Matthew Tray (study skills)
Technical Coordinator
Austin, TX
I came to A New Day Hypnosis because I had decided to go to law school, but was having a lot of difficulty studying for the LSAT. I just couldn't focus at all. There were so many issues and difficulties in my life that were piling up one after the other and they had an impact on my study skills. First, I'd an infestation of bed bugs in my house and I lost all of my furniture and had to move. Then, my parents got divorced, my dad had hip replacement surgery and my aunt passed away all within a six month period. I wasn't sleeping well because of everything that was going on and when I took the LSAT for the first time it was pretty bad.
Ever since, I've had a lot of anxiety and a huge mental block when I tried to take LSAT practice tests. I went to tutoring and the scores that I was getting definitely wouldn't get me into any law school. There was so much stuff going on with me that I couldn't overcome and I felt like there were huge barriers preventing me from success. I looked at the questions, but didn't really understand what they were saying. The mental block was so overpowering that it almost felt like I couldn't read when I took a practice test.
After two and a half hours of studying, I had a terrible headache. The LSAT isn't an easy test and I needed some outlet to focus my mind on the task at hand without getting side-tracked by the things that were going on in my life. I felt like I wasn't all there when I was taking the test and it was starting to affect my outlook. I looked at my life and ask myself what crappy thing was going to happen next. I was to the point where I decided that if I had to do a Jedi mind trick to make this work than I would try it.
I heard about A New Day Hypnosis on yahoo local and decided to give it a shot. I started noticing results almost immediately after my first meeting. I felt like I was wiping away a lot of the distracting thoughts and had increased mental clarity. Being able to free the mental block and open my mind up to new possibilities has helped me out a lot. During practice tests, when I find myself in a really tough situation I would remind myself that my mind is like a laser. I'm coaching myself through the questions, which I wouldn't have done before and that's helped a lot.
I never have headaches when I study now and I can go three to four hours without feeling tired. I've developed strategies to get myself through tougher questions and I feel more in control because I have much tighter reigns on my goals. I know more about what's in front of me and I have a much clearer focus on my future. I feel more confident knowing now that I can do a lot better than I've ever done before on the LSAT.
The most important benefit that I've received has been overcoming the mental block and being able to be at peace with what I need to do. I've really improved my practice scores and that's been happening on a routine basis.
I recently took the LSAT again and it was funny because everybody else was standing around freaking out and I felt just fine. It was easy for me to just relax and have fun, which is completely opposite from my last experience with this test. I recommended A New Day Hypnosis to one of my coworkers because I feel so much better about things now and I think that other people can benefit in the same way. Law school is such a huge undertaking, but I feel confident now that I can go into it, master the concepts, and be successful.