Tag Archives: motivation

College Student Motivation

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College student motivation! Oh what a wonderful topic. Staying motivated in college can be tough. In fact, it can be down-right impossible sometimes, especially towards the end of the semester. Early semester is a completely different story. Motivation is high and productivity can just be as high. After a few weeks in college, you tend to lose all motivation and this can be extremely stressful.

Today I want to talk about how to stay motivated in college. I have written quite a lot on the subject, but primarily for grad students. If you want to read more about that, take a look at those blogs (link here, here, and here). Today, I want to discuss college student motivations. Now motivation is almost impossible to have all of the time. There might be a select few individuals that seem to be motivated by literally everything. For the vast majority of us, we will have just about the same amount of little to no motivation as we have motivation. Today, I would like to go over ways in which we can increase motivation so we can get the most out of college.

Why Motivation is High at the Beginning of the Semester?

You may ask yourself, “why am I so motivated to do so much at the beginning of the semester and not the rest of the semester?” I literally ask this myself ever semester and I have the same answer each time. I usually have the most motivation to tackle everything right after taking a very long break. Each semester begins after some form of vacation. Spring semester starts after winter break and fall after summer break. There is even a mini break after spring semester to prepare you for summer classes. But let’s face it, summer classes are super easy and the whole semester is still a vacation lol.

After a long time away from work, you tend to feel extremely refreshed and rejuvenated. For me, and many others, I spend this time sleeping a ton and eating my body weight in food. Breaks are a great way to just wind down and not be on the fast track to burnout. So, when you come back from these mini vacations, you are really refreshed and ready to take anything on. This is why taking vacations is so important. Taking time off to relax is one of the best ways to get the initial motivation to get things going. Continuous work will lead to a lack of motivation in the end.

Why am I not Motivated towards the End of the Semester?

I wish I had a scientific answer. One that would blow you away and get me that PhD. Unfortunately, I only have a simple answer for you. You are stressed, tired, and overwhelmed. You might even have hit burnout. If you did hit burnout, go check out my blog about it and ways to combat it (link here). Honestly, the lack of motivation may just come from the fact that you are just so tired. I remember when I was taking classes (seems so long ago), the end of the semester was always the worst because you have to act like you cared, but I really didn’t. I would calculate the lowest grad to pass a class just so I didn’t have to study that much. If there is ever a lack of college student motivation, it’s during finals week.

Being worn down by the work during the semester can definitely put a ton on your motivation. At this point in the semester, you’ve pretty much ran out of that extra motivation from stress or anxiety. You don’t care if you hit a deadline and you really don’t care what grades you get as long as you pass. College student motivation is usually at the lowest and gets even lower the closer you get to your break, whether a winter break or the amazing, summer break!

How Can I Get Motivated Throughout the Semester

There are plenty of ways that I truly believe can keep your motivation high throughout the semester. So, like I love doing, let me create a list for you of things you can do when you need motivation throughout the semester.

1) Make sure to rest

As I said above, you are more likely to stay motivated when you rest or take a vacation. Rejuvenating your body is essential so you don’t wear yourself down. Make sure to schedule down time to do something other than work. The work will always be there and you can end up burning yourself out if you continue. To hit all of the goals you set for yourself, you have to have some strength to be able to do them, right?

2) Get started on a goal or project, even if you don’t want to.

So I put this after rest. When you are just relaxing, getting motivated to accomplish stuff is quite hard to do. I get it, relaxing is better than work. If you find yourself in this predicament, don’t think about the project or goal, start doing it. Just make sure not to put too much on your plate all at once. Motivation is a circle. You actually create your motivation by doing whatever it is you need to do. So throughout the semester, if you need motivation to do something, just start doing it. The action of doing whatever it is will give you more motivation to accomplish it. Check out my blog about motivation cycle for more info about this particular subject. (link here).

3) Get a buddy to help motivate you.

If you are brand new to the gym and want to work out, what is one thing you usually type into google? That’s right, you type in “how do I get started?” Usually when you put this into google, there will be adds for personal trainers. Personal trainers are just buddies that help motivate you to accomplish your goals and stay motivated. Just like a personal trainer, a friend can help you get motivated and stay motivated. Find someone with similar goals and you can actually keep them accountable as well. They will help motivate you and you will help motivate them. This is extremely helpful come exam time because you will both be unmotivated to work, but if you help them a little, they will help you out a it too. It’s always more difficult o motivate yourself than having someone else motivate you.

4) Focus on the Successes of Today!!!!

