 I should be working on exam revision right now, but I'm not. I mean, I know I'll get it done later in the day or later in the week, but at the same time I know I don't always get things done within the time that I intended to get them done in. This means that I often end up shuffling around my to-do list and my tasks, and usually everything is fine. But as students, we're not always 100% productive as much as we'd like to think that we are. Sometimes we just don't want to study, sound familiar? What is up guys, KarmaMedic here, and welcome back to another dose. We've all been in the position of feeling unmotivated. Some of you might even characterize yourselves as typical unmotivated students, but I don't think that should be the case. What if you're having one of those days where the thought of doing work is just the worst thing that you can think of? And what if this happens to you on most days? Either way, I'm hoping that the tips in this video can help because they're realistically doable when you're just in a really unmotivated place. We've all heard it before, but it's honestly the most important tip that I can give for tackling the long-term issue of being unmotivated. It's all about reframing this idea of motivation being the key driving factor to us doing the work we know we need to do. It's actually about intrinsic motivation, motivation that comes from inside within yourself, and creating habits that are long-lasting regardless of how you're feeling on any specific day or time. How I like to think about it is that you need to study in the same way that you need to brush your teeth. We just brush our teeth. It's not something that we think about, it's just something that we know that we're going to do twice a day. No matter what's going on in your life, whether you're sad, whether you're happy, whether you are really sleep deprived or you have plenty of time, you're going to brush your teeth. It's just a habit that you do. And studying is kind of the same in the sense that you can turn it into a habit like that. The idea that you need to be motivated in order to sit down and study, I don't think is true. If you have an upcoming exam and you know that you need to study, then there isn't two ways about it. You have an exam, so you need to study. How to create habits and the best way to create habits is for an entire other video, but the main things I want to touch on are the following. Commit to the habit initially, start simple and easy and then work your way up to longer studying times or more studying sessions per day. Two is forming triggers. So, you know, for example, that every time in the morning when you finish your cup of coffee, it's time to go study. And three is compounding habits together. Stacking a new habit onto an old one or an existing one is a great way of making sure that you get it done. The reason is most of us already have existing habits in our daily routine. And if we can just tag along a new habit onto that existing one, it's a lot easier to get started than you might think. If you guys would like me to talk more about forming habits and make an entire video about habits, then just let me know in the comments down below and I'll get to it ASAP. The next point that I want to make is about re-evaluating your frame of mind going into studying. The fact is that you don't have to study. Like you just don't have to go to uni, right? You don't have to do any of these things. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do them. Your time is your own and you are your own person. And no matter how much pressure you're under or how you feel about your studying, the truth is that you could just walk away at any time and you could just do something else. You could call a friend, you could play video games, you could scroll through TikTok, you know, go out to the city, go play sports, whatever. You're probably not going to do that for a number of reasons, but the truth is that you could. And I think that what you've got to think about is the reason why you're not doing that, why haven't you stopped trying? Why are you still here? And this might sound like a harsh question, but what I mean by this is that you need to think about and find your purpose or your reason for studying. You know, why did you apply to this university in the first place? Why did you apply to this course? What's the reason that you're doing this essay or studying for this exam? And even if the task itself isn't fun, you know, where is it going to get you? And what is it going to help you achieve? Not everyone loves every part of their course. And certainly I've been through that before in my life, but you kind of have to do what you need to do to get to where you want to go. Instead of thinking about how you're going to get through the next three hours of studying, it can sometimes help to think about why you're sitting here studying in the first place. I often try and run myself of the reason that I'm in medical school and the reason that I'm studying. And those reasons are not for my family. It's not for my friends. The reason that I'm studying and that I'm here is for me. I'm here because I want to be a doctor and I want to be a good one. This sort of shift from external motivation to intrinsic motivation I think is really important. Reframing the situation in this way can give you the boost that you need to just start doing your work. It's usually quite helpful to take a step back, you know, think about studying and this big picture thinking instead of worrying about the small stuff that can put you off from even getting started to begin with. I started medical school to be the best doctor that I can be to my future patients and to be approachable and to care for people within my own community and abroad. And I try to remember that at times