized that bar prep really is its own kind of hero’s journey.
We start out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, answering the call to adventure to change the world. We embark on the journey of law school, facing challenge after challenge, until we come face-to-face with the final demon: the bar exam. And when we slay it, it’s a thrill like no other. But that moment of success isn’t what transforms us into attorneys, or heroes.
The real transformation happens in the daily battles of the self-doubt we push through, the productive habits we build, and the quiet courage we summon when no one else is watching.
Bar prep is mostly a solo mission. Even with a great test-prep program and a meticulously detailed study schedule, no one is micromanaging you. It’s just you, your study materials, and your thoughts: 24/7, on repeat.
And if you’re an underdog in law, such as a first-gen or underrepresented student, the journey can feel even more isolating, with stakes that often feel higher and support that can feel harder to access.
But here’s your secret weapon; your ultimate superpower is your power of choice.
In every moment, you have the power to choose how you show up. And during bar prep, with that power comes the great responsibility of making the best possible choice at every possible moment.
Bar prep is filled with tiny decision points that, over time, determine everything and shape who you become.
You know the moments I'm talking about… It’s the nanoseconds between trigger and response. It’s what I call your “Hero’s Moments” because those are the moments where you decide whether to live out the best version of yourself, or a mediocre version of what you’re really capable of. That infinitesimal moment is where your freedom lies, as Viktor Frankl put it. That is where you have the power to become a hero to others and most importantly, to yourself.
What Does This Look Like in Real Life?
Your alarm goes off an hour earlier because you committed to waking up sooner. Your Hero’s Moment is that split second when you decide to embrace the pain of getting your butt out of bed instead of snoozing the alarm and falling back asleep.
You’re doing a practice essay and feel so inadequate because you don’t know the law perfectly. Your Hero’s Moment is where you decide to keep going in all your self-perceived inadequacy instead of giving up and reading the model answer.
No one will ever know, but you will. You become a hero when no one is watching you except yourself and you choose courage over fear.
The Etymology of Hero (and Why It Matters)
The word hero comes from the Greek heros, meaning “protector” or “defender.” And true heroes don’t just protect others, they also know how to protect themselves.
The Stoics called this your inner citadel, which is an unshakable fortress within you. It's not built from ego or achievement, but from discipline, courage, and integrity. But like any fortress, no matter how strong it is, the most dangerous breach comes from within.
We weaken ourselves when we abandon what we know to be right. Every time we act out of alignment with our values, or let fear make our choices, we chip away at our confidence and lose a little trust in ourselves.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow echoed this idea. He believed that with every choice we make, we leave a lasting imprint on our subconscious. We either move toward growth, or toward fear. And when we retreat into fear, when we deny our potential, we suffer.
As Maslow put it: “What one can be, one must be.”
This isn’t just philosophy; it’s backed by research. A Harvard study by Dr. Michael Jensen found that when people commit to integrity, their productivity increases by 100 to 500%. So yes, those tiny, uncomfortable Hero’s Moments really, really, matter. They are the training ground for your confidence, your productivity, and your ability to trust yourself. They are what will ensure that feeling that you did enough. Long after the exam is over, those moments are what let you say, with certainty, “I showed up. I gave it everything. I can let go.”
It’s Not Just About Pushing Harder
Before you think I’m telling you to “push through” 24/7, or that you should have shown up perfectly during bar prep, let’s be clear:
Braving your Hero’s Moments isn’t about burnout. It’s not about white-knuckling your way through every task or treating exhaustion like a badge of honor.
Sometimes, courage looks like resting.
Sometimes, it means saying no.
Sometimes, it’s giving yourself ample time to truly recover, instead of powering through.
And sometimes, it means saying yes to joy, to laughter, connection, and the things that make you feel fully alive.
This is especially true after the bar exam. You’ve been in go-mode for so long that slowing down feels unnatural, even guilt-inducing. But this is your Hero’s Moment now; where you choose to pause, reflect, release the fear, and instead trust your effort while giving yourself permission to recover.
One of my favorite questions to check in with myself comes from psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson:
“In this moment, are you nudging yourself to be operating from the top of your range?”
That’s the real standard. NOT perfection, not punishment. Just your best, moment to moment, given the resources that you have.
So as you navigate post-bar weeks and the doubts creep in, or anytime you’re facing a hard moment, ask yourself:
Did I show up with courage?
Did I learn something along the way?
Did I persevere when it mattered most?
Did I operate at my best in that moment?
If yes, amazing. If not, that’s ok too. Just adjust. Decide how you want to show up from now on. Give yourself grace and keep moving forward because more moments will come.
Learning to Trust You
Braving Hero’s Moments is how real, lasting change happens. And it all hinges on two simple truths:
You can learn to trust yourself.
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be brave in the little moments that matter because those moments build on each other. They’re what teach you to rely on yourself, again and again, as you move through challenges and into the next version of who you’re becoming.
This is where trust begins.
This is where you start to believe that every small, courageous choice you made with the resources that you had counted. This is where you finally begin to believe that you did enough.
And this is where you carry the practice of braving through your Hero’s Moments into the rest of your life, so that you can keep trying to operate from your best range, not just in high-pressure situations but in your everyday leadership, relationships and personal growth.
And why bother trying?
For your why.
Most of us came to the legal profession with a deep desire to make a difference. To fight for justice. To serve. To leave things better than how we found them. At the root of that mission, underneath all the ambition and drive, is something simple and sacred: love.
These days, I keep returning to this quote from St. Josemaría Escrivá:
“Perseverance in little things for love is heroism.”
That’s what Hero’s Moments are.
Tiny acts of courage.
Quiet decisions fueled by love for your purpose, for your people, and yes, for yourself.
So… what will you choose today?
Whatever it is, your Hero’s Moment is waiting.
Sara Santoyo is on a mission to diversify the field of law, one woman of color at a time. As a first-gen attorney who passed the hardest bar exam in the nation and who overcame the barriers she faced as a WOC in law to land her dream attorney role, she developed the skills and confidence that comes from knowing that she can turn any adversity into an advantage. Sara now devotes her professional life to coaching young WOC lawyers to do the same and more.