The only thing you have is now. The future is in the future and the past already happened. So, if you only have now, why do we focus on the future so much. Yes, goals are in the future, but the way to get to those goals is by accomplishing things in the present. Any movement towards your goals is progress. Progress is a driver that keeps us motivated.

So, college student motivation is amplified by focusing on the small things you do today. One of the best motivators is seeing progress, no matter how small. In fact, one of my goals is to reach 1000 daily readers. I am at like 20, but every day I am motivated by maybe one or 2 extra people reading my blog. I don’t focus on the future, I focus on today and how many people have read my blog since yesterday. The small growth gives you so much motivation.

5) Exercise

As stated above, one of the biggest reasons why people don’t stay motivated is because they are tired. Why, then, do I say exercise? Won’t that make you more tired. Yes and no. You will be tired, but you’ll start noticing that you are more energetic the more you exercise. The exercise will increase the blood flow and increase hormones that give you energy. With the extra energy, you won’t feel so lethargic and that will help you actually be able to do stuff. College student motivation can be increased with as little as 30 minutes of exercise a day. Instead of riding the bus to class, walk. Get 30 minutes of walking and it will put you in a great mood and get you motivated to tackle all of the difficulties of the semester. Trust me.

6) Focus on the progress and not the goal.

Like #4, focus on the small wins. I like to have a big goal to achieve each semester. Instead of focusing on obtaining that goal as fast as I can, I break it down into very achievable goals. Motivation is pretty much dried up if you see this herculean task and try and accomplish it all at once. A 1% increase each day will accomplish much more than giving it all you have at one time. This works.

Say you want to ace your first exam. Instead of pulling an all nighter, why not study for like 30 minutes each day? It’s a small progression but makes all the difference. Yes, anxiety will be a great motivator more towards you taking the exam, but you will crash. All of the motivation you had prior to the exam is gone now. If you focused on studying a little bit each day, you will see that there isn’t any crash and you can continue on with the other classes.

I have been working on my doctorate for 3.5 years now and it is the small progressions that keep me motivated. Towards the end, here, it is more just plain stubbornness that is keeping me here lol. But for those 3 years, the small achievements each day and the 1% increase kept me going and now I am months away from being a doctor.

Final Thoughts

College student motivation is created by, you guessed it, the college student. I have laid out 6 different ways to help you stay motivated and I know for a fact that these work and you can see that for yourself. I have used these methods for 11 years now. Yes, I have been in college for 11 years, so I know what I am talking about. If you have any more suggestions on how to stay motivated, let me know in the comments. Also, if you juts need to reach out to someone for advice, email me at benswaringen@yahoo.com. I promise you that I will reply.

For those that have been following this blog for a while, I am starting to branch out to college students as well. Yes, i will still write about grad school, but I have seen a ton of undergrads having the same troubles as grad students. I feel like it is a good idea to branch out to them and help them with the transition from high school life to college life. I hope you are all ok with that?

If you haven’t already, check out my other posts seen below.

Days I Don’t Want To Write

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If you read my blog, you have probably seen a few of these posts here and there. Let me link you to a few of them. (here, here, here). Dang, I do write a ton of blogs about lack of motivation and not working. Today, like those other days, is a very difficult day to get going. I find it amazing how motivated I am the day before, but that all disappears as soon as I arrive to my lab. Today, I had big plans on writing. Unfortunately, those plans might not happen the way that I want. Today is a day that I just don’t want to write. It’s a bit ironic that I am writing about not writing, though. I am hoping this gives me a bit of a boost. So, if you are like me, and don’t feel like writing today, check out some helpful advice on how to get started or not feel as bad.

Let’s Get Started

Close-up of Hand Holding Pencil over White Background

I think writing can be quite a struggle for people because they want to be perfect. When I first started, perfection was the key. I wasn’t going to give in some half down garbage to my professor. So, what I did, was set aside like a good 8 hours to just write perfection. You know what happened? I spend 30 minutes writing and the rest of the time anxious that what I had written was bad. That means that I got practically nothing on the paper. This can be bad, especially when you have a deadline.

So Key Tip #1: Write for imperfection

Woman Typing on Laptop

On the days that you find hard to write, just write a few sentences. One thing that I find a bit upsetting is looking back on the day and realizing that I may have done like 2 things and that was it. I usually have the whole day planned to get some work done, especially writing, and I may only get a few small things out of the way. This usually creates a ton of unwanted anxiety and I worry that I will fall behind. One way to not feel this way is to just designate a small amount of time to write. 30 minutes is all you need. You can write a bit, get closer to the goal of finishing a bit more, and you won’t feel so bad. Writing should be a marathon, not a sprint.

