How to maintain long term motivation in your studies?

This happens with all of us.

Usually, something new is accompanied by high levels of motivation; we all are fully pumped up and excited to start our new classes, new subjects, trying to accomplish everything at once and putting in our best.

A few weeks down the road, it all comes to the same old plateau where we all get stuck. Inevitably, the high levels of motivation wane out, we start struggling with the things. Homework starts to pile up and we lose out the motivation to wake up early in the morning.

That textbooks that we were so gung-ho to start studying, now gives us feelings of utter dread when we even think of opening them.

However, with a right approach and some good planning, we can mitigate such feelings.

Sure, things won't be as cool as they should be, but still, they will keep us from going astray and out of the steam.

How dedicated study area helps?

Well, your study area is something that matters a lot.

According to a study, students who actually created a dedicated space for their studies were more inclined to complete their homework on time and eventually, scored better grades.

If you study in a place where you're conditioned to do other things like sleep or play video games, it's going to be really hard to get into studying.

Studying in bed/ living room/ dining table is not their primary function, their primary function is sleeping/ relaxing and eating food. Studying there will be a distraction instead of being an aid.

What you have to do is find an area that is specifically used for studying, so the context of the situation makes it easy for your mind to get into your studies.

What if cannot find dedicated space for studying at home?

If you cannot find a dedicated space for studying at your home, the advice would be to try finding a college library or something similar near to your house.

Keeping touch with your teachers:

Most of us lose out motivation when we are challenged with something difficult or something that we do not know how to deal with.

There are more likely chances that you will leave a question unanswered when you know it's a hard one to solve.

In this case, it would be really helpful to have touch with your teachers and seniors, who will help with those problems and be a constant source of motivation.

How finding an Accountability partner will help you in keeping up with studies?

Usually, most of us quit when we don't see any result coming or when we get tempted by our strong old habits and lose the track of our goals.

But, another thing to keep in mind is that we put more efforts and perform better in tasks when we realize that someone is holding us accountable. We feel responsible and perform better at tasks.

Therefore, you have to trick your mind in order achieve your desired goals, for that suggestion is to establish an accountability mechanism.

What is an accountability mechanism?

You need to find someone who will hold you accountable if you do not perform the required tasks. It can be anyone from your family, a best friend or a colleague in the office.

Simply anyone who is willing to remind you that you have established a goal and will hold you accountable if you don't yourself up to the mark.

Set SMARTER Goals:

We can deal with the uncertainty and inconsistency in our plans by setting goals that are SMARTER.

Setting smarter goals means goals which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, connected to Rewards, Timely, made Enthusiastically and are Realistic to achieve.

Waking up in the morning and thinking 'I'm going to study today' is less effective and convincing than coming up with a specific action plan 'I'm going to study Law and Accounts today. I'll be studying FEMA in the morning and then AS in afternoon. Moving on to solving marked questions from PM in the evening.'

Sounds better right?

Taking well-planned short and long breaks:

Most of us underestimate the power of breaks, but in reality, breaks are as much important as the work itself.

In a study conducted by the University of Illinois, it was found that the brain's attention resources drop after a long period of focusing on a single task, decreasing our focus and making it harder even to perform simple tasks.

But even brief diversions, the study found, could significantly increase one's ability to focus on that task for longer periods of time.

Therefore, it is really important to take adequate breaks where you hang out with your friends and rejuvenate yourself for the next day.