There’s nothing more dreading that forcing yourself to learn something that you have zero interest in learning. It’s mundane, tedious and boring. It’s not fun when you could just do something far more engaging and pleasurable, but you have to be stuck on your desk to study for that test. How to motivate yourself to study? Turn that hatred into a habit and learn some tips to make studying more bearable!

How to Motivate Yourself to Study: 8 Essential Tips Help You Study with Passion

1

Remember Why You Are Studying

You need a reason to do something so you feel that you have a sense of direction doing it. Get a memento or picture of something that you want to be in the future.

If you are studying just to avoid getting grounded by your parents next week when you receive your grades back, that could be a motivation. If you are aiming to be a teacher, then grab a photo of the teacher that inspires you. If you are studying to be part of the armed forces, watch some old WW2 action flicks whenever you feel unmotivated. You get the idea. Find a picture or memento and keep it close. It will constantly remind you of your inspiration.

2

Visualize Yourself Taking Action

Visualization has been proven to make a huge difference to athletes’ performance. We could apply this to studying as well and get the results.

Practice the visualization that you are going to do the activities that you are supposed to do (e.g. sitting on the desk doing the mathematics homework, revising for your exams on your laptop). It helps to keep you focus on the task that you are about to undertake. If your mind believes that you will and can do it, then you are more likely to do it.

3

Reward Yourself

A small reward every time you finish your studying will go a long way. Set yourself a goal or checkpoints, where you will get some form of reward when you reach it. For studying, maybe give yourself a break every half an hour, watch a single video or eat a candy. When you are done with your studying for the day, then you get the largest reward which is the rest of the free time for yourself.

If you do choose a quick break as a reward when studying, then make sure that you will always get back to work as quickly. There should always be a time limit for the break and ignore every whim you want to procrastinate further.

4

Remove Your Distractions

We live in the electronic age where everything can and will distract you. Your cell phone should be on silent and put away somewhere you can’t reach. You don’t need to take calls or answer messages for anyone when you are studying. Tell them you are going to study beforehand if so. Remove all the temptations to look at your cellphone every now and then. Keeping it out of view helps a lot.

If you aren’t using your computer or laptop for studying, then turn it off. Computers are the absolute gateway to distractions, who doesn’t just want to binge to watch Netflix when given the opportunity to? It might just start with something like browsing your Facebook for a while, then to Twitter, why not look at email while you are at it, then to watching another episode of your favourite show. By then an hour will pass while your studies remain untouched.

Having a TV in the room could distract you as well, turn it off. If you are on of those people who leave it on but mute the sound while studying, then turn it off still. The picture with no sound can still be distracting. Who knows maybe an interesting scene comes up on screen and you ends up reaching for the remote to unmute the sound. Just turn off the TV totally when you are studying. It’s not productive to glance at your TV every now and then anyway.

5

Make Your Workspace Wonderful

A depressing work environment creates a depressing mood. Studying in an unkempt and unwelcoming area will only demotivate you from studying. Even if you manage to get yourself to sit down and study, that messiness will just keep your mind off.

Do the following to your study area: Keep them tidy, nicely decorated, get a comfortable seat and remove any kind of distractions.

6

Get Some Comrades

Hate studying alone? Why not share the pain with others? If you can’t tell yourself to study, get other to do that for you. What's more, you can be learning more from each other and be more productive.

When you are by yourself, you are more likely to give up and procrastinate away, since you don’t have that sense that stopping to rest for awhile will affect anyone. Just like how it is so difficult for a lone person to stop smoking, but if he has someone that watches him constantly, he would try harder to not let that person down.

Find people with that are motivated to study. Then you will all work together and help each other to study, instead of dragging each other down.

You can learn some new effective techniques to keep yourself going too. Then you can continue to motivate yourself while not losing any. Make friends with people who want to study and motivate each other. Don’t forget to have some fun together too!

7

Get Your Dopamine Firing

Get those happy juices flowing before you start this mundane activity. Dopamine is the chemical released whenever we enjoyed something pleasurable.

Dopamine isn’t released when you are trying to study, because the brain dislikes it as well. The valve remains closed and you need a way to crank it open.

To do so, you can just have an upbeat music playing in the background. Or maybe spend your time studying in a cafe you fond off while you sip away on a cuppa. Doing boring things while your brain is stimulated with something else you enjoy will make the process feeling less rigorous and keeps you studying.

8

Start Before You Feel Ready

Start right now. This is the most important thing for how to motivate yourself to study. Drop everything you are doing, and don’t give any excuses and just do whatever you are supposed to be doing. You won’t get anything started if you only do it when you feel ready. Simply do it and let the flow carry you.

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