when I'm feeling a little bit unmotivated and it just helps me to reframe the situation something that can drive me to keep me going instead of something that can hold me back. I think something that students don't realize especially when they first start university is that you need to be realistic about what university and what studying is. The truth is that we all go from high school where we feel supported by our teachers and everything is kind of handed to us in a way that it just isn't at university. At university, you need to be extremely proactive and actually seek out the help that you need. You're not gonna have someone who's checking up on you or making sure that you're submitting your homework on time or studying enough throughout the year or anything like that. And at medical school, for example, you don't always have a bunch of past papers or help with learning different exam techniques. And so in a way, you're kind of left to fend for yourself and actively try to reach out for help if you need it. It's such a big jump from school days where, you know, we're used to having all this support and it feels like 50% of a teacher's job is just to help you pass exams and get into university. If you're at university and you miss an assignment, no one's gonna call your parents and tell on you. Professors are there to teach and to give you information and pass on their expertise. And then after that, it's kind of up to you what you do from there. Unless you ask for it, the help isn't really going to reach you. I think that's the first thing that we need to be realistic about as students. We shouldn't expect to find everything as easy to understand as we did in school. And not finding it easy is totally okay. And that's the reality for most students. You'll likely need to read around the subject, use multiple resources or reach out to tutors and peers in order to get some help. A lot of the time, students feel that they don't need to do this. And I think it leads to the feeling of not wanting to continue to work if you're struggling with it. As soon as we kind of face a hurdle, it means we're not excited to do the work anymore, but this shouldn't really be the case. I think we should expect university level work to be harder and more challenging than what we did in high school. And that's something that's okay. It's something to take as a challenge as opposed to avoid it. The second thing to be realistic about when you go to university is to have a realistic understanding of the amount of work that's gonna be expected of you. Speaking to students in the years above you or your academic tutors about how much work is reasonable for you to be putting in for the subject you're studying or for the year that you're in can be really helpful. It's easy to watch YouTube and Instagram study tubers like myself and think that studying is as simple as sitting down, turning on the camera and having the time lapse. But you know, it's not really like that. A lot of studying is sitting at the desk and just doing the boring act of studying itself. And I think once you're realistic about the amount of studying that you need to do and the difficulty of that studying then you know what best to expect and it can help you better manage the mindset that you have around studying. A simple one that people forget really easily is to adapt your work environment in order to work in your favor. The goal is for you to study and you can make this easier by reducing as much friction in your way to get to studying as possible. One of the things that you can do is to make your study space work for you. Making sure that it's quiet and free of distraction is really easy to do and can have significant effects on your ability to focus and get work done. It's usually not a good idea to sit on your bed or on your couch and do work because these two physical locations are associated with relaxing and with sleep. I've never done a single piece of work on my couch or on my bed. I do all of that at my desk because when I'm in bed, I like to just sleep. Another thing is to look back on and reflect on the days where you wanted to study but you got little or nothing done and think about what stopped you from studying. What was in your way? What were the obstacles that you were facing? It could be that you woke up late and so that knocked off the time that you had for your breakfast and then you needed to walk your dog and then suddenly you had to do some shopping and before you knew it, the whole day had passed and you've done no work. It could also be that you sat down at your desk to get work done but there were just five people in the house and they were making too much noise or there was construction outside or your friend called you and distracted you. It can be a million things. These kinds of scenarios happen a lot but with a little bit of planning and adapting of your environment, I think that they can mostly be avoided and even just sitting down and thinking about these factors, identifying those factors that made it difficult for you to study in the first place means that you can work on eliminating or at least reducing them the next time you sit down to study. Reducing the number of decisions that you need to make in a day when it comes to studying can also be really helpful. Even meal prepping on the weekend or deciding what you're gonna have for breakfast the next morning or what chapter you're gonna study the next day can reduce the amount of decisions that you need to make and just make it so much easier and simpler to sit down and start studying. Of course for you, your situation is gonna be completely different than mine and than other people so find the ways in which you can make your studying as friction free as possible. This is something that I think about all the