How to keep motivation in studying ?

   Hello guys ! Today, I thought that it would be good to write an article about motivation. It was around 6pm, I was alone in my aunt's house, and... I didn't know what to do with my life. I made myself a cup of porridge, and filled a second one with tea. If I would have been home, I would probably have run to the Starbucks to order a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I love October. Seeing the leaves getting orange on the trees, eating cinnamon flavour meals, Halloween, ... But tonight, I was not motivated in doing anything. I didn't know what article I could write, I couldn't find some full-of-fat snack to calm my stomach, ... I had lost the smallest ounce of motivation that I always had.

   So, I decided to kick my butt and write an article about how to keep motivation in studying, even when your only desire is to procrastinate.

   This is drinking my tea, and watching some episodes of Scream Queens (to not loose this Halloween atmosphere I don't want to let go) that I am going to give you tips to keep going and achieve your goals !

1. Feeling down ?

   Some days, I'm really feeling down, and I don't want to do anything. This is what happened today.

   To avoid staying in this mood, there is something working very well that you can do : it's allow ing yourself to not study for a while ! This is completely okay and, actually, you really need it. You are not a machine : some fresh air, a good series, or a party with friends will help you feel better and get your motivation level reach 100% ! Do not forget that, sometimes, the best way to study is... to not study !

I wouldn't be able to study properly without
my nuts and my dark chocolate

2. Or wanting to procrastinate ?

   If you want to procrastinate... That's an other thing. Well, everyone have these periods in which they are just willing to do nothing. I do too. And quite a lot. I often tell myself that I will have time to do it later, or that I just need my 5th break in this study hour, but, if you do not stop to postpone everything, you will never do anything of your life ! And, even though this sounds so obvious : the sooner you will begin, the sonner you will end.
   I'm sure that you probably, at least once, already heard about this new fashion that is the Bullet Journal. I really love the way it works, but, something in it really helps me see my goals more clearly : the trackers. I, for my part, have 3 : the habbit one, the sleep one, and the study one. Those are made for a month. I glance at it (almost) every day, see what I need to do, and write down what is already done. This is kind of a psychologic fact that filling these little squares with pencil makes part of a rewarding process. At the end of the month, you look at it and feel proud of having done "that much" things.

   As someone who is studying psychology as a distance learning, I need this organisation to be sure that I will progress in my study, and study "only when I want to", because it will definitely be uneffective.

3. Catch any chances to study
   I guess most of you already know that but trying to explain to other people what you are currently learning is one of the most effective ways to 1) train yourself in making a kind of well-organised  and structured presentation (helpful for the essays you may have to do) and 2) make you realize that you actually know something ! And, this is not even considered as an actual way to study.
   I already gave you more than a dozen ways to study without sitting in front of a book for hours in my previous articles. But, if I had to find out an other one, I would say : use all the tools you have to hand to study through plenty of different ways, because it will allow you to see your study's object in all its perspectives. Trying to find in the elements of your everyday life a link with what you are learning allow you to see that you are able to master a subject, and will push you to want to know more about it, to fill your lack of knowledge.
 
4. Always keep your goals in mind
   If non of my previous tips are working on you, you need to stop for a bit. Take a sheet of paper and write down the reasons why you are doing all this. Because you want to get fluent in a language to speak to you love one ? Because you need to get that degree to do the job you always dreamt of ? You can have thousands of reasons to have strated something, but the most important thing is for you to hold on until you achieve it.

   Use this sheet you just wrote on, and, as I already told you in the tip number 7 of this article (in french) : make it lovely before masking-taping it where you are going to see it every single day. You should always keep in mind the motivations you had when you fixed your goals, because, in the end, the efforts you are making now are so much worth it ! Think about how proud of you you will be after you gave your best, and the results will be the ones you always expected !
   Every learning adventure is worth it.

   I hope you enjoyed this article, and see you next week ;)

A~