Motivation

In partnership with

“Studying is so boring, I can never find the motivation!"

Sound familiar?

Maybe you've heard it from classmates, friends, or seen the countless posts about student motivation on social media, or perhaps it's a thought you've had yourself.

One thing is certain: Many, many students struggle to find motivation to study.

A study conducted by Gallup in 2018 in the United States found that more than 70% of students experience a lack of motivation during their studies (with differences depending on the school grade).

Studying is often seen as the mandatory and boring part of the daily routine of millions of students, leading to procrastination and superficial studying with the sole desire to close the books and do something else.

The only motivation that seems to drive students to study is getting a good grade to continue their academic career.

The problem with this mentality is that studying for grades inevitably leads to inefficient learning.

Let me explain:

You study only what the teachers give you, trying to memorize as much as possible for the exam, predict the questions you'll be asked, prepare the answers, and regurgitate everything you've been told in class. You worry about what grade you'll need to reach a certain target and get into your dream school, practicing tests and quizzes to learn how to answer correctly, and studying accordingly to know what is required.

It's no wonder, considering that:

• School requires achieving a certain grade

• Teachers teach you to study to get the best grade

• Parents evaluate your study hours based on the grades you receive

• Friends and classmates, part of the system, always aim for the grade

What this system doesn't consider, however, is the motivation for studying.

-You don't need to be motivated to get a good grade - you just have to do what needs to be done.

But motivation is not just a nice feeling that would be convenient to have to study more pleasantly.

Motivation determines our performance and ability to learn deeply.

And studying for grades is the best way to demotivate yourself.

In fact, continuing to study aiming at the grade takes us further and further away from studying to learn.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, revisited by Anthony Robbins, one of the two fundamental needs that allow us to feel more satisfied and fulfilled in life is the need for growth.

We are naturally - intrinsically - motivated to grow!

This makes sense, considering that to survive, we need to evolve, and therefore growth is necessary for survival.

To grow, we need to acquire new knowledge and learn.

But in the school-promoted study system, studying is no longer a means to learn new things and grow; instead, it becomes the tool to obtain a number printed on paper that we hope will lead us to study other things to get other numbers and perhaps the career we want.

The focus on grades and performance takes us further away from the INTRINSIC motivation for studying - that internal, inexhaustible motivation dictated by our needs and not by circumstances - which in studying is determined by the feeling of growth that learning gives us.

But if we can pass exams even without motivation, why should we shift our focus from grades and reconnect with intrinsic motivation?

NO, because focusing on grades and staying unmotivated is not enough to have a successful academic career, and I'll explain why.

Being unmotivated means that our energy level in studying is low.

With low energy, your brain is slower to absorb information, and studying becomes longer and more tiring, making you even less motivated.

You learn less and therefore reproduce even less of what you were taught in class, resulting in mediocre or negative grades, leading to even less motivation for studying future exams and many doubts about your abilities.

This is what happened to me:

I wanted excellence and studied for the grades. I memorized in the smallest possible detail, in hours and hours of exhaustive work. But the grades I got were always mediocre, and I blamed my memory and lost motivation for the challenge.

Additionally, it frustrated me that after all the hours spent memorizing, I forgot more than three-quarters of the information after the exam, within a few days or weeks, and whenever the topics came up again during the year, I had to review old information I had already "studied" to remember.

Spending so much time memorizing - getting mediocre grades - forgetting and having to start over - drained my motivation day by day, while I began to convince myself that I wasn't capable of achieving above-average grades.

Curiosity and passion, components of motivation, are overshadowed by the rigid school system that promotes grades.

This makes you lose motivation in studying, makes you doubt your abilities.

You build a poor relationship with mistakes and failure because all that matters is success, and mistakes are not allowed.

You study to produce instead of to learn and expand the discovery of your interests, limiting yourself in truly discovering your passions and therefore future careers of interest to you.

You become so focused on the grade that you forget to learn.

You narrow your mind to the information provided by the school, take what it teaches and reproduce it as it is. And you lose motivation in progress, learning more and more slowly and inefficiently.

The longer you stay in this system, the more ineffective you become in your studies, with consequent drops in your performance.

So what is a more sustainable system that allows us to improve more and more?

Self-sustaining motivating system

Let me explain.

