 So, when you go into the pants and you've done 4,000 questions in the exact same way and your test-taking strategy is solid and you know that you can get it through a question on average in 40 seconds when they give you a minute and you are just ready. You're going to freaking own that test. When you go into an interview and you've done 500 questions, you're going to be so confident. So, most of your peers, most of the people competing with you for that spot in the GPA school class, when the interviewers ask them a question, there's going to be that moment of awkwardness and they'll be like, well, I guess you're not going to have that. You'll be like, oh, good question. I'm ready to give you an answer because you practiced. Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a board certified physician assistant and today I'd like to talk about overthinking. I know, nobody watching this video has a problem with overthinking, right? Right. Yeah, we all do. Absolutely. Everybody does. And what actually motivated me to talk about this to make this video was two things. One is a few people asking me questions about the pants. Some people actually failed their pants, the PA physician assistant national certifying exam, you know, the big exam that you take at the end of PA school in order to get your license and actually be able to practice as a physician assistant, you know, you need that in order to practice and make a living. So it's a very big, important test and you have to pass it. And a few people actually reached out to me through Reddit and through Instagram who told me that they failed their pants, unfortunately, and they asked me what they can do about it. Because they know they've seen some of my content where I said I was a very average student in PA school. I mean, I had a pretty high GPA, but everybody had a pretty high GPA. You know, everybody's a great student who goes to PA school. And so I was pretty much middle of the road, middle of the pack in every exam, basically just all the way through PA school. And I did about the same on the pants. You know, I was right around average, which makes sense based on my performance on the EORs and the pack rat and all that good stuff. And so I did pretty good. I did about as well as I hope to and about as well as all those things would have predicted that I would. But some people who even did very well in PA school better than me and who got better pack rat scores and who did better on their EORs and just, you know, smoked PA school did super well, ended up failing their pants. You know, how's that possible? Their knowledge base, at least on paper seem to be better than mine. Their test taking strategies at least through PA school seem to be better than mine. So how in the world did they fail? I'm thinking one thing that could have contributed to that, unfortunately, is that they were overthinking things. Their confidence just wasn't where it needed to be. Their test taking strategy maybe wasn't where it needed to be. And they succumb to overthinking and that really screwed up their performance and ended up in them failing the pants. So that's one thing is a few people that reached out to me about, Hey, I failed my pants. Like, what can I do? How do I possibly make this up? I'm so terrified that I might not get to practice as a physician assistant in all these years and years and effort and money that I gave up in order to have this career is about to be taken away from me possibly because I can't pass this exam. Slow down. You can and you will pass this exam. I freaking promise you, I know that you will. You just need to learn how to slow down, not overthink and have a good solid test taking strategy. Okay. So that's one thing that motivated me to make this video about overthinking. The other thing that really, really motivated me to make this video for you guys is one mock interview that I had last week where this person was an incredible student, you know, super good GPA, very high test scores on everything. I think the GRE was really solid. The essay was amazing. Had a lot of extracurricular activities. Had all kinds of really cool stuff. Great experience, great hours, great volunteering. It's a really good letters recommendation, just an amazing story, really, really solid pre-PA applicant and you know, no surprise to me that this person got a bunch of interview offers and of course they came to me to help them with their interview skills because I think one or two interviews, they were already rejected and then another one or two, they were waitlisted and they had one interview left and they were like, you know, I know I'm a good applicant. Why am I not getting offers? Why am I not good at interviewing? What is wrong with my interviewing? So they came to me, they did a mock interview and we kind of figured some of these things out and together we kind of worked through some of these things and one thing that I saw this person doing unfortunately was overthinking. Like I would ask honestly a pretty softball question, like not really even a very difficult or like a really got you question or even a two-part question or anything like that. It was just a pretty softball question that should be pretty easy to answer and this person got totally stumped, they got awkward, they waited like 10 seconds, they were like, oh, good question, I don't know, like they just they really seem to have a hard time answering a very easy question and I suspect it's because they were overthinking, they were all in their head, they wanted like the perfect answer. This is what they told me, by the way, and I'm sure this is a lot of your experience. Those of you who are interviewing for PA school, they wanted the perfect answer. They wanted the perfect answer. They wanted to create the perfect answer and there is no perfect answer. It's not a multiple choice question. It's not a math question. It's not even a biology question. You know, there's a bunch of right answers, but like one is the best right answer. It's not even anything like that. It's literally just subjective. It's how are you going to respond? Not even what you're going to say, but how are you going to respond? So unfortunately in that case overthinking is the worst thing you can possibly do and unfortunately for a lot of pre-PA applicants, you guys are all really smart and smart people are pretty prone to overthinking, which makes a lot of sense, at least to me. It may not make sense to some people, but it makes a lot of sense to me. And here's why. Here's what I understand about smart people. And because I just am an observant person, I like to observe human behavior. I like to talk to people. I like to figure out how people think, why people think the way they do, why people