I've been around these forums for a while now, not as long as most of the others, but long enough to have seen what happens at what point in time and it's now reaching the second half of September, with those Term 3 holidays just around the corner. What usually happens now? Posts about people losing motivation? "Burn-out"? Stressing for exams? Yeah, they come and go at around this time.
I was thinking about this on my drive home from uni today, how to rekindle the fire when you're losing your motivation. It's an interesting thought though, I've seen people so motivated to do so well just crack when it comes to exam time. So I've put together this guide, it's called "Burning Out? Time to Rekindle the Fire!"
STEP 1
This step is about figuring out WHAT you are getting motivated by. Don't ask yourself what motivates you, just because you'll probably say something textbook like wanting to get into a particular university course. The crux of the issue here is what's the actual drive behind your studies. The question to ask yourself is:
- Why am I losing motivation?
You'll probably answer something along the lines of "I'm not doing well enough on practice exams and I'm not improving" or "I feel like I'm letting down my parents" or "I'm afraid I'll fail and shame my family". Well there you go, you have very clear-cut motivations as to why you're studing - in this case:
1) Studying in order to get high marks
2) Studying to impress somebody else (parents)
3) Studying for the fear of doing badly
For me, I've always studied because I've been afraid of letting myself down and not doing what I know I'm capable of doing. Now that you know what exactly motivates you, time to move onto the next step.
STEP 2
This step is simply about taking a break. If you're at the point where you're "burning out" - it's time for you to go on a break. Take a weekend off with your friends or your family, even if you don't feel comfortable doing that, just take a night off, go to a nice restaurant with your friends or go see a movie you've been wanting to see for a while now. Whatever makes you forget thinking about your studies and just enjoy yourself.
Not only will this help you feel better about yourself, but it allows you to break your chain of thought that's been causing you to burn out over the past few weeks. Once you've done that, you're doing well, you'll probably be feeling better and more motivated to make your VCE work!
STEP 3
Well obviously if you're losing motivation, doesn't that say something about your motivation? Yeah, that what you once found motivating is no longer motivating. It's funny, but what motivates us as time passes changes. I remember that once upon a time, my motivation was to get a higher mark than a friend of mine (who I respected as one of the smartest people I knew at the time) but over time, I started to care less, so I needed to change my motivation.
If you've found that you've always been studying for the numbers, why not try studying for something different, have you ever searched for something to be proud of? Well why not make that your VCE.
Possibly you've always studied in order to get into a particular course and you know that you won't get there, so why not change your motivation to a numbers one? If you've always maintained that English was your strong subject, why not get that amazing study score and prove to yourself that you weren't talking crap all this time.
There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to motivation, because for each of us, we value something different, for some, it's getting into that uni course they want, for others, it's scoring a scholarship, whilst some people just want to get an arbitrary number for no real good reason really apart from just earning that number. Then there are people who do it for others, maybe they want to show their parents they can achieve something, or maybe they think a 99.95 will attract the ladies.
STEP 4
Remember the facts. I've heard, time and time again, that the last stride in a sprint is always the hardest one, because at that point, you just want to give up already, but somehow you need to find that motivation to push harder.
The truth is, you're approaching that stage with VCE now, you're not far away from the finish line and if it were a race, you're a few strides away. Your legs ache and you're out of breath, maybe you're starting to lose out, but that's no reason to give up. You've ran a good race, you've made it this far and you've tried your hardest, why are you letting hardship and difficulty get the better of you?
If anything, use the fact that you've put hard work into VCE to get energy for that final stride. Remember, if you give up now, you'll just be wasting everything you've put in, and you wouldn't want that would you?
STEP 5
Get out there and change.
I can't emphasise this enough, so many people talk about change, so many people make plans, so many people set goals. For myself, I've never made detailed plans, nor have I ever made exquisite goals, but I've enacted the changes which I've wanted to, it's not about writing up that massive 10 page plan on how you're going to restructure your life, it's about having a good think and then making the actual change.
Like I have always said, you're responsible for your own VCE, not your school, not your peers, not your teachers and not your parents. If you want to do well, you're the only one who can make yourself do well, so if there's to be change, it has to come from you. If you're not motivated to do better, obviously there's something wrong. If you've read this, you now know how one person (myself) has managed to combat the issues which you are going through now. So you have the tools you need to stand up and make your change.
So what are you waiting for? You might not trust me, you might decide not to listen to me, well, I'm OK with that, everyone's different, but if there's any last words which I wish to leave you with, it's the fact that everything is within your hands, nothing is out of your grasp and certainly, you can't expect change without making it work.
Good luck for exams, better luck for hitting your goals, but best of luck for making your life the life you want to live. Now go out there and kick-ass your VCE. Cheers for taking the time to read, hope I have helped you.