As we have seen, motivation in studying depends on the feeling of growth that learning gives us.

There is a difference between studying and learning.

To learn, it is necessary not only to receive information but to connect new information to pre-existing knowledge. The more connections we form between information, the more stable the new information will be in our memory (thus we will have long-term memory).

The more prior knowledge we have about a topic, the easier it is to find connections between new information and existing ones, making it easier to memorize and learn new information.

For example, learning a third foreign language is easier than learning the second because you will have more references between the languages, more similarities in vocabulary and grammar rules, thus more information to which you can attach the information of the new language.

The more an information is connected, the more it is "ours."

So to learn, we must connect the information as extensively as possible with other knowledge. This is where curiosity comes into play.

Curiosity opens the mind to the external world, allowing us to see the big picture and be open and receptive to all the information around us that connects to what we think.

When you are curious, you detach from the information provided by the school. Starting from this information, you begin to receive connections from your environment and previous experiences and knowledge. You explore how the new knowledge is connected to your surrounding world, making you feel enriched and grown.

Curiosity allows us to discover new knowledge and become interested. The more knowledge we discover and the more connections we make, the more we learn. The more we learn, the easier learning becomes. And the more we feel we are learning, the more motivated and eager we are to learn more - thus more motivated, energetic, and efficient in studying.

Unfortunately, trying to study as little as possible and obtain the desired grades, students focus only on retaining the provided information as it is, avoiding elaborating it more than necessary.

Aiming for grades, students end up thinking that curiosity is a waste of time, that it is enough to study what is required to get a good grade. But curiosity is far from a waste of time.

Paradoxically, spending time being curious reduces study time more and more.

Indeed, the more curious you are, the faster you learn, making studying enjoyable and motivating, not only making it more of a hobby than an obligation but also memorizing information more quickly (thanks to all the connections you can make)!

Especially when it comes to major exams or theses, this way of studying will allow you to bring an interesting perspective to the exam, have more knowledge available, and even oral exams will be easier.

Everything that enters your mind becomes part of the creative process, enriching your thesis and making it unique and personal, as well as interesting because it is the result of creative elaboration that shows deep work and real value, not just the content of textbooks that all students present.

Treating school information as only ONE piece of the puzzle of knowledge we build, instead of the whole puzzle, opens our minds to new perspectives and broader knowledge.

What effect does a student who brings not only the taught knowledge to the exam but also a series of additional and connected knowledge have?

Acquiring more connections will gain you more knowledge than what has been provided, and what you deliver in the exam will be much more than what the school has given you.

Curiosity is so rare among students today that just being curious puts you ahead of all your peers.

Teachers are used to hearing students parrot back the same information they have taught.

Or as Maxime Lagacé says:

> "Curiosity and questions will get you further than confidence and answers."

Learning information by being curious and therefore more connected to the world also helps reduce anxiety and stress about exams.

In fact, learning this way not only makes knowledge so solid in your mind that you won’t have doubts, but it also gives you the intrinsic desire to engage with your teachers to discuss the new knowledge you have acquired or discovered.

You will have the desire to take exams and the desire to know even more.

Studying to learn will help you overcome the fear of failure or mistakes, as being focused on learning rather than the result will make mistakes just part of the process, reasons and excuses to be even more curious and understand more deeply.

> "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." [Albert Einstein]

This positive spiral is self-sustaining, and in this way, long-term motivation leads you to fall in love with studying more and more.

Studying with curiosity enriches yourself, making you motivated in the process and not just in the result.

If we see studying as our personal growth, we never get bored and become more effective, quick to learn, and motivated.

Focusing on grades narrows our minds and demotivates us; curiosity opens our minds to learning and motivates us.

Studying with curiosity allows us to use our school years to discover our true passion and therefore pursue a more fulfilling path in life.

Curious Study - A New Way to Approach Studying

So how can you break free from the traditional idea of studying and create a sustainable study routine that allows you to be curious, and therefore motivated, and study at another level?

To do this, you need to change your approach to studying.

In fact, being curious in studying is more of a mindset, a way of doing things, than an exercise in itself.

To be a curious student, you need to make room for curiosity because you can’t be curious if you’re completely engaged in absorbing given information as you always have.

So you need to start seeing studying differently from sitting at a desk and absorbing information from a book - you need to develop a new approach and study style.

