If You Think You Are The Exception to the Rule, You Might Just Be The Rule

Key Takeaways

·       It’s natural to think that you are an exception to the rule generally when you are consistently an exception to the rule in a specific domain. The way you prevent this belief from significantly hindering your progress is by asking yourself the following question:

o   What would need to be true for me to be the exception to the rule here?

Some of my peers may be former Division 1 athletes or professionals in other fields. With a field full of top achievers in other domains, unique roadblocks emerge within the medical school sub-culture. One of them is the consistent belief that we are the exception to the rule. Whether it’s about burnout, study habit mistakes, divorce statistics, or financial freedom, we think we are different from the rest.

Those outside the field may consider this a clear example of arrogance. While this may be the case, I think there is a far more charitable way of thinking about this cultural phenomenon. Highly successful premeds and medical students have consistently learned that if they work hard enough and keep doing what they do, they are the exception to the rule. Perhaps they are not 99th percentile at everything, but they are better than most people at some things. After all they got into medical school—or so the reasoning goes.

Next, they draw a more tenuous inference. If I’m an exception to the rule by getting into medical school because of certain qualities that medical schools have validated that I possess, I might be an exception to the rule elsewhere. After all, I bring my extraordinary characteristics and skills to those domains. This line of reasoning is what births the “I’m special” medical student mentality. 

I struggle with this myself. I remember bragging to a close friend about how calm I felt during my prep for the MCAT. “The exam won’t make me anxious!” I told him confidently.  After all, I had prepped well and that I knew I would score within an acceptable range. After completing my MCAT and walking away from the testing center, a twisted thought entered my mind “Did I click the wrong option and void my exam?”. I initially brushed it off as crazy, but I could not remember what option I had chosen. Then began the most caustic bout of anxiety I had ever experienced. I told my parents that I voided the exam so many times that they started to believe that I had done it and grew anxious as well. [add footnote that I did not actually void my exam…lol…]

How have I mitigated these sorts of scenarios in medical school?

After that episode, I started to ask myself a critical question when I feel like I’m an exception to a rule.

“What needs to be true for me to be an exception to the rule?” 

You might think that this is a silly and easy question to answer—however—in my experience, it transforms how we think about the thing that we claim to have expertise in or are immune from.

Let’s take the MCAT anxiety, for instance. I thought I was immune to it. What needs to be true for my prior statement to be correct? Here are two quick examples of them.

1)            I would need to be immune to the anxiety-inducing effects of a high-stakes 8 ½ hour exam that dictates—along with other variables—the strength of my medical school application.

2)           I would also need to have a strong track record of not experiencing any anxiety before a major competition or event so that I’m not expecting a miracle [I had NO such track record].

 Now that I have asked and answered the question, the thought that I’m the exception to the rule seems far less likely.