How to get yourself to study: Find motivation

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m the biggest procrastinator (if that’s a word) I have ever known. For weeks at a stretch I have used to (and still could be ;) wasting the WHOLE day without doing absolutely anything! Except for eating and sleeping and of course browsing the internet. The longest I can remember is for around one and a half months where all I did was watching tv series and movies at a stretch. This happened while I was waiting for results after I did my A/Ls. I was kinda depressed and refused to even go out and see my friends.

So anyway the point is that I am someone who could NEVER find motivation to study. I tried many things including downloading motivational wallpapers to my laptop and my phone and god knows what. They kind of worked. I mean I actually felt like I was motivated but that was never enough to drag myself from the bed to the table to actually do work.

But somehow I managed to find how to study even if your mind constantly tells you to hug your pillow and go to sleep or watch the next episode of that awesome tv series. So we will be talking about how to get motivated and also some other things I do, when motivation doesn’t really work for me.

Find what motivates you

Don’t wait for motivation to come find you, you’ll have to go and find it yourself. It could be your need to do well and earn well in future, to get out of the miserable life you’re already in, to show the people who laugh at you and condemn you that you’re actually better than them, or simply because you desire to be the best.

Once you find your motivation keep reminding yourself that. Why do you have to go through this torturous exercise every day? “Because one day I will earn a lot of money and prove that I’m worth it”. Write it in a piece of paper and paste it somewhere you can see every day. That will constantly remind you and drive you towards your goals. It could be the door, the wall or my personal favourite; the mirror as I spend hours in front of it staring at my face.

Like Love the subject

There’s nothing you cannot do if you put your mind to it! Even the hardest subject in the world can be understood if you learn to love it. So learn to love it. Find out how YOU will relate to it and thing of all the benefits you can get by knowing about what it teaches. Stop listening to other people’s opinion on a subject as it depends from person to person and you will also not jump in to conclusions. I did that mistake when I was in my first year. A lot of people warned me about a specific subject and I mentally told myself that I’m gonna fail that one for sure (without even opening the text book). Only when the final exams were near I learnt that it was very interesting and that I was actually good at it. But by then it was too late.  So let’s not make the same mistake twice.

Tidy up

Before you start studying, always make sure to cleanup your room and your desk. And not only your room, make sure YOU feel refreshed too. Studying after a tiring day being all sweaty and gloomy is not the best idea. Have a wash and even try meditating or breathing exercises to calm your mind. Your thoughts will settle down for a while and you will feel more prepared to work then. And of course if you have a well arranged desk with your books, pens, highlighters, sticky notes and files arranged neatly you will feel much more enthusiastic and eager to start studying.

To-do list; Plan your day

There’s no other way to take control of your life other than using a small planner/ to-do list. Every morning plan the day ahead make notes on what you should do, who you should meet and do your best to stick to the plan. At the end of the day evaluate what you have done and what you haven’t. Make that a habit and you’ll see that life is more organized that it used to be.

Discipline is the key

As someone who really lacks motivation, what I can tell you is that it is discipline that will actually drive you to success. Everything I mentioned earlier; motivation, cleaning up, planning your life, they all come under discipline. Armed forces strictly maintain discipline as you can’t make stupid mistakes when going to war. Discipline is what gets work done. In the end it’s your future that matters, not what you feel like doing now to evade what’s really waiting outside. So be sensible and start taking control of your life. If you read up on the lives of people who have become successful in their lives, discipline is something they all had in common. So it’s time to develop it.

Group Discussions

Find some genuine, good friends and have a group study session. This could happen after you read a lesson at home and as I don’t think anyone would understand a subject just be reading it once. I always find myself confused and unsure about what I understood. So I found group discussions to be EXTREMELY helpful. As they not only help me solve my doubts, but also wen a set of people discuss their own opinions on that matter, it adds up to your knowledge.

So try doing these things and as they helped me I really hope they will help you too. If you want to save this article to be read later, pin the picture below. And if there’s there are other methods you use to force yourself to study tell me in the comments, I would love to know.

XOXO

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