Fortunately, it is simpler than it may seem and does not burden your study sessions, quite the opposite.

Here are 4 great study habits you should include in your routine:

1. Look for information online beyond what the school tells you:

As we have seen, we need to start opening our minds to information external to what is taught, to new perspectives and our experiences. A good habit to open our minds is to seek the information we study not only in school books but also from external sources - for example, YouTube videos or non-academic books.

A particular benefit of doing this is that often YouTube video creators are passionate about the subject. And as I like to say, if you spend an hour with any passionate person, they will make you passionate too.

Stay open-minded to different perspectives on the topic you are studying, and you will enrich your knowledge in a light and interesting way.

2. Discuss to find new points of view:

Another uncommon habit is to discuss school material with other people outside of the teachers.

Certainly, discussing with teachers is interesting, but other people around us can also provide us with insights and points of view that are literally mind-opening.

For example, you can bring a discussion on what you are studying with your parents, relatives, friends, and classmates. Different minds perceive the same information in different ways and various people have different experiences that can enrich your point of view and make you curious about new ways of thinking.

3. Seek connections with your past experiences or connections with passions, ideas, or theories that interest you:

You learn through the connection of knowledge and these do not necessarily have to be external to us. Our prior knowledge and past experiences are an indelible anchor in our incredible brains.

For the memorization of information, it is really fundamentally important to seek connections with your personal experiences.

- Is there a way this studied concept connects with an experience of mine?

- If I had known it before, would I have interpreted a situation differently?

- In what familiar situations is this concept applicable?

How can you make that information a little more yours?

Bringing personal information, connections, and stories into an exam or a thesis is what makes it unique and demonstrates that the information has not only been memorized but also reworked and used for the purpose of learning.

4. Study in the back of your mind:

Making room for curiosity does not mean extending study times, but using time to learn.

Especially if you need to prepare a thesis or a paper, get into the habit of not limiting study time to the time you spend at the desk.

Keep the study object in your mind while you go about your life, maybe walk around pondering curiously over what you are learning. Let the information mix in your mind and contemplate it from multiple perspectives and during different moments of your day.

This will make studying a natural part of your life and therefore a hobby. You will enjoy discovering how connected the things you learn are to your life and how many interesting deductions your mind can make if left free during moments of relaxation and not only forced during study moments.

5. Start in advance:

A fundamental thing to all the previously listed habits is to have the necessary time.

These habits do not lead you to extend desk time but rather to dissociate from it and study and rework in your daily life more relaxedly.

 Keep in mind that this will only reduce the time you then spend at the desk and get you an even better result.

But it is essential to start in advance.

So avoid studying the day before, or the month before the exam.

Take as much time as possible to study and learn while receiving information. Detach from the test date and start studying gradually.

This will make the whole process very pleasant and relaxed, and little by little it will become a hobby and your curiosity and motivation will feed themselves, further strengthened by the inevitably positive grades and feedback you will start to receive consistently.

Initially, being a curious student is a choice, but soon it becomes a habit and a characteristic that seems innate in the individual.

Keep in mind, the more curious you are, the more curious you become. The more curious you become, the faster you learn.

To summarize:

School often teaches us to study for grades, causing us to lose connection with our curiosity and motivation to learn, leading us to perform worse and worse.

Studying for grades leads us to absorb the information we are given and return it to the school. This vicious cycle teaches us to study superficially, only seeking to obtain sufficient information for the test, focusing on what we are given and moving away from the essence of learning. This demotivates us and, in the long term, leads us to study more and more ineffectively.

Instead, reconnecting with curious study can drastically improve our relationship with studying, turning it into a hobby and achieving extraordinary results.

Having an effective study system that allows you to have free time available is fundamental to achieving excellence. My study system is based on this concept. It allows me to study in less than half the time, studying effectively, and obtaining free time to be curious.

A process of this kind is self-sustaining in terms of motivation.

You can transform your study system in less than two weeks and fall in love with it. Check out my ebook "Falling in Love with Studying - 2 Weeks Transformation."

I hope I have intrigued you to take a new perspective on studying, lighten your sessions, and allow you to think like a curious top 1% student.

Talk to you soon❤️

Isa

Your IRA, made to order

Choose where and when you want to retire, and a Betterment IRA can help make your money hustle all the way there.

Learn more