Self Motivation Techniques For Students
Diana Khoo – Columbia University, MA (Gifted Education)
Academic Director,
Sunshine Tutors Singapore
7 Self Motivation Techniques For Students
We all know that staying motivated can be a big challenge.
Whether we are trying to lose weight, complete our homework, study for next week’s test, or clean our study desk, there are times when we feel like we don’t have the energy nor interest to start the task and achieve our goals.
This can be caused by too much stress, too little sleep – or having not enough hours in each day.
Life has a way of placing obstacles on each of our personal roads to success.
We can start to feel demotivated because students in Singapore have to balance school, hobbies, relationships, tuition, CCA, a social life, and time with our families.
It is normal to feel overwhelmed sometimes, but these feelings do not have to derail our progress.
This article shows you practical tips and tools that you can use to get back on track and restore your focus.
If you feel like you have hit a wall with your studies, try some of these simple yet effective strategies for Singaporean students.
By cultivating some useful positive habits, you can regain momentum – and potentially reach your academic and professional goals sooner.
7 Self Motivation Techniques For Students
Here are 7 useful tips and strategies to keep you focuses and moving forward:
Tip #1 Focus On The Big Picture
When you don’t have a clear sense of purpose or direction, it is difficult to stay motivated.
If you feel like your motivation is slipping, take a step back and remind yourself of why you need to get good grades for the subject that you are struggling with.
No matter what your goal might be, it is important to identify the end goal of your education, so that you can maintain the motivation to push through challenging periods.
If you lose sight of the big picture, you run the risk of losing direction.
Tip #2 Celebrate Small Victories
Nothing feels more demotivating or demoralizing than not being recognized for the work you had put in, in order to achieve your goals.
Inspire yourself to keep working hard by celebrating your major and minor achievements and milestones such as completing a chapter, finishing a particularly difficult homework assignment, scoring well in an exam, or studying hard for a certain number of hours.
When you have a positive mindset, you will find that it is easier to feel more confident about tackling the next academic challenge ahead of you.
Tip #3 Prioritize And Organize
We live in a hectic, high-pressure world where we constantly have to juggle the responsibilities that come with homework, exam preparation, school and our relationships with friends and family.
Time management tools like diaries, or Microsoft Outlook can help us stay focused and on-course.
While you would need to try out apps and time management tools before you find one that you like best, these tools can make it easier for you to stay focused on important or time-sensitive tasks.
Tip #4 Build A Routine
Just like exercise routines help us to build muscle, study routines help us to build focus – and to retain information.
Often, researchers have found that cramming is potentially useful in the short term, but is actually one of the least effective ways to learn a difficult subject.
You can instead get better grades through sustained, repeated study sessions.
This is why it is so important to create and stick to a consistent study routine.
By taking this approach, you are likely to make better progress in studying for that difficult chapter or completing today’s challenging homework project – and what could be more motivating than that?
Tip #5 Remember To Recharge
In our hyper-competitive culture, overwork can actually make us less productive, and more fatigued.
We feel “burned out”, or “less satisfied with our jobs and lives outside of school work”, while also being in “poorer physical and mental health”.
What does this mean?
Working or studying too hard can drain our energy, get us into a bad mood, reduce our progress, and sap our motivation to keep going.
If we want to say driven and focused, we have to make sure that we get plenty of sleep, prioritize our health, and make time for our hobbies and relationships.
Proper nutrition supports better brain health, so we should choose foods that are nutrient-rich and also taste good.
It is crucial not to overlook or underestimate the dramatic impacts that resting and staying healthy can have on our studies.
Tip #6 Hold Ourself Accountable
None of us like knowing that we had let others down.
We also do not like to let ourselves down.
This is why accountability – despite a seemingly simple concept – plays such a major role in keeping us motivated.
When we know that we are accountable for our own decisions and actions, most of us would want to follow through on our promises.
We would also feel uncomfortable when we did not.
Once we announce a goal – either aloud to our friends and relatives, or privately in the notes that we keep in our phones – we will feel more motivated to achieve that goal.
Just by taking responsibility for the outcomes of our actions means that we are applying gentle yet effective pressure to ourselves to succeed.
Tip #7 Set New Goals And Challenges
For most of us, our goals and priorities fluctuate over time.
It is therefore a good idea to occasionally check and reevaluate questions like what we want to accomplish, where we need to improve, and what we have successfully finished.
When we continuously reassess our objectives, our strengths, our routines, and our interests, we can avoid falling into a demotivational rut out of boredom, disappointment over poor results, and repetition.
Once we can give ourselves honest answers about what is and what isn’t working for our study methods and processes, we can take the necessary steps to make our course of study more fulfilling.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), when we are motivated, we learn better and remember more of what we learned.
Maintaining motivation can be challenging, especially when other parts of our lives are causing us stress.
However, it is an important skill and technique for serious students to master.
You have already worked hard to get to where you are.
Do not let demotivation knock you off-course when you are so close to achieving your goals of better grades.
When you practice some of these – or all – 7 practical tips on how to stay motivated when you are studying, you can take your studies further than you ever dreamed possible.
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