When studying, most people try to find motivation thinking that this will get them through their study session, or they will see their failure as a result of a lack of motivation. While motivation might be useful in the short term, discipline is what you need in the long term to succeed.
Lets take a look at the difference:
motivation- a goal or reward that you look forward to that will encourage you to study - while this is useful, what happens on a day when you just don’t feel like studying?
discipline- being trained to routinely study regardless of how unmotivated you are - this is what will get you out of bed on a day you don’t feel like studying.
How to become self-disciplined:
1. Just do it. Whatever the task is, whether its due in a month or due tomorrow, just get on with it. No point procrastinating because you’re wasting time. Instead you can do the task and then reward yourself! Be harsh on yourself (but not too harsh!). Set short term goals, make a to-do list, delete all social media, do whatever it takes to just get that damn task done!
2. No zero days!. whether its studying for 30 mins or 3 hours, study for some time everyday. This will help help develop a routine and make it easier for you to cope. Also, by studying everyday you’re brain will know that the content you are learning should be stored as long-term information so this will benefit you during exam season!
3. Avoid long breaks. Unless you are 100% confident that taking an hour break means ONY an hour break then you can ignore this step. But like the majority, we can get extremely distracted and our hour break can end up being a 4 hour break and then we realise it’s time to go to bed?! To avoid this, only take small breaks when you know you are losing energy/ concentration. The last thing you want is studying for 30 mins and your brain is in the mood to be productive, then you take a 15 min break and come back but realise you want a longer break and not in the mood to study anymore.
4. Be patient. It’s going to be a rough journey, it’s going to be hard but you’ve got this! Take it one step at a time. Start off by completing one task a day, then move to two, then three, and the next thing you know, you’ll have a regular routine where you will constantly be ticking off your to-do list everyday! Also, please be kind to yourself, know when your body is not in the right state of health to study and don’t force it. Only force yourself to a limit, you’ll know when to stop and that’s ok. Just try again when you feel better!
thank you for reading this and I hope this has helped, please feel free to message me!
