Motivation To Study

[Abhijeeth]

I am studying in high school. I find myself motivated to study on few days and on other days I am not productive.  

I know motivation comes from a vision.

But what should a student's vision be ?   Please be specific .... 

[Abhijeeth]

Hi guys

I am a high school student. I want to really excite myself about studying. One day I find myself motivated , another day I don't. What should my VISION as a student be?

Is it the good marks I should visualize or something more deeper and authentic?

If so , how do I find it?

 

[pgchollet]

Hi Abhijeeth

Your vision as a student? What's you vision as  person?.If you know and are  able to define your values, beliefs and what you want to offer the world as a person , the rest will follow

[Truth]

Leo has a great video for building this vision.

 

 

[Zephyr]

I'm in high school too and we have the same exact problem. Recently I have managed to stand up back on my feet again and developed a decent work ethic out of my low conscious state and weak will power. It's funny since my vision was quite vague. It's like I didn't barely had a vision at all. 
This semester I started with a vision and it was to get all my homework on time as I've never (literally) hand in a non over due assignments. 
But I also had a feeling that vision is not going to be enough. I had to come up with a strategy. 1. Find your weakness. My weakness was some sort of fear which is largely caused by being disorganized. 2. Develop a strategy. I had to install an extension called Todoist in chrome to keep me on track. 
Your weakness is likely fear as well. I'm betting you can't even imagine yourself sitting for 45 minutes studying. 
Here's a strategy that I use: 
This works every time. Just come up with what's easy and comfortable for you. Let's go with 5 minutes or even 3 minutes. Grab a timer, and study for 3 minutes straight. Then you take 10-20 minute break, make sure you run your timer for this too. Then you set your timer to 3 minutes again, then study. Then you set your timer to perhaps 12 minutes, go grab a drink, meditate, whatever. And Repeat.
Once you feel comfortable and you become eager you can move up to 5 minutes to 10 minutes -- 25 minutes -- 40 minutes and so on. On the other hand, if you dont feel comfortable with three minutes, just go with 1 minute or even 30 seconds (trust me it makes a huge different). If you can't do 30 sec just open your textbook and notebook. If you can't do that just have them sitting on your desk. If that's too hard just sit down and visualize yourself doing it. 
The beginning is the hardest part of course. But once you get the momentum then your problem would be fixed. 
This strategy works every time, if it doesn't then your probably way way too low conscious in which you need some good sleep, proper diet, and meditation. 

[Argue]

11 hours ago, Abhijeeth said:

Hi guys

I am a high school student. I want to really excite myself about studying. One day I find myself motivated , another day I don't. What should my VISION as a student be?

Is it the good marks I should visualize or something more deeper and authentic?

If so , how do I find it?

 

To get motivated, you have to work towards a goal that makes your soul bleed with joy. That's my secret. 

[Arthur M]

I've struggled with this all my life and still do sometimes. But I've found something that works for me and hope it works for you too so let me share some insights.

1st the real reason you are studying is to genuinely learn about the world around you to be able to create something that will benefit it before you die. I believe this is why we are here in the 1st place hence finding your life purpose important.  Keep that in the back of your mind. I realize THAT alone is not motivation enough so play around with your psychology. As humans one of our greatest motivation is to see the work we put on produce good results. And we enjoy doing the thing that we are accustomed to, that we have mastered, or are comfortable doing. I can guess you have mastered let say the task of taking a shower every morning before going to school. Are you necessarily motivated to do so every morning? Probably not. Why do you still do it? The unconscious mind.

