I came onto my blog just out of sheer curiousity at what I had stopped doing 3 months ago, and realized it was too pink. Just shows how influenced by other peoples websites you can become without realizing it. Then when you no longer like those other people, the pink-colored glasses come off.
I recently was talking to a colleague who had an exam coming up, and had not started studying for it yet. After a couple of minutes of conversation with this colleague, I came to realize that they were suffereing from Idiotpathic Antilabinitiology, syndrome i have many times come across in my educational career. Loosely translated from latin, despite being the one having come up with the term, it means an inability to start studying for no apparent reason. She was exhibiting all of the normal symptoms.
1) Desperation - ie. i want to study **, i need to study*
2) Lack of Motivation - I don't seem to be motivated to do it (tho exam is in a couple of days)
3)Being distracted by possibilities of doing other things - The people around me are talking of going dancing/skating, while i have to sit here and study and can't concentrate.
4) Instant messaging/Texting on the topic of studying, instead of studying - means that their guilt of not studying is their main focus
5) Asking how it is going for other people - creates a sense of where other people are so one doesnt feel as guilty about how far they arent
6) Describing themselves as knowing very little at the moment - which is simply a symptom of low studying self-esteem. The fact itself is not likely after completing a course and already have prepared for 2 exam sessions in the course. This is also a way to feel more guilty about not studying, an attempt at self-motivation.
7) Reasoning the reason for insufficient studying as because they are "stupid, irresponsible
, lazy, overprocrastinating."
8)Reasoning it to the weather, outside people, frustration.
9) Comparing self to other people who are able to study, and wishing they could "crack down"like those around them.
All of the above symptoms are coping methods to try to understand why a specific person is not motivated like they should be. Generally people think that if you are more stressed and under more pressure you are more likely to be motivated to complete what is needed. This in fact, is a flawed ideal. Many people respond to pressure and stress by simply shutting down and focusing on other things. That which is stressful brings along a very negative association, and the mind can deal with it by simply avoiding it, thus despite a very important deadline, the negativity is so strong that people generally attempt to escape the problem entirely. This results in complete lack of motivation in moving forward with the task.
The solution is not to induce more stress or pressure but rather to reprogram the associations that push someone to the point that things become too stressful to deal with. The constant negative connotations with the task at hand build up in one's mind to the point that something that would have probably been really simple to do and quick to finish ends up seeming like an iron giant you can't defeat. The general advice to avoid this type of stress is usually to divide the task into seemingly smaller tasks. This way, upon completion of every small task, a sense of achievement grows and gives motivation to complete each next task, without the stressful association of the task as a whole.
Within the realm of studying, there also comes into play the technique used to achieve recall of the required knowledge. When studying for certain subjects that we enjoy, we tend to look forward to each detail, and our mind is relaxed and we feel enthusiastic. This allows for a lot larger quantity of information to be absorbed, without negative emotion or stress coming into play. When approaching subjects that have been difficult for us, or not as enjoyable to read, we automatically are faced with the negative associations that translate into negative emotions, and we suddenly are faced with a mental block preventing us from being efficient.
This mental block doesn't have to be overcome with forced studying, because that simply deepens the problem. Instead, the solution is to change the pattern with which we approach that specific subject. If the pattern is different, the negative emotions don't arise with the same strength. There are a ton of ways to achieve this, but the main idea is to look at it differently. In this sense we end up perhaps even enjoying the subject rather than associating it with past negative experiences.
And so, in trying to help my friend (despite her strong independant personality attempting to take over and reject help of any kind) I asked her to find herself a textbook from the subject, rather than using the slides from the lectures and conquer that particular topic of her general studying in 4 steps.
1) Skim the written part of the chapter in the chosen textbook, focusing only on diagrams and pictures.
2) Reread a bit more carefully, still focusing strongly on the graphics.
3) Reread a third time very thoroughly but try to envision the graphics in her mind instead of looking at them.
4) Summarize on paper, or to herself, or her roomate the written text and the diagrams without using the book.
And then i told her to get back to me after a few hours. Although the idea to change perspective on the subject was my idea, the technique was one a friend had described for another subject, and personally think its very efficient and goes well as a pattern of learning well suited for how the brain works. The main idea here, though, is that the simple idea of a new technique was enough to give my friend outside motivation to start studying for the upcoming exam.
