Keeping Motivated

Good evening ladies and gents of the internet! Hope y’all had a good week and had a good St. Patrick’s Day too!

For this week, I thought I’d post something a little non-bookish, as this week’s been mighty stressful behind-the-scenes since I’m prepping for my exams and also looking into summer jobs and what-not.

So, we all remember that time right? You’re getting close to your finals and you need to pull your socks up and start studying. However, whilst preparing or starting to go through your notes/materials, you feel the stress and panic start to gnaw at you, and you silently wonder “How am I going to manage to go through all of this done AND do well in my exams?”

That time can be very daunting, and can make the act of studying that much more difficult and demotivating. However, there are ways to make that process more bearable.

These are some things I do to keep me motivated:

1. Remind myself why I’m doing this in the first place: sometimes it can all seem a bit too much, right? But this is when I need to take a few deep breaths, and remember, why I’m doing this course, and what my goals are. Sometimes looking at the bigger picture helps bring me back to what you need to focus on at the moment. 

2. Make a system: If you’re like me and sitting down for too long doesn’t really work for you, we make a reward system. For example, I study for about an hour, and then have a 20-minute break. During that time I either eat or make a cup of tea/coffee, and watch an episode of Big Bang. Once the episode is finished, I continue. Sometimes I like to give my cat a little cuddle too, and that also helps!

IMPORTANT: Saying this, even if some of you are okay with sitting down for a while and have good focus, make sure you reward yourself. Be it a snack, a quick walk, an episode or even a good book, reward yourself for the work you’re doing.

3. Start the day off on a good note: I try my best to make sure I don’t go to my desk stressed out before I even start to study. I wake myself up with breakfast and sometimes a shower, or even a workout! I do yoga, or even some meditation or breathing exercises, which helps me let go of my anxiety and stress and let’s me focus on the tasks at hand for the day.

4. Plan: This is one of the most important things I do! I love to make sure I know what I need to do and what to get done, so I plan my study schedule weekly in a journal. This helps me keep track of what I need to get done and go over, and I can even go back and see my progress! Which is also very motivating.

5. Be healthy: Now, food-wise, I’m not the healthiest girl. However, when I mean health, I’m holistically. I make sure that I eat my 3 meals a day with few snacks, drink plenty of water and get a good night’s rest. I even make sure I’m not too much of a hermit and I go out and see my friends every few weeks, and I try to go out and do something with my boyfriend every weekend. If the stress is too much, I talk to someone so I don’t let it eat me up and get worse.

6. DON’T CRAM: Speaking from personal experience, the act of cramming, for me at least, doesn’t help. I take the subject and split in into groups to go through in a certain amount of weeks. This helps me focus on what I’m weak at and reinforces what I’m doing well at. When I’m done, again, I split up the subject and I review. I also make sure that I start at a certain time in the morning and finish by a certain time in the evening, so I still have some time for myself to relax.

Do you have other ways to keep yourself motivated? Please let me know in the comments!

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