That thing operate the majority of the activities of your daily life. Aim to tap into that.  At 1st use external motivations (good grades, praises, impressing your peers sure that's fine but that isn't the goal). you are trying to implement the habit of studying as an unconscious effort, so all these external factors are just temporary. They buy you time to build the habit. When I started going to the gym a year ago I would motivate myself by thinking"just go! do not miss a day for 1 month it will become a habit" "Of course it didn't become a habit....1 month is not realistic enough, but after 1 month, you see few changes, some results, your peers starts commenting on those changes and you are motivated , but to boost it furthermore keep telling to yourself " I have to make it a habit" repetitions, repetitions repetitions.....like a drug you build up tolerance. Like that math problem you have done so many times that instead of a 8 lines solution you did it in 3, as if automated. Progressively,you become less aware and 1 day while thinking about your schedule for the next day you suddenly realize that "wait a minute...when did i get in the gym?" 

Myself, i am in my 3rd year of college and I wish I knew this stuff a long time ago. I am still in that process of implementing the studying habit as an unconscious effort. Not easy but the simple fact that I know it is going to happen sooner or later motivates me every time.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Arthur M

[LouieC]

I have the same problem as you and I recommend having a TODO list and checking all the things that you have done. Also you can think of your future and where you want to be. Peace!

[Abhijeeth]

Thank you Arthur and Louis .,, I'm gonna use both of your ideas

[xXxXx]

Been there, this lack of motivation hits many of us in the same age. If you can't see a goal you get nihilistic about your future and that's dangerous. Motivation is powerful, but it is just a feeling you have which makes it easier, if you decide to go through a wall no matter how you feel it becomes obsolete.

What worked for me: the path is the goal, it is all about getting your ass up and overcome the lack of motivation by simple action, don't overthink, act. Every time you get demotivated, recognize it, don't dwell on it because it starts to grow and you will get no where. Force yourself to get back on track. If you do this your personality and self-discipline will grow and as time passes by you find your goal, because you overcame adversity and start seeing what is important for you. It is like you stand in front of a wall and can't see what is behind, if you overcome the struggling you will grow and see what is your actual goal behind the wall.

Good luck mate!

[Yang Noctus]

@Abhijeeth  Nature has rhytms, day and night, summer and winter. And ofcourse our own circadian rhytm. You'll find that one day you'll have more energy than the other. It's also easier to study things when you enjoy them. To get more motivated eventhough you don't like it as much you could think active about it, instead of just reading it and learn passively, for this i higly recommend the book " What Smart Students know". It gave me a new way of studying and I'll implement it when i go to to University, but it's also great for high school!

I hope it helps!

Edited February 12, 2016 by Yang Noctus

[AnonJohn]

On 2/11/2016 at 7:56 PM, Zephyr said:

On the other hand, if you dont feel comfortable with three minutes, just go with 1 minute or even 30 seconds (trust me it makes a huge different). If you can't do 30 sec just open your textbook and notebook. If you can't do that just have them sitting on your desk. If that's too hard just sit down and visualize yourself doing it. 

Love it. The hardest part of doing something is starting to do it. This method gives you practice on starting things, but it lacks intimidation. Great idea!

[Vaishnavi]

I guess in the kind of society we live, grades are given a huge importance and that is where the problem lies. I know its not easy to not care about grades and marks but once you really stop caring about them, i mean i don't want you to stop caring about your grades COMPLETELY but once you stop giving much importance to the so-called status and praise you might get if you score good, you can actually start to enjoy whatever you are learning. You can invest your proper time and energy then. This requires patience cuz you might feel that you're going nowhere and that you can just simply go for cramming and ace that test but cramming is total shit because if you're on the path of self mastery,  one thing you need to know is that you need to invest a lot of your time in learning and gaining knowledge and I'm sure you know what cramming is. It involves no learning, no knowledge so try to avoid it And Try to develop your interest in whatever you're learning because if you enjoy something, you learn it quickly and also very effectively.  And don't worry, you can be interested in literally anything and everything if you want and like you asked about a student's vision, i guess you should try to learn more about yourself, about what really interests you. What drives you, what is the REAL thing you want to do. Invest, invest and invest. Don't care about the results now. If you know you're on the right path and you decide to stay on that path, you will eventually make progress.