And me being my usual helpful self, wish I had someone like me to give that external motivation, cuz im still screwed and havent started studying :P
I recently was talking to a colleague who had an exam coming up, and had not started studying for it yet. After a couple of minutes of conversation with this colleague, I came to realize that they were suffereing from Idiotpathic Antilabinitiology, syndrome i have many times come across in my educational career. Loosely translated from latin, despite being the one having come up with the term, it means an inability to start studying for no apparent reason. She was exhibiting all of the normal symptoms.
1) Desperation - ie. i want to study **, i need to study*
2) Lack of Motivation - I don't seem to be motivated to do it (tho exam is in a couple of days)
3)Being distracted by possibilities of doing other things - The people around me are talking of going dancing/skating, while i have to sit here and study and can't concentrate.
4) Instant messaging/Texting on the topic of studying, instead of studying - means that their guilt of not studying is their main focus
5) Asking how it is going for other people - creates a sense of where other people are so one doesnt feel as guilty about how far they arent
6) Describing themselves as knowing very little at the moment - which is simply a symptom of low studying self-esteem. The fact itself is not likely after completing a course and already have prepared for 2 exam sessions in the course. This is also a way to feel more guilty about not studying, an attempt at self-motivation.
7) Reasoning the reason for insufficient studying as because they are "stupid, irresponsible
, lazy, overprocrastinating."
8)Reasoning it to the weather, outside people, frustration.
9) Comparing self to other people who are able to study, and wishing they could "crack down"like those around them.
All of the above symptoms are coping methods to try to understand why a specific person is not motivated like they should be. Generally people think that if you are more stressed and under more pressure you are more likely to be motivated to complete what is needed. This in fact, is a flawed ideal. Many people respond to pressure and stress by simply shutting down and focusing on other things. That which is stressful brings along a very negative association, and the mind can deal with it by simply avoiding it, thus despite a very important deadline, the negativity is so strong that people generally attempt to escape the problem entirely. This results in complete lack of motivation in moving forward with the task.
The solution is not to induce more stress or pressure but rather to reprogram the associations that push someone to the point that things become too stressful to deal with. The constant negative connotations with the task at hand build up in one's mind to the point that something that would have probably been really simple to do and quick to finish ends up seeming like an iron giant you can't defeat. The general advice to avoid this type of stress is usually to divide the task into seemingly smaller tasks. This way, upon completion of every small task, a sense of achievement grows and gives motivation to complete each next task, without the stressful association of the task as a whole.
Within the realm of studying, there also comes into play the technique used to achieve recall of the required knowledge. When studying for certain subjects that we enjoy, we tend to look forward to each detail, and our mind is relaxed and we feel enthusiastic. This allows for a lot larger quantity of information to be absorbed, without negative emotion or stress coming into play. When approaching subjects that have been difficult for us, or not as enjoyable to read, we automatically are faced with the negative associations that translate into negative emotions, and we suddenly are faced with a mental block preventing us from being efficient.
This mental block doesn't have to be overcome with forced studying, because that simply deepens the problem. Instead, the solution is to change the pattern with which we approach that specific subject. If the pattern is different, the negative emotions don't arise with the same strength. There are a ton of ways to achieve this, but the main idea is to look at it differently. In this sense we end up perhaps even enjoying the subject rather than associating it with past negative experiences.
And so, in trying to help my friend (despite her strong independant personality attempting to take over and reject help of any kind) I asked her to find herself a textbook from the subject, rather than using the slides from the lectures and conquer that particular topic of her general studying in 4 steps.
1) Skim the written part of the chapter in the chosen textbook, focusing only on diagrams and pictures.
2) Reread a bit more carefully, still focusing strongly on the graphics.
3) Reread a third time very thoroughly but try to envision the graphics in her mind instead of looking at them.
4) Summarize on paper, or to herself, or her roomate the written text and the diagrams without using the book.
And then i told her to get back to me after a few hours. Although the idea to change perspective on the subject was my idea, the technique was one a friend had described for another subject, and personally think its very efficient and goes well as a pattern of learning well suited for how the brain works. The main idea here, though, is that the simple idea of a new technique was enough to give my friend outside motivation to start studying for the upcoming exam.
And me being my usual helpful self, wish I had someone like me to give that external motivation, cuz im still screwed and havent started studying :P
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