time and I'm constantly trying to refine and make better and genuinely I think it helps a lot. Something for those of you that might find it difficult studying silence and just can't bear the thought of it is to use multitasking to your favor. It's not always ideal but if you're making the decision between you studying with multitasking or not studying at all, then this is quite a good trick. It's good to use something that is already familiar to you so that it's known, it's recognizable, it's just there in the background as opposed to something that's new and fresh that might take up more of your attention. Something like simple music or background sounds, you know, classical music, lo-fi beats, rainforest sounds, fire, crackling, et cetera is quite ideal. I went into detail about this in my video about whether you should listen to music when studying and if so, what music should you listen to? I'll leave that link somewhere up over here if you wanna check it out. But if music isn't your thing and you just can't seem to get into the studying zone then maybe putting on something like a familiar TV show in the background might give you just enough of a boost of energy to keep you going and focus on your work. Now I obviously wouldn't recommend this for tasks that involve a high level of concentration but if you just really feel like it's one of those days where you can't get anything done and the alternative is doing nothing versus putting on an episode of Friends or something like that and then working while that's in the background then I think it's a pretty easy choice to make. Another great way to keep you focused and accountable when studying is having studying partners. If you've got friends at university that you can go to the library with then honestly that's ideal, it's such a vibe. But if you don't or like most of us nowadays we do a lot of working from home or studying from home then it's really helpful to hop on a Zoom call with a couple of friends and keep the community and the togetherness vibe going. Just as reminder that you're all in this together. Personally what I found invaluable recently while studying here at home is studying with you guys on Discord. If you join the Karma Club via my Patreon then you get access to the community live study with me is that I think are really motivating and it means that you have this group of people from all over the world studying with each other, motivating each other, chilling, chatting as well and just having a really good time. For my most recent exam, my medical school finals which I did a whole vlog about somewhere up over here this Discord study with me group was crucial for me and honestly I couldn't have done it without you and so a big thank you to everyone who's studying with me in that Discord server. I'll leave a link to my Patreon in the description down below and on screen over here if you guys wanna check it out and join the family. Sometimes the thought of having to do a huge pile of work means that students just end up not doing anything at all. It all becomes too much and the pressure gets the best of us. At the end of the day, doing something is better than doing nothing. So keeping your plans realistic but also making sure that you're not gonna give up if you can't stick to them either is a good way to go. Let's say you've planned to do three hours of studying but you're just really feeling drained and unmotivated and you don't wanna do three hours of studying. Okay, fine. Doing one hour out of those three hours of studying is still gonna be better than just doing nothing at all. Personally for myself I have this sort of unspoken rule that if I don't feel like studying then just doing something even if it's not the actual studying that I wanted to do but something else useful that I would otherwise have to do at another time is so much better than just doing nothing. I need to do something. Even if it's 20 minutes, it's worth it. And then oftentimes just getting started and doing those initial five to 10 minutes is gonna keep you going for the next hour. Half the battle is just getting started. No amount of chipping away at that work is useless. All of this adds up and it means that we're regularly interacting with and working with the material and the topics which means we're gonna help learn them better over time. Don't over complicate your work. Just start with the things that you know you can do that you might find easier to do that can get you started and motivated to then move on to those longer and bigger tasks. Simply put, doing something is better than doing nothing. Trying some of the things mentioned in this video might help, but I think it's also important for us to all balance this with knowing when to stop and recharge. Please don't push yourself beyond your limits. Spending a few hours or a few days off to rest and relax is a good investment into your future productivity. Taking a mental health break is totally okay and should always be an option. Without the restful time away from studying, you'll find that you're not working to the best of your ability and you'll feel awful doing the work. I just wanted to mention that in case anyone watching this is actually in need of a break instead of these tips on how to get going and get out of a productivity slump. If you found this video useful, then you'll probably find these two videos useful as well. Please do check them out and let me know what you think in the comments down below and I'll catch you in the next one. Peace. How to create habits and the best way to create habits is for an entire other. That's my email. What you're going to study the day before makes it email. Reduces a lot of the decisions. Okay. All right, buddy. You're getting muted right now. Right now, my guy. You're done. You're done, kid.