What do you do when you just can’t get yourself motivated?

Scare yourself?

Dangle rewards in your future?

Procrastinate?

These are all good things, each in their own weird ways, but if you haven’t hit upon that special recipe for how to get yourself motivated to do some of the academic work on your plate, here are three ingredients for a delicious motivational mindset.

Value

Consider Value: Not feeling connected to the Bio unit you’re reviewing to prep for the exam? Why does studying for this Bio exam even matter? Oh yeah, Aunt Cee died of breast cancer and since then I’ve felt like the only real value in life is to help people live through cancer.

Relevance

The idea here is that it’s YOUR task to make connections with what you’re learning about. How is multivariable calculus related to your quest for protecting the world’s fresh water supply? How is macro economics related to your interest in art history? The more you can connect, the more you will see the relevance to your intrinsic interests, and the more motivated you will feel.

Expectancy

Do you think you can or think you can’t? Does a past failure get in the way of a future success? The way we think about learning has an impact on it. If we think it will be insurmountably difficult, when the challenges come it will confirm what we expect, and your mind will feel satisfied. But if we think about things as being difficult but eventually learn-able, when the hard parts come along, the challenge feels normal, expected, and surmountable.