do things that they do. I'm just extremely interested in human behavior and people in general. That's probably why I'm in this field, right? Like I love biology, I love science, but I'm really in medicine because I just really love people and I'm just really fascinated by and interested in people. So I observed this about a lot of really intelligent people as they tend to get in their heads a lot and it's hard to get them out of there. People tend like intelligent people tend to overthink and that's a huge weakness that intelligent people have. Honestly, like people of average intelligence and I'm not judging anybody, you know? But I think that people who are not very, very intelligent or who at least are not like very, very logical, you know, they're just more kind of normal people. They don't struggle with this as much. They don't struggle as much with socializing. They don't struggle as much with making friends. They don't struggle as much with interviews and just being themselves and just not being awkward and not overthinking. But people who are very, very smart, which is a lot of you guys applying to PA school because you can't really get the kind of GPA you need in order to get in without being very, very smart. So let's be real. All of you guys applying and getting interview invites, you're all really smart people, like super smart people. And that's really good in school, but in interviews and in personal interactions and stuff that can get in the way. So intelligence is kind of a double-edged sword. On the one side, it's really good. It's really good for grades and school and learning things and understanding things and being able to have a good job that requires that kind of intelligence because it's complicated and requires you to understand some complicated things. But on the other side of that is you tend to overthink and get in your head. And the way I actually explained this to one of my friends, I think like a year ago, but it just stood out to me and I still remember because I think this was a good way that I had of explaining it. And my friend really appreciated it and really understood it was somebody who is just very intelligent, like a high IQ. If you put any credence in the whole IQ system, I know there's a lot of arguments against it. But if you are just very intelligent, you get very good grades, you're very smart, you're very logical. The way I like to say it is you're like a car with a lot of horsepower, like a very powerful car. So you have the potential, you have the capability of going very fast, you know, faster than a lot of cars. You're able to have performance that a lot of cars just don't. But at the same time, it's also harder, more difficult, to kind of learn how to use all that horsepower and it's easier for it to get out of hand and you're all over the road and you know, the tires are squealing and peeling out and you just like, you can't keep the car on the road. So on the one hand, yeah, you got all this potential to be fast if you're a car, we're still using that analogy, or to be smart and get really good grades and do a lot of cool stuff. But at the same time, it's harder to handle all that horsepower. It's harder to handle all that IQ and you have to just learn throughout your life how to handle those things. So the first thing I wanna tell you, if you're someone who tends to overthink and that does get in your way, whether it be in interviews and test anxiety, in social situations, whatever it is that overthinking is preventing you from doing, I just want you to know that it's not a bad thing. It's not an uncommon thing. A lot of people, especially a lot of intelligent people, have the same problem and that is the reason. It's because you just have so much more going on and I really like, I don't want this to sound bad. Like I'm bashing people who are not intelligent or that I'm even calling anyone not intelligent. Like I'm trying to say this in the best possible way. But like people who just do have a lot going on up there, they're always thinking, they're always thinking about complex topics, they're thinking about things from every possible angle. It's just like they're doing a lot of thinking, I guess. So that's what I mean by intelligent people. They're just constantly thinking and they're thinking a lot and they're thinking about complex topics in a complex way. Like people who tend to do those kinds of things are the same people who tend to overthink and just use too much of that and have difficulty applying all that intelligence and like putting it on paper in one linear direction. They kind of are all over the board. Like I said, the car with too much horsepower is just all over the road. So learning how to handle all that intelligence is actually a skill and it takes practice. And that brings me to my next point. And that is for people who tend to struggle on the pants, test anxiety, social situations or like I said in interviews, just like trying to create the perfect answer and tend to overthink things and prevent themselves from creating that perfect answer. The one thing that you have to do in order to solve this problem is practice. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Practice does not make perfect. Practice just makes you better incrementally. You cannot be perfect. Get that out of your head. You'll never be perfect. In anything you do, there's no such thing as perfect. You're chasing perfect. You're chasing good. You shoot for the stars or you shoot for the moon and you fall along the stars, which by the way, I always hated that because it makes no sense. Here I am overthinking, by the way. But I always actually hated that because it makes no sense. The stars are like way further away than the moon. So if you shoot for the moon and you fall, you're not falling along the stars. You're just like falling even lower than the moon. So I guess you should like shoot for the stars and you'll fall along the moon. This is what overthinking does. This is an example. This is like someone using an expression that makes sense at least a little bit and then just taking it apart and totally screwing it up and losing the whole plot. So didn't actually mean to give you an example of overthinking, but I just gave you an example of overthinking. Stop doing that. What I just did, don't do that. Oh my God, that was so nerdy. Okay, so that was an example. But my point is you have to practice. So if I'm talking to you, the person that failed the pants and you're terrified and you're thinking like, how am I gonna pass this thing? I already failed it once. Practice, practice using your test-taking strategy. You know the material. I promise you know the material. If you passed PA school, you passed all your EORs, you did