What to do if you have a hard time studying over a long period of time:

What to do if you have a hard time studying over a long period of time:

Have you ever said to yourself that you work well under pressure. Have you ever told yourself you can only work hard when the exam- whatever it is you have to achieve- is close. I used to be like that too. If you have felt the above then you know that thinking like this can make you not perform as well as you should, and sometimes result in failure. After we mess up what do we say to ourselves? I will not wait till last minute next time. Then what happens? You just do the same thing and put off your studying till the last minute. Why? Because you work better under pressure.

Medical school is a time where you have to assimilate lots of material over a short time. You do this for your biochemistry, physiology, anatomy etc classes. You do this for your standardized exams. I studied hard for my step  exams. For my step 3 exam I studied for 1 whole year.

The longer the period of time that you have to focus on studying, say 3 months and up, the more difficult it is to maintain the intensity and focus needed to study. There are so many distractions we have to overcome to be able to focus for that long. You start studying and then you take a long break and start again. This happens over and over. You can't build any momentum. Then you blink and the exam you wanted to take next year is right around the corner. You know you are not ready so you postphone your exam for a few months. How can you stop doing this? How can you stop being your own worst enemy? How can you study over a long period of time with consistency and focus?

Throughout my high school and undergraduate years, I used to wait till the last minute to study. In medical school this was not enough. I had to revamp my studying to keep up with the material. I started studying consistently and daily. The thing that worked helped me was motivation. 

Whenever we say we learn better when we are under pressure we are not seeing the big picture! What we mean to say is we work better when we are motivated. When we push our studying off to the last day, we are well aware of the fact that if we do not work hard we will fail. This motivates us to study. This motivation is what we assume to be working well under pressure.

Knowing this minute distinction makes it easier to start studying in way in advance. If you want to start studying early all you need to do is to find the motivation to study everyday.

How do you get yourself motivated? There are numerous resources like youtube, and  books that give you an idea of how to become motivated and to maintain motivation. Sometimes it can be as simply as "if I do not do this I will fail." Sometimes you need to actively motivate yourself. I have occasionally listened some of these videos.

For now I will leave you with the names of a few motivational speakers I listen to, good people that have achieved much through concerted effort and not through luck. I will give you 4 motivators that I love.

Names:

Jim rohn

Zig Ziglar

Les Brown.  

ET the hip hop preacher.