How do YOU keep Disciplined and Motivated Throughout the Year? (1 Viewer)

[Ambility]

Let's try something different. Let's talk about the psychological side of studying. What do you do to stay motivated throughout the year? What tips can you share?

 

[atcha]

Fear of mystery mark.

 

[strawberrye]

Perhaps this extract from my senior study guide will help you, for the full guide click: http://community.boredofstudies.org...w-excel-senior-year-studies-yr-11-12-a-5.html

http://community.boredofstudies.org...w-excel-senior-year-studies-yr-11-12-a-7.html (read my reply to Kittyrules on this page as well-it might help you a bit)


Throughout my senior years of study, although the majority of my assessment marks were moderately good, there were times which I had 'failed' certain assessment tasks and didn't achieve as good a result as I could like. There are various examples which I can extract from my senior studies and which may be familiar to some BOSers already

My experiences:
1. First was a maths extension one test I had on inequalities in year 11, where I got less than 50% for the test-where the average was around 50%-(although there were various personal circumstances pertaining to my poor performance, needless to say, I had failed very badly in getting below average where I had been in the past the consistent top 5 of my maths cohort all throughout my high school years-albeit in a low ranking school).

2. Second was when I failed a chemistry practical assessment in year 12. It was a shocking blow-since the assessment occurred in the later half of the year, having came first in all my other assessments so far that year, you could imagine my horror in knowing that the mark I got placed me in the bottom half of my chemistry cohort. Beyond the fear for my internal rankings and ATAR was an intrinsic fear against failure-failure that I couldn't keep up with my own expectations as well as adhere to the expectations of others.

3. Third instance was in year 11, where I had failed to attain full marks for an essay writing assessment because my hand writing was illegible and the teacher deducted marks as a result of needing to have me to read the essay aloud to her. The illegibility of my hand writing in the past had been a problem that plagued me all throughout my senior study years-and it was constantly commented upon by those who marked my English papers as well as my science papers. It was a difficult blow, since it was something I felt I could not change-since I felt writing more/writing faster was a sort of expression of the additional effort I was willing to put into my exam to demonstrate my full commitment to doing my very best every single time. Whenever I hear these teachers giving lectures on students with illegible hand writing are disrespecting their studies-and I was fully aware they were only probably referring to me, whenever I was often the only person in the class whose paper was withheld from disclosure of exam results because of teachers not being able to read my hand writing. Although I greatly appreciated how understanding and sympathetic my teachers was, it was a problem that involved me shedding much tears and frustration(I literally tried all possible approaches to improve the legibility of my hand writing-to no avail).

My top tips to handle these situations:
1. Cry, express your emotions/frustrations, you need to have some sort of release of emotions about your marks if possible-it might be through engaging in a sport or talking to a friend, do what you need to do to let those emotions run out.

2. Look at the exam paper/assessment objectively, look at the marking criteria, force yourself to read through the teacher's comments and make sure you understand each comment. Understand what your mistakes are, accept them, and learn and remember to avoid making those SAME mistakes the next time around(whether it be your exam preparation method, exam techniques and what not).

3)Under no circumstances should you engage in a comparison of your academic potential or results in relation to other people-it is fruitless, it is futile, it is not fun.

4)Renew your academic efforts with greater rigour, greater determination to focus on your goals and persevere till the end, Convince yourself that doing poorly in one assessment tasks is not the end of the world. This is a well known secret-the top students in your grade, regardless of what school you go to, is often differentiated by their great psychological resilience to keep going and keep performing despite possibly receiving a bad result or two that you may not know about.

5)It is very important at the end of the day you see everything as a learning experience, see HSC, your preliminary years, as an opportunity to grow, to extend your capabilities, to realise your academic potentials, to test your time management skills, and to develop your interpersonal connections and associations. Keep a balance in life, keep things in perspective, and keep a sense of optimism to motivate yourself to not give up, despite all odds and adversities, until the very last second.

 

[WrittenLoveLetters]

I took Accelerated classes to challenge myself. So my motivation is that I have approximately 6 months before my first HSC external exam (Business Studies) on the 28th October 2015.

Its the fear of getting below 90 ATAR and the disappointment from my parents and myself that sets me going, but also the desire to want to attain courses in either USYD or UNSW.

 

[Kittyrules]

For me (even though i took some of the mindset from strawberrye ) its that I want to make sure i finish the HSC and not regret anything, and NOT to think that 'ohh well if i studied more here... and if i paid attention there' after i get my mark. I want to make sure i do it to the best of my ability! Sound corny, i know, but it does work. Its because i dont really have a set ATAR goal (because i want to study in Germany where i dont need atar lol) but i still want it to be a learning experience, literallly, and emotionally.

 

[enoilgam]

Here is a copy of a post I made a while back:

With procrastination, you will procrastinate no matter what - it is a part of human behaviour. The key with procrastination is to manage it so that it doesnt become harmful. In order to do this, focus on the setting up your work in such a way that it encourages you to work harder. As mirakon has said before, the HSC is all about attitude. Break the work down into small achievable goals. If you achieve these small goals you will feel much more confident with work and this will increase your morale and motivation. Remember, the best way to defeat an enemy is to cut off their strategy - the worst way is to take them on head-on. Procrastination's strategy is like a snowball, the more you put off doing the work, the larger your workload becomes, thereby further crippling your desire to do the work. To beat it, you attack it's strategy and prevent the snowball from getting bigger by chipping away at the work.

There is an old saying which goes "it's easy to commit to an idea, but it's hard to commit to a process". To commit to the process of doing well, you need to focus on the work itself - having long term ATAR goals is all well and good, but they often fail to motivate people in the day to day process of studying.

I know it seems like I am talking shit, but I actually used this strategy and I found it to be highly effective.

I know I post this up a lot, but I really think that procrastination has more to do with how you manage your work as opposed to stuff like goals and aspirations etc. The latter is usually what gets you to sit down at the table to study, the former is what keeps you there.