So Key Tip #2: Just write anything. 500 words! 200 words! a few sentences! Just write!

Lastly, on days that you just don’t feel like writing at all. Like, these are days that writing will be the same as pulling teeth. On those days, don’t write. Just don’t write at all. Instead, maybe plan out writing for the next day and do some things that you have been putting off. I know on days where I would rather do anything than write, I will clean or do data input. Maybe catch up on organizing things or plan out the whole semester. One day of not writing will not destroy your career or studies. Hopefully you don’t have a job where you have to write or you are fired. In that case, making a plan to write is the best.

Woman Sitting on Brown Wooden Chair Beside Coconut

So lastly, Key Tip #3:If you don’t want to write then don’t. Make sure to get something done that is beneficial. It will make you feel like you did quite a bit that day and you won’t have anxiety.

Final Thought

Today I am going to take advantage of #1 and #2. I have this blog to prepare me for writing a bit and that is what I am going to do. I want to feel like this day didn’t go to waste, even though I know it did not. There was a ton of stuff for me to do this morning but I do like to get a bit of writing in as well. For those of you that do write on a daily basis, what do you do to keep yourself going? Add some tips for those that just don’t feel like writing. Here are some tips from MasterClass on how to motivate yourself to write. Check it out.

Winter Weather and Lack of Motivation

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This post may contains affiliate links. For more information see disclosure at bottom of home page

I’m starting to think that I write way too much about having a lack of motivation. Honestly, this is such a common occurrence in my life that I can’t help but talk about it. I am quite sure that this is a common problem that all grad students face and it’s about to get a lot harder in the next coming weeks. See, it’s the end of the semester which means a couple of things 1) Thanksgiving break 2) Finals and 3) graduation (if you’re lucky) or winter break. What do all of these things have in common? They all bring a lack of motivation to do work for class. Heck, you’ve probably already calculated the bare minimum score for your final to pass and plan on aiming to get there.

Gloomy weather

Another reason why the end is so difficult is because of the weather. We have some crazy weather events that occur in winter, down in the swamp. We get pretty decent cold fronts that cause for extremely gloomy weather. today is one of those days, you know, the type of day where you binge watch Harry Potter and drink coffee in bed. Yeah, this is that type of day. Below is the current weather radar. Looks like today and tomorrow will be pretty unproductive.

For those that are finding it hard to get work done, I get you. I really do. Honestly, you’re motivation to get anything done is going to dwindle pretty quickly. This is normal and everyone, even those working full time, are going to experience it. Just keep on keeping on and be kind to yourself. Doing any work on days like today is an accomplishment that deserves a Harry potter binge watching marathon.

Some motivation

If you are truly unmotivated to do anything, I suggest checking out my blog on how to get motivation and create it yourself (link here). This is probably a good time to hone those skills before the end of the semester hits you. For me, and most PhD candidates, the end of the semester doesn’t mean too much. We usually don’t follow that schedule. For master’s students, this is a stressful time. Make sure to take care of yourself during these times. Also, take plenty of breaks. If you get burnt out during this time, there’s not much time to recover.

Winter is coming

Another thing that might show up during this time is some form of the winter blues. The weather, lack of sunlight, and stress of completing the semester could be a recipe for disaster. I am not sure if this is something that would work for you or not but I recently bought a light therapy lamp (this one). I know, I know, I live in Florida where it has more sun than the rest of the states. This is true but I leave my apartment relatively early and get some late. Also, my office doesn’t have windows so I need a bit f help. I have read great things about these. This might be something good to get to help you through these next few weeks.

I am going to leave you with a video on seasonal affective disorder by my favorite therapist, Emma McAdams. I’ll always send you guys her way. As always, I hope you have a wonderful day. It’s Friday, so do something fun after work or relax.

How To Stay Motivated in Grad School

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This post about how to stay motivated in grad school may contains affiliate links. For more information see disclosure at bottom of home page

Life is just so funny. One day, you could be hours deep into work and quite overwhelmed, then the next day is completely empty. This has been quite a normal experience for me while in grad school as well as when I was working full time. It sucks, not because of the work load, but because the days where you don’t have anything to do, can be filled with anxiety. Grad school is very much this way. You can go weeks with non stop work, then, poof, nothing. The days with little work are the worst because you will feel like you “should” be doing work. To that, I say “nay”.