okay on the pack rat, you passed most of your exams in PA school, maybe you remediated one or two, you know we all did, but overall you passed PA school, you have the knowledge base. That's irrefutable. You have the knowledge base. It's not about the knowledge at this point. It's about the application. It's about practicing your test-taking strategy over and over and over and over and over again. That's why the advice that you constantly get about preparing for the pants isn't to review your notes or read or like look at more EKGs. Well, maybe it is look at more EKGs, but it's to practice, just to do tons and tons of questions, thousands of questions, do all the wash review questions. And the reason for that is it's practice, okay? So get your test-taking strategy if you wanna use my test-taking strategy. I made a video about it, but essentially it's look at the last two sentences first, read the last two sentences of the question, especially if it's a long vignette that takes you like, I don't know, three, four minutes to read. Like look at the last two sentences of the question first, then read the answer choices and try to answer the question. If you feel like you need more information, then skim the rest of the vignette or the rest of the question, but odds are you won't even need to. A lot of times you can answer the question just by looking at those last two sentences and the answer choices, okay? So hot tip from me. So definitely try that strategy out. Do it for like a hundred questions, do it for like 500 questions. See if it works for you, see how your performance goes. If your performance gets worse and you hate the strategy, don't use it, we're not all the same. Just because it worked for me does not mean it's gonna work for you. But try it out. If that strategy doesn't work, try somebody else's. You know, just keep trying strategies until they work for you and when you find one that works, practice, practice, practice. Over and over and over again for like thousands of questions, all right? Just do that over and over and over again and don't be lazy. When you get to like question 50 out of 100 and you're kind of tired and fatigued already and you don't wanna go through that process, you just wanna read it top to bottom like you're used to, no. Be disciplined and stick to your strategy. Do the same thing every single time. I promise you that will help, okay? So practice, practice, practice when it comes to pants questions. Same thing goes for interview, okay? If you feel like you tend to overthink, you get asked a question and you try to overthink it and it just comes out awkward or you end up not answering the question which is like the worst thing you can do. You know, that you're asked a question and you say something totally out of left field and you didn't even answer the question. That goes over like a freaking lead balloon. That just, it's bad. It does not go over well. So listen, practice listening and practice actually taking a second in your brain to process what was asked and then answering. If it's a long question or if it just takes you a minute to think about it, you're allowed to say to the interviewer, oh, that's a good question. Can I please have a few moments to think it over? Like who's gonna tell you no? You know, like what kind of interviewer will be like, no, I want an answer. Right now, hurry up, I want an answer. Are you kidding me? Like no one's gonna do that. And if they do, you know, tell the person in charge of the interviewer, it's like, look, this guy was like yelling at me. I don't know what his deal is. Maybe he's off his meds. Maybe you don't do that. I don't know. But the point is the interviewers will not do that. Your interviewers will be like, oh, yeah, sure. I mean, take as much time as you need. So you're allowed to ask for a little bit of time. You're allowed to take a second to think about it. Slow down, it's okay. You're totally allowed to take your time, okay? But my point is, if you tend to do that, if you tend to overthink when you get asked questions for your interview, practice answering questions. Get one of those books off Amazon, like there's a bunch of them that are like a thousand pre-PA questions, pre-med questions. The questions you're asked by themselves are not really important because they can ask you anything. You'll never be able to memorize a perfect scripted answer for every single question. That's just impossible, okay? You're not gonna wanna do that. What you want to do is practice answering questions, practice coming up with answers to questions. So make a list of questions and just practice answering them to yourself out loud. Have a friend ask you questions and practice answering them. Family members, teachers, whoever's helping with this, just have as many people as possible, read as many questions to you as possible and answer questions and practice formulating your answers as much as possible. If it's awkward in the beginning, good. You know you have a lot of work to do. After you get through like a hundred, it's gonna be less awkward. You get through a hundred more, it's gonna be less awkward. And after like three or 400, you're gonna be a freaking pro. You're gonna go into that interview or you're gonna log on to that interview if it's still on Zoom, like I imagine it is this year in 2021, 2022. You're gonna be so confident. You're gonna be so confident because what is confidence? Confidence is just knowing what you're doing. That's it. Confidence isn't like this deep concept that's like well-being and zen and like, oh, I know I'm valuable. Like it is overall, I guess, but confidence in a particular task is just knowing what you're doing. And how do you know what you're doing? You practice. Easy as that. So when you go into the pants and you've done 4,000 questions in the exact same way and your test-taking strategy is solid and you know that you can get it through a question on average in 40 seconds when they give you a minute and you are just ready, you're gonna freaking own that test. When you go into an interview and you've done 500 questions, as in you've had like friends, family members yourself ask you questions and you've practiced formulating answers to those questions 500 times. You're only gonna get like 10 more at the interview. Once 10 compared to 500, you are ready. You're gonna be so confident. So most of your peers, most of the people competing with you for that spot in the PA school class, when the interviewers ask them a question, there's gonna be that moment of awkwardness and they'll be like, well, I guess you're not gonna have that. You're not gonna have that. You'll be like, oh, good question. I'm ready to give you an answer because you practiced. See you in the next video.