How to Start Studying When You Don’t Want To

Hi everyone, in today's video we are going to be talking about how to start studying when you flat out don't want to. So if you're watching this video because you were in desperate need of a kick in the butt, you came to the right place. Number one, human minds as cognitive misers. Now this is a psychological term used to describe our tendency to want to conserve mental energy and resources as much as possible, as often as possible, aka when it doesn't have anything to do with our survival, we tend to opt for the easy way out. And so if you look at studying and getting work done and being productive as something extremely mentally and or physically draining, it is no wonder that you are faced with this block preventing you from starting. My first advice to you is to use the chunking or dissection method when approaching heavy hardcore work. Instead of looking at your textbook and being like, I have 2000 pages to read, why not tear that apart to like 35 pages a week, five pages a day? Make studying and getting work done easy for you. Number two, overthinking and procrastination. I am a strong believer that these two are like BFFs, okay? Because what tends to happen is when we overthink and our mind just doesn't shut up and we're like I have 2000 pages here and then I have to do this and I have to go buy toilet paper and then I shouldn't have ate that chili. The more it keeps going, the more you procrastinate and the more reasons and excuses and just like I'll do it tomorrow can seep in. Try to remove yourself from your conscious thoughts and whatever blabber goes on in there, put your subconscious mind in control of your body and when you have to start doing something, flat out, don't think about it, start. Be zombie mode, just like I have to film, wow, I don't need to film today because see, and I'm already setting it up. I know overthinking is a big topic and a lot of you are asking me to do a particular video on this, so let's get this video to 1500 thumbs up and then I shall do one for you in Romanian or in French, whatever you like, I'll do it. Number three, frozen by the fear of failure. I want you to listen to something, okay? A study found that students who had a fear of failing adopted learning as a way to stroke their ego, to prove that they were superior to others, fixed mindset. When you attach yourself, your entire or even part of your human value to a grade or an outcome of an exam, it is no surprise that fear or anxiety that you might fall short will act as a block preventing you from even starting to study and making you procrastinate on postpone to the last minute just because you're afraid that, hey, what if I give it my all and I fail? Then the lens is going to point inward to me and you're going to be like, Ana, yo, am I dumb? Like, the F happened. Yo, honey, you're not dumb, okay? Sometimes we fail, it's okay. Sometimes it's not the amount of studying, it's how you study. So don't let grades define you as a human being because you're so much more than that. Failure is necessary and inevitable. It happens to all of us. It has happened to all of us and it will happen to you. A way you can approach this statement is accept failure as part of life and approach it with a growth mindset, aka as a reason to learn and to grow and to just try different things. If something doesn't work, be creative, go around it, watch my video. Shameless plug. But yo, bottom line, okay, when the zombie apocalypse comes, your brain is just as delicious as the grade A student, okay? Because you know, we're all zombie food, okay? So don't let grades define you. Number four, triggers. Studying as a desired behavior. I came up with this concept of study or productivity triggers a while back when I was doing my bachelor's degree and to be honest, it helped me tremendously. If you don't know about them, check that one out. But basically, these are little cues that you can put around your study environment. Call them breadcrumbs if you want. It's just something, a visual cue usually, or you can make it like auditory or just smelly. I don't know. How do you say that? Scent, scent. Here. Ça sent bon. Comme une chandelle. Basically, something that will promote a behavior to start. Create a link between something that you put there, something that you control, and a desired behavior. Why not encourage yourself, make it easier for you to start again without thinking too much about it. Let's do a little exercise because I'm all about you implementing what I say. If I just stay here and say it, you won't see the result and you're gonna come back tomorrow and be like, Anna, your thing didn't work, girl. Well, did you do anything about it? Get your typey fingers ready and I want you in the comments down below to write, last time when you started to study or when you started to do your work, what exactly made you start? Was it, uh-oh, the deadline's approaching, so pressure? Was it, eh, the book was there, so I read it. Whatever motivated you to start, write it in the comments down below and get more of it. You don't have to wait for those cues to magically appear like pixie dust, okay? Sorry to say, but Tinkerbell, Santa's real. And finally, number five, perfectionism and the right time. Now, I've spoken a bit about this in my how to study when you don't feel like it video, but since this particular problem is my personal problem when I have to study, I wanna focus more on the perfectionist thing of this whole issue. I'm the type of person that everything has to be right, the time, the mood, the alignments with the stars, you know, everything, before I start to study. Guess what? Out of all that perfectly written text or whatever I wrote in my notes, what I'm gonna remember the most, actually, is where I messed up or like ran out of ink and the writing started to look different. Imperfections can actually be helpful. They're there. It's never gonna be perfect. Learn how to work with or around imperfections. Don't just wait for that full moon, Jupiter and Venus type of thing. Just start and don't think too much about it. So with that being said, thank you so much for watching. Please don't forget to give this video a thumbs up if you like it and subscribe to me if you like what you see, because I post videos every Thursday. Good luck with your exams. One final push. Yes!