How to Get Motivated to Study (17 Little-Known Tips)

Updated on 17/01/2024 in
How to Get Motivated to Study (17 Little-Known Tips)

Do you just not feel like studying? You end up procrastinating, trying to learn everything in the last moment, cramming everything, failing, and getting even more discouraged? Seriously. Can you even get the motivation to study?
If you can relate to and hate what was just described, you can still change and become a highly productive student. Today you will learn how to become more motivated to study and learn properly.

How to Get Motivation To Study - You got this

Why do you have no motivation to study

Let’s first understand motivation and why you don’t want to study anything. Despite what you might feel – that you are not smart or good enough, in reality, you are quite capable and aren’t different from anyone else. A loss of motivation simply means you don’t have a reason to study. Professor Jordan Peterson tells his students that to be motivated, you have to:

  1. Be hungry; create a vision for your future!
  2. Discipline yourself
  3. Understand what happens if you don’t act.

This article will help you understand how to motivate and discipline yourself to achieve your desired results and become a highly effective student! We will also go over subjects like:

  1. Creating the right studying environment
  2. How to study effectively
  3. How to stop procrastinating and build successful habits
  4. And more!

What is your reason for studying?

The motivation to study begins with reasoning. Find your reasons why you should study or become a medical professional.

Your previous decisions have led you to this industry. Why? Remember your values and what you love. Imagine the future you want to have. NOT the future you SHOULD have. Forget about what society and your friends like. What should matter to you is yourself. Only then will you be motivated to study and improve your study habits.

Do what matters to you!

It’s no wonder that so many people ask or say: “Why do I have no motivation to study?” or “I don’t feel like studying!”. You should do what you want and love!

Imagine a future that YOU want. Make a vision for that future. What are you going to do and why? Once you find your reasons, you will become way more fulfilled and get all the motivation to study.

Develop a vision

After remembering everything important to you, you should focus on it, even if it is small and straightforward. Imagine a future you’d like to have. For example, you’d be one of the top neurologists in the world; you would have a specific luxurious car (imagine how the leather would smell!), a happy family, and you’d have big vacations every summer somewhere in the Bahamas. The more you can imagine, the better your vision is!

A vision will create a strong drive to achieve your desired future and change the world for the greater good.

At some point, your vision will be so motivating and powerful that all the struggles and suffering will be worth it! All you have to do is believe!

Understand how small decisions you make have an impact on your future.

Track how you spend your time. And be honest because you are not deceiving anyone but yourself. Let’s say you waste 4 hours a day. And one hour of your labour is worth €20, although this is a massive underestimation of the value of your time. So how much money could you earn per year if you were working? Multiply €20 by 4 hours and then by 365 days, and you get €29,200! This is enough to buy a car or many other excellent amenities. This is the impact of you not acting.

Get in your head what amount of money you don’t make just because you prioritise your feelings of boredom, fear, and whatnot!

Make a vision board

If you really want to commit (and you should), you should make a vision board.
You can keep everything important to you on it – goals, quotes, drawings. A vision board will actively motivate and remind you where you want to be.

Try to be an example for someone else

Consider adding another thing to your vision. Indeed you have had someone you looked up to. Well, you can become that someone for somebody else!

For example, besides being one of the best neurologists, you could also become a philanthropist who donates a lot of their hard-earned cash to charities, promote such behaviour to others and inspire young kids to be like you!

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Get enough sleep

I can’t even begin to emphasise how important this is. During sleep, your body removes the toxins from your brain, repairs various tissues, and processes information acquired during the day. If you are a teenage student, you are still growing and need a healthy amount of sleep – from 8 to 10 hours! By not sleeping enough, you hurt your productivity a lot.

If you don’t sleep, it’s only natural that you have the motivation to study for the exams!

Also, dim the lights at the end of the day. If your eyes still see a lot of light, then your brain interprets it as if it’s daytime. This disbalances natural circadian rhythms with the production of your sleep hormones. And the more you don’t sleep, the worse it gets.

Another tip:

Don’t drink caffeine before sleeping, as it has a significant negative impact on your sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant, meaning it helps you be alert. But falling asleep will be a challenging task.

Check your diet

You need to have a proper, balanced diet to have energy and motivation.

And energy = motivation.

Spending your time cooking or at least preparing good meals is something you should do. Please realise that eating healthy boosts your productivity. Your body needs a good, proper diet to function normally. Your body can’t work properly without a nutritious diet, which is why you lose motivation. Your body tries to rest and regain energy to compensate for the food it didn’t get.

Hang posters on your wall. Get reminded about your goals

To be successful, you need to feed your subconscious mind with reminders of your goals. Thoughts materialise.

At some point, if you do this right, all you will be able to think about are your goals.
You will want to achieve them!

