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Tag: motivation

  • Motivation in the Dog Days

    Motivation in the Dog Days

    You can feel it. There is a sense of unease as the final days of summer arrive. After spending two months away from school, the return is daunting. Maybe you do not want summer vacation to end. Perhaps you fear the idea of stepping up to a higher, more challenging grade level. Motivation is key to getting back into the swing of things. But it is also easily lost amidst those worries. Here are a few things you can do to build up your motivation for the new school year:

     Listen to your emotions!

    If you are feeling nervous, lazy, or frustrated, it is tempting to think the solution is to just ignore those feelings. Yet many scientific studies show that is not the solution. Emotions are too intertwined with how our brains work to rely on logic alone. If you find you are procrastinating and do not want to think about the new school year, this is your body’s misguided attempt to help your mood by avoiding a seemingly bad situation. Accept that you are sad, angry, or confused, and take time to truly understand why. Only then can you turn towards a more positive mindset.

    Reward yourself!

    It may seem simple, but rewards work. Set a reminder in your phone’s calendar to accomplish something by a specific time, and include the reward you receive for doing so in the notes – perhaps you get to purchase something you wanted, or give yourself more binge-watching time. If you do not meet the deadline, you do not get those rewards. It may feel disingenuous, as though you are not doing it for the right reason. But it is a proven way to change behaviours, which in turn helps you see the more substantive reasons for doing them.

    Get out there!

    It may be tempting to do all this from your bedroom. But your home is filled with distractions. Step outside to a coffee shop, library, or other spot with wi-fi, and you will likely get much more done. Get together with your friends to form a study group, and set goals that you will follow up on. This is a very positive form of peer pressure that can push you to get things done. Try to find a time that the group can meet on a regular basis. This will create consistency as responsibilities start to pile up, and make everything feel less daunting.

    As you venture your way to high school, university, and beyond, the mounting workload can feel like too much. Taking time off is vital, but getting back into the swing of things is never easy. It is important to remember that this is not unique for you and not unique for younger people either. So it is important to build good habits. Do not keep yourself locked up inside. Most importantly, work hard to stay positive and understand why negative emotions creep up when they do.

    Sources

    Eric Barker. How to get motivated, according to science. The Week. http://theweek.com/articles/445446/how-motivated-according-science

    Hooie, Lauren. How to Stay Motivated This New School Year. The Odyssey Online. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/stay-motivated-school-year

  • Tips to Boost Your Motivation to Study

    Tips to Boost Your Motivation to Study

    The fall semester is almost over—and you all know what that means: cumulative exams that are worth a scary percentage of your final grade. It feels like midterms were just around the corner and now you have to re-study everything all over again. Understandably, you might not be feeling the most motivated to crack open that textbook. What can you do about this?

    The Carrot: Post-Exam Freedom
    One of the best ways to motivate yourself is to think about the freedom you will enjoy after your exams. This is the carrot method of motivating yourself. All that stands between you and a social life is a few measly exams—you can do this! Whenever you just don’t feel like studying, think about how freeing it will be to be able to binge-watch House of Cards guilt-free.

    The Stick: Failing Your Courses
    No one enjoys the taste of failure, and for a student, failing a course can significantly affect your GPA, which can in turn affect your prospects for scholarships, for graduate programs, for your career aspirations. There are even some programs that require you to repeat the entire year if you fail just one course. So if the carrot is not working, keep yourself motivated by thinking of the negative consequences of not studying.
    What can you do in your day-to-day to help maintain study motivation?

    Here are some specific and easy tips you can follow to help you maintain your study motivation:

    1. Study a little bit every day. Not only will this prevent panic-filled—and ineffective—cramming, you have broken down a daunting task into smaller tasks, making them more manageable and therefore more appealing to do.

    2. Keep yourself well-rested, well-fed, and well-hydrated. If the thought of studying inspires you to groan, that may be because you are tired and/or hungry. Get some rest, get some grub and then sit down with your books and notes. A refreshed mind will take in information more effectively.

    3. Change your computer, tablet, and cell phone wallpaper to a motivational quote or picture. As a student, it’s likely that not a day goes by without you using at least one of these items, so you will have frequent reminders to keep you motivated to study.

    4. There’s an app for that! Seriously, there are motivational apps available. Some of them work by having you set a goal, for example, “I want to study for 1 hour every day” and every day, the app will ask you if you have accomplished this goal. This keeps you on track and accountable. Others work by sending you a different motivational message every day.

    Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t 100% motivated and raring to study every day. You will have off days, but hopefully you will take away concrete tips from this article that will help you minimize those off days.

    Sources:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_and_stick

  • Motivation Management with ADHD

    Motivation Management with ADHD

    Time management always makes me think of having to manage time to work, get things done, tackling my to-do list. Boring! And having an ADHD wired brain, if things are boring they are unlikely to get done. So managing time often does not happen. There is always something more fun that is on my list of things I “should” get done. Always something that takes my full attention and makes me unaware of time passing that I had planned to use to get something more mundane accomplished. Sometimes I get things done from my to-do list and I am really efficient about it. But when does this actually happen?

    I decided to start tracking when I was actually working on my to-do list. What did I do before these moments of focus and productivity? What did I do after? Sleep was a big one. There are some days that I wake up after having slept really well and I have time to get stuff done. My mind is clear, my energy is good, I am wide awake, and everything in the house is quiet. I don’t even need coffee to get me going on these mornings! Exercise is another one (I hear you groaning!). It’s true if I have a good workout. I need to sweat, have fun, and feel rejuvenated (not wiped out), then I am ready to go. A good workout makes me feel happy, focused, and energetic. Sorry to my office mates – there are times I skip the shower and sit right down and get working on my list of “stuff.”

    If you’re like me another great motivator to get stuff done is Play. If I have to get something done in order to have fun, I get to work. If I get to go on vacation after I send in a report that I have been putting off writing, that report gets finished so I can pack and leave. I admit that sometimes I wait until the last minute, but if I have a deadline that involves having fun, I will have ALL of my work done on time.

    I actually have my clients build their own time management strategies once they figure out what motivates them to get the “stuff” on their lists done. They use alarms on their phones, watches, clocks, paper planners, phone a friend, diet, exercise, various forms of to-do lists, incentives, consequences (no one has used electric shock yet, thankfully), and other forms of accountability. One thing I notice is if the focus is only on the work, most of the time they get little done.

    How do you use fun to motivate you to manage your time? This week notice each time you get “work” done. How did you do it? Did you make a deal with yourself? Was there a deadline? Did you eat well, get good sleep or go to the gym? Let us know what helps you “manage time.”