Oh, June, the month of exams! Are you ready? Have you began studying? If not, you probably don’t have enough motivation. Lucky you, I have a technique that I use that motivates me to study and makes me enjoy studying.
Here I go:
I have dealt with many different techniques and found that this one seemed to work the best. It definitely isn’t something too difficult or too simple, however, it does the job. I like to call this technique the “thinking technique” because all of this motivation will be occurring within you. You’ll be communicating with yourself in order to drive yourself to study.
So, here is all you have to think:
1) When wanting to study, don’t think of it as a tedious task, think of it as something you really love to do, even if you don’t love it. Tell yourself, “Yes! Studying!! Yay!”. I find that when I do that, I can trick my brain into thinking that studying is something I love to do. We usually use the words “Yes!”, “Yay!”, “Alright, I’ve got this!”, when we are excited about something that we are going to do. So, by associating those words with studying, it will trick your brain into thinking that studying is meant to be excited about and hence would make you want to study.
2) For me and, probably, many others, we work hard because we want to gain something in return. For example, you train hard for soccer games because you wish to win the games and become one of the best. So, if us as humans enjoy getting rewards, why not think of what reward we will receive if we study? Think about the great mark that you want to get on the English test. Tell yourself, “If I study, then I will have a greater chance of getting the mark I want.” That thought will trigger our brains to connect the “tedious” thing, studying, with something awesome, the reward. When those two things are connected, it will drive you to work harder because your brain knows that if you study, then there is a chance a great reward will be received.
3) Ever understand why you have the urge to give up when something unwanted occurs, like receiving a bad mark? You get the urge to give up because it disappoints you. When we feel disappointed, we like to think that nothing will every go right anymore and that giving up feels like the right thing to do. Disappointment is such a strong force, strong enough to make people want to give up. Wow, eh? So, if it’s such a powerful force, why not make that use that as a motivation? Tell yourself what would happen if you don’t study and make sure that it associates with something that is unwanted. For example, “If I don’t study, then I’ll not receive the mark that I deserve” or “If I don’t study, then I will disappoint myself”. Doing this is effective, because we are built to stray away from things that make us unhappy. So, if disappointment, or anything else that is undesirable, is associated with something else, then we would try to stay away from doing that thing. Use that to make yourself believe that studying is good because… “if I study then I won’t disappoint myself”.
As Cheryl James likes to say, “change is not an event, it’s a process”. Know that things will take time. Adjusting your brain to enjoy studying may take a while. It may be slow at first and it might take some getting use to, but the day when you begin to love studying will come! Motivation will come!
Good luck!!