Here’s how you do this:

Who are your idols? Whom do you respect? You can hang posters of them on your walls to remind yourself of the things you are passionate about to focus on your goals. Or you could turn quotes from other famous people who support your thinking. Put other reminders of your vision everywhere in your apartment. Posters above your bed, notes on the mirrors, and exciting page markers in the books you read.

Listen to music

Music can have a very relaxing effect on you. And it can be mighty, especially if you listen to certain songs only when you study. You see, when you listen to certain songs only while studying, your brain creates an association. It associates these songs with studying. So whenever you start listening to these songs, guess what happens? You start wanting to study. At some point, the association will be so strong that instead of wanting to study, you will begin studying without thinking about it!

Take a walk

Any kind of exercise is good for your brain. Exercising produces endorphins. These hormones boost your mood and motivation and provide more oxygen to your brain!

And it doesn’t matter what kind of exercise you do!
Even just walking outside for 30 minutes, you get enough endorphins and vitamin D from the sun.

Exercising also creates a lot of momentum! For the same reason, it feels good whenever you wash your dishes in the morning. You accomplish something, and you get motivated to do even more!

Socialise

Socialising can be very beneficial for studying, especially if you are more outgoing! Once in a while, don’t forget to meet your friends.

You can also “Mix business with pleasure”. That’s a great saying from our previous tip “Reward yourself – make positive associations with studying”

Create a study group with your friends! The great thing about study groups is that you can discuss the topics with other people and clear misunderstandings if they occur. You also remember information much better if you discuss it with others! It is also a lot of fun and motivating!

Remember that nobody is perfect

Perfectionism is a double-edged sword. It drives you to continue growing, to become the top student in your class, or even the leading expert in your field! To do something better than anyone else. To rise in the eyes of other people. But at what cost? It is most often self-destructive!

Even though sometimes, to grow, you have to deconstruct yourself and get out of your comfort zone, most of the time, you shouldn’t do that.

We are all human beings. All of us make mistakes. We are imperfect, but this is precisely why we are so valuable! Scientists have discovered a way to grow perfect rubies and other gems, but they have immense value because of their impurities, not because they are perfect!

You probably have a few close friends, but you love them because they are authentic, imperfect, and maybe even weird! And there is nothing wrong with that.

So cut yourself some slack. You might be imperfect, but you are also far from terrible! Embrace your differences, be yourself and continue growing!

Don’t compare yourself to others

You might compare yourself to others way too much. In the previous tip, we discussed why being imperfect is fine. It gives you uniqueness and value. But you might still compare how you perform compared to others.

But hey! You are a very different person. How can you measure the performance of a car and an orange? You are trying to do the same when comparing yourself to others!

There is a set of things in which you are good. So are the others. Someone might be better at one thing than you, but so what? You are good or at least average on many other things. How about you combine your knowledge and skills in different fields? By combining your abilities, you are bound to eventually do something great!

If you still want to compare yourself to someone, then compare yourself to the person you were yesterday. This way, you can track your progress and find the motivation to improve yourself.

Kill Facebook and other social media

Facebook is a great platform to connect with others. You can easily share your success stories with your family, whom you cannot see. Meet many people with whom you have lots of common interests. Still, Facebook is a tool and has to be treated like one.
It’s a tool where most people share the highlights of their lives. You can see how “successful” or “happy” your friends are. You might even envy them. A lot. And then it becomes dangerous. All the people share their highlights and success stories while you sit and struggle wherever you are. It appears easy for others, making you feel stupid because of how hard you study and hustle in general.

But remember, others are people just like you, and they have bad moments in their lives. Some people have dark moments that are so bad that you can’t even imagine them!

This doesn’t change the fact that what you see on Facebook creates a big misconception about people’s lives.

Our advice is to limit Facebook or stop using it entirely. If you can’t stop using it, limit yourself to using it for 20 minutes daily. You will see how your relationships will start feeling more robust; you will be more focused and productive (because the distractions will disappear). You will probably stop feeling envious of others.

Clean your room

It is very depressing to work in your own filth. Clean your room. Respect yourself. Keeping your space clean will also eliminate things your mind will think subconsciously about. Imagine how great it would be to live in a clean, simple room. You will wake up and see that you are in a beautiful place, not some hell. It will improve your mood quite a lot.

Conclusion

To get motivation and to continue being motivated, you should:

  1. Understand why you should strive towards a particular goal
  2. Take good care of yourself. It will pay off!

We hope that this article helps you.

Article written by Dr Sam El Mais
Dr Sam El Mais, MD, MSc, BSc, graduated from a renowned medical school in Romania in 2019. He uses his professional knowledge and personal experience to guide students on crucial aspects such as university selection, admissions processes, and cultural adjustments.
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