Motivation

Content

01 Purpose / Task 1
02 Establishing aims and objectives / Task 2
03 Helpful advice

01 Purpose

Before embarking on any major project, it is always worthwhile thinking about your purpose. Too often we can find ourselves getting caught up in something which is decided for us and over which we appear to have little control.

For many people, getting a degree may not even appear to be an 'option'. Maybe it's been an assumption from an early age that you were going to follow in the footsteps of your parents, or maybe the assumption was that you should be the first person in your family to have a university education. You may feel, therefore, that you will let others down if you don't fall in with their plans for you.

However, if you don't take the time to consider what YOU can get out of studying at university, you may find that you lack an indispensable key to success: motivation.

Without identifying why it is that you are studying on a degree programme, you may find many of the academic tasks you are set by your tutors irksome and pointless. You may feel that you have no sense of direction. The feeling of purposelessness can be very demotivating indeed.

There are many different reasons for choosing to study on an academic degree programme and you may have found yourself ticking a number of different options in relation to your choice to study at university. What's important is that you establish a clear and positive sense of purpose for study early on in your course and take a personal sense of responsibility for the decision to embark on your chosen degree programme. It's all too easy to find yourself drifting into university simply because it's a general expectation of friends and family and you can't really think of anything else to do. If you have a clear purpose fixed in your mind, you will find that you are able to sustain high levels of motivation, even when times get tough.

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02 Establishing aims and objectives

Personal motivation may also be sustained by considering your long-term goals or overall aims. What is it that you want to be able to do once you have graduated? Having done the task, you may already have identified that one of your purposes for academic study is to find a good job when you graduate. This is clearly also an important long-term aim of most university students.

In order to achieve this aim, however, and any other long-term goal, you will also need to think about generating an action plan which will set more immediate and short-term objectives.

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03 Helpful advice

Try to get into the habit of studying. After the initial effort of imposing a regular routine, you will begin to find a natural study rhythm developing. You will be more likely to view study as part of your normal, everyday life, and will gradually find that you won't need to consciously 'motivate' yourself every time you need to get down to work.
Try to link your study subject to 'real life'. Look out for newspaper articles, radio or TV programmes related to your study. Try to involve friends and family in your subject matter so that you discuss ideas together and make the subject 'come to life'.
Tick off all the tasks you have set yourself when you have achieved them and reward yourself. You may also like to give yourself some incentives for completing tasks; for example, if you manage to finish an essay on time, you will allow yourself to have an evening off to enjoy yourself with friends, etc.
Remember that the more you procrastinate, the worse you will feel about approaching a task. Try not to get into the habit of putting off what you need to do and making excuses for not doing your work - it only leads to unnecessary anxiety and stress.
Try to start all of your endeavours with a positive mindset. By feeling positive towards your studies, you will get much more out of the experience of being at university.
Regular, evenly spaced study is always more productive than inconsistent and spasmodic bursts of effort.

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Authored by Jane McDonnell and Richard Yates, Learning and Teaching Unit