Law School and Bar Prep Are Full of “1,272 Moments”

This morning, a Peloton instructor shouted out 1,272 walks.

Not 1,250. Not 1,275. One. Two. Seven. Two.

For those who aren’t deep in the Peloton universe: Peloton is a fitness platform with live and on-demand classes where you ride, run, walk, row, or lift with instructors. When you take a live class, your username appears on the leaderboard alongside thousands of others. Instructors can see milestone numbers next to your name, like your 50th ride, 100th run, 500th walk, or 1,000th strength class. And they’ll often call those out as “milestone shoutouts.” It’s a little moment of public recognition while working out alone.

Those shoutouts are usually reserved for “clean” benchmarks: 100, 500, 1,000, maybe 1,250 or 1,500. Numbers that feel tidy and celebratory.

So when Peloton instructor Joslyn Thompson Rule called out “DeanPeloTommy” (my Peloton leaderboard name) during the cool down stretch of a 20-minute power walk class and attached it to 1,272 walks, it stopped me in my figurative tracks. I wasn’t expecting any recognition, much less for a number that looks like it fell out of a calculator instead of a celebration balloon.

And honestly? It made my whole morning.

And of course, my bar-prep brain immediately thought: There’s a lesson here!

The Shoutout I Didn’t See Coming

What struck me wasn’t just the number. It was that she noticed at all.

By the time we hit the cool down, the “work” of the class was technically behind us. The music had slowed, the pace had eased, and I was mentally transitioning to the rest of my day. That’s usually the place where you quietly step off the treadmill, towel off, and move on.

Instead, in that softer moment at the end, Joslyn’s voice cut through. She said my screen name, mentioned 1,272 walks, and that tiny acknowledgment landed like a giant banner: You’ve been showing up.

From her side of the screen, it might have been a split-second glance at the leaderboard and a quick call. From my side, it was a reminder that I didn’t arrive at 1,272 by accident. I got there one walk at a time, often on days when I was tired, busy, or not feeling particularly “milestone worthy.”

That’s where the connection to law school and bar prep lives. Most of your effort doesn’t feel like a big moment. It feels like steady, unremarkable repetition. But it’s still getting counted.

Law School and Bar Prep Are Full of “1,272 Moments”

In law school and bar prep, we love big, clean milestones. We celebrate finishing all the reading for tomorrow’s classes, knocking out a full timed essay set, writing an entire MPT in 90 minutes, or completing a 100-question MBE set in one sitting. Those are important achievements, and they absolutely deserve recognition.

But a lot of your growth doesn’t look like that.

Some days, you don’t finish the entire reading, but you carefully work through one dense case and finally understand what the court is doing. That matters.

Some days, you don’t crank out a full MPT, but you methodically examine the File. You figure out what actually happened, which facts feel important, the issues at stake, and how the timeline and documents fit together. That matters.

Some days, you don’t get to 100 practice questions, but you do 25 slowly and thoughtfully. You read every explanation, even for the ones you got right. You spot patterns in your mistakes and adjust. That matters.

These aren’t the moments you brag about in group chats, like proclaiming, “Guess what, I outlined part of an essay today!” But they’re the academic equivalent of the walks between the big milestone rides. They're the quiet, unglamorous, relentlessly important 1,272s.

If you only ever let yourself feel proud when you hit a big, round-number goal, you ignore most of the work that is actually making you better.

Your Brain Doesn’t Care About Round Numbers

Your brain doesn’t know or care whether you studied for exactly 30 minutes, read exactly 50 pages, or did exactly 25 practice questions. Learning doesn’t “turn on” at a particular benchmark.

What your brain responds to is repetition, engagement, and return visits. It likes seeing material again and again, in different formats. It likes when you slow down long enough to notice why you got a question wrong. It likes when you come back tomorrow, and the next day, even for a shorter session, instead of waiting for the perfect conditions to do a big dramatic study marathon.

That means the “imperfect” study sessions still count. The half-finished outline, the single carefully written essay, the 15 well-reviewed questions. All of these move the needle. The scoreboard of your bar prep is tracking effort and consistency, not just Instagram-worthy milestones.

So when you catch yourself saying, “I only did …” or “It doesn’t really count because I didn’t finish …,” remember that's like saying the 1,272nd walk doesn’t count because it isn’t 1,300 yet. The number still reflects time, effort, and choices you made to show up.