I am currently busy with quite a few experiments. Our research team just got the green light to do more experiments, so we are pretty busy. We also have meetings galore, so that’s fun. I tend to be the go to guy with these experiments. Don’t get me wrong, it makes me feel amazing to be in charge of doing the experiments. This is the reason why I started research, but it can be overwhelming some times. Also, motivating myself to get any work done has been difficult. Caffeine can only get you so far.

For incoming grad students, or grad students that are getting into the bulk of your research, having this ebb and flow of work is normal. Heck, you may have weeks where you never see the sun, but know that this is essential to get you where you want to go. This can be fun too because you learn so much about yourself and you grow as a researcher. Though, it can be hard when there is little to know motivation.

how to stay motivated in grad school

Motivation is a Tricky Thing in Grad School

How the heck do you stay motivated in grad school when you do repetitive things constantly? 5 years of a PhD is a long time and keeping the motivation can be a difficult thing to do. Staying motivated in a master’s program can be tricky too, especially towards the end. So, how do you stay motivated while in in grad school? I have a few ways that may help you keep that motivation. These aren’t always the solution but they may help. They have helped me significantly. You won’t know until you try, right?

Just Do it

I have written about how to motivate yourself (link here and a video here). There are even classes you can do to get more motivation too (here). But the best thing that I have found is to just get started. Lately, motivating myself to do something has been hard. I think of all of the things I have to get done and end up just procrastinating. This causes unwanted anxiety and stress. The best thin to do is start small and motivation will come.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson Summary

The above figure is from The Subtle art of Not Giving a F*ck. I just listened to it on audio and man was it good. The author describes that motivation is a cycle. Motivation leads to action which leads to inspiration. But also, action leads to inspiration which leads to motivation. You just need to get started and motivation will come.

There will be days where this just doesn’t work, honestly. I have had days where I was super motivated the night before and then I come in and get nothing done. I’ll start my projects and things just don’t get rolling. You have to be patient with yourself and show a bit of compassion. Jut getting started on the motivation train might not how you stay motivated in grad school. You may need an extra boost of motivation.

courses on how to stay motivated in grad school

Maybe take a Course on Getting Motivated

There are plenty of ways to stay motivated. There are actually a ton of courses on the web that you can take that deal with ways to stay motivated. One of my favorites is ineedmotivation.com. They have so many courses that will help you boost motivation as well as stay motivated. I took a few of their courses and they have really helped a lot. Of course, as a grad student, I really couldn’t afford too many courses so I stopped. They helped to get me started but it was up to me to stay motivated. If you are looking for a good course to take, check out this link. It might be the extra boost you need to stay motivated while in grad school.

Make it Fun

Today, I am going to do a ton of work but I am also going to have fun doing it. I have 250 samples to dilute prior to analysis and I think I am going to listen to an audio book while I do it. I have a good list of books to listen to if you are interested. (link here). If I make the task enjoyable then it doesn’t seem like work at all. Grad school work is not physically demanding, but mentally. If you are able to convince yourself that you don’t really need to think while doing the task, you’ll find you have a lot more energy to do it. Make the work fun and have a good time doing it.

I find that motivation is often increased significantly if you make the task fun. Just imagine you have to write your thesis and the last thing you want to do is literally write your thesis. You ca have a negative outlook and that makes the process more difficult, or you can have some fun and make it a game or something. Say, for every 500 words that you write, you get to watch a Netflix show. That’s fun. It is also a really good method to keep you going because of the task and reward system you have going on.

staying motivated in grad school by taking a break

Take Time Away From Grad School

There’s a major problem that occurs n grad school that might be what is causing you to be very unmotivated. That, of course, is burnout. You might be feeling unmotivated because you have done way too much and pushed yourself too hard, for too long. One way that I find best to prevent burnout and keep motivation in grad school is to take time off. Taking a long weekend or even a vacation is one of the best ways to stay motivated and continue on. Time away from what you are doing can be the difference between finishing and not. Trust me, you do not want to lose motivation because of burnout.

Final Thoughts

Whatever you have to do, just start. Grab a nice big cup of coffee and start. It doesn’t have to be much but at least you will see that you are moving in the right direction. I hope whatever stuff you have is easy and get’s done quickly. Some times just thinking about the project or problem is the hardest part. That is what is going to keep you back from finishing whatever it is that you want to get done. Doing it is the easy part, thinking about it is what is difficult.

I hope you all have an amazing day and week. If you haven’t already, go check out my blog about the best gifts to get a grad student. The link is here. Thanks for reading!