The Scientifically Proven Method for Boosting Your Study Motivation!
As a study strategies expert, I get to travel all over the country teaching students how to learn better and study better. One of the biggest issues students face is that they lack motivation and struggle with procrastination. Honestly, we all struggle with this. But, in today's episode, I will show you how you can tap into endless motivation and will be a happier and more successful student.
Full Episode Transcript
All, right guys, this is day two of mornings with Dr. Pinesett, and yesterday I'd read the entire first line of this book and we only got to the first three words. So today we're gonna be continuing with that today. And if you guys don't know what this is, this is an opportunity, right? It's social distancing time right now. It's coronavirus time right now. And so a lot of you guys are living a lifestyle that you're not accustomed to. And so what I thought would be nice to keep people's spirits up to also keep us moving forward in this time of kind of standstill is to bring you guys some messages throughout the week to help you guys be better to help you guys think better to help you guys feel better. That's what this is all about. And so today we're gonna continue that. Let's get the intro.
Let's go, but stop making excuses. Stop whining. Stop right. Get at it. No excuses just dominate.
All right, guys. Thank you again for joining me. As I said, I'm Dr. Pinesett, the Study Doc. And today we're going to continue with just the first line of the introduction of a great book.
If you guys have not read it, I highly let you guys go pick it up. It's called the 'Practicing mind, developing focus and discipline in your life' by Thomas M Sterner. And this book is rich in knowledge as evidenced by our previous video was 10, some odd minutes of me talking about the first three words of it. So let's continue with our journey here.
So the first year where we talked about before our real peace and contentment in our lives, so understanding where our peace extend it comes from real pieces. Continuing in our lives comes from realizing that life is a process to engage in a journey down a path that we can choose to experience as magical. I can't, I love this. Um, for you guys, as we talk about real contentment and real joy, I talked about the fact yesterday that we have to align our lives, what our core principles are, the second part of finding real contentment and real joy. And this is actually science. I think sometimes you hear a fluffy quote and you don't understand the science behind some of it, but this is actually real.
If you want to be joyful in what you're pursuing right in your goals, maybe it's premed, maybe it's being a successful student in college or in high school or in graduate school, wherever you trying to be. We have to recognize that life is hard, right? Striving going for a goal. It's hard, it's difficult, right? It's not easy. And so as because the journey is hard, it can be, I don't wanna say it can wear you down, but it can be difficult. Right? And in our feelings, we can see that difficulty and it can wear on us and it can wear us down emotionally, spiritually, physically, right?
Some of you guys, me during residency putting on a ton of weight because it was wearing me down physically, this is honest, right? I couldn't wait for the end of residency. I felt like it was slave labor. It was an awful process. And for me, it was very difficult. It wore me down emotionally wore me down in so many ways in the moment I finished residency, it was like a weight was off my shoulders. But what's interesting is that because it was such a grind in residency, I didn't practice what I preach. I didn't practice. What I had always been about, which was essentially what this quote is talking about. Real piece of contentment in our lives come from realizing that life is a process to engage in a journey down a path that we can choose.
What I like about is that we must recognize, and this is science here is that our motivation, our happiness, our zest for wanting to do things gets zapped. If we lose sight of the fact that life is truly a series of processes, oftentimes you guys are students. You say things like, why am I learning this? This is nothing what I want to do!
Like, I just want to save patients. I just want to do this. Want to write books, just want to, and you're like, why am I taking these other classes that have no bearing on what I want to do, right? Or I just want to get to this point. I wish I was a what's that movie 13 going on 30 great movie, guys, 30 flirty and thriving or something like that, something along those lines, but she wishes to be 30. And then she gets to be 30. She recognized that I want to go back and I want to live that, all that whole thing. And for many of us as students, or as people moving through and striving towards a goal, we forget, we get so focused on the goal that we can't find happiness until we meet that goal. But oftentimes that goal is far off. And so every day can feel like a sludge. And like we're stuck in the mud because we aren't at the goal because what I'm saying, we have to remember that life truly is a journey.
Even moving towards a specific goal, that's a journey. And if we want to be happy with ourselves, we have to enjoy the journey and recognize that it's a journey and recognize that we have chosen this path. We have chosen that goal. We have chosen this journey. Do you guys know what I'm saying right now, whatever standard you set for your life, whatever goal, whatever you aspire to be, you've chosen it? So if you're unhappy with it, ask yourself, right, go back to yesterday's video. Are you in alignment with what your true purpose is? Have you chosen wisely or have you let someone else choose your path for you? Did you fall into a package? You didn't recognize you had a choice.
You could choose what you want your life to be, what you want to become, what you're trying to strive for. Did you not recognize that this might be a time to revisit that, okay, you're choosing this. And as part of that, we must understand that success is not instant. Our goal achievement, nothing worth having comes without what effort, nothing worth having comes without what sacrifice, nothing worth having comes without what significant time spent invested in that pursuit.
So it will not be instant. We have chosen to sacrifice. We have chosen to work. We have chosen dedicated large amounts of time from someone who has been in school for forever. I can tell you this right, four years of college, two years for a master's before years of medical school, four years of residency, man, I'm a career student y'all and now out in the real world. And it's interesting people say like, when you get older, your perspective, I got grades in my bigger jobs, by my beer to shave today, you get perspective on that journey. And for some of you guys who are in this journey, like, man, it's so far away that that, that white coat is so far away for you guys who are younger.
You're like, man college graduation is so far away is when you get there, you look back on it. You're like, man, it was a lot of years, but it went by fast and you'll start to miss certain aspects, things that you didn't appreciate before. Like I miss not having to actually show up at work. I miss the option of being able to just like, hang out in the dorms and, and talk to friends. Like I, I miss that, that collegiality of college, right? I missed that.
I missed grad school where, I mean, now all my life is very, you know, fact and science-based and treat the patient. But I miss my graduate school when I'm talking about public health. And as with many things, there is no always right answer, right. To save populations. And so it was cool just to kind of debate and talk about things and, and see if there really are multiple sides to every argument and very pursuit.
But that whole journey to get here, I can look back now and I can say, man, every single moment, even the moments I hated, maybe who I am, the dark moments during residency, where I felt like, man, this is awful. I feel like there's large amounts of poop being dumped on my head that made me a compassionate attending. So now as I teach residents, I'm very sympathetic to what they go through. I helped with things that normally an attending, maybe wouldn't help with why?
Because that journey of understanding what they go through and how long they've been at the hospital compared to me, gives me compassion to want to help them. So what I encourage, all of you guys to do is to recognize what you're going through right now is a temporary one. But secondly, you chose it. And thirdly, it's a journey. And the joy is in the journey.
Write this down. The joy is in the journey. This is science. There are various types of goals. And these goals result in different types of motivation and result in different types of happiness, joy, and contentment. The first time which most of you guys are calm or familiar with is extrinsic motivation. Say it again. Extrinsic motivation, meaning your motivation comes from outside things.
This is what most people are familiar with. It's the stick in the carrot you say to yourself, man, if I do great, then I'm going to get that carrot. I'm going to get that trophy. I make that Dean's list. I'm gonna get that white coat. If I do poorly, my family will hate me. I will flunk out of school.
Everyone will ridicule me and think I'm dumb. It's the carrot and the stick. That's extrinsic motivation. And that is the lowest form of motivation. Although it is the most common right? Cause often, right? The lowest form of anything is often the most common. That's why being average is a travesty. Cause that means you're the lowest common denominator we want to be above average.
So extrinsic motivation is bad. Not only because it doesn't really work as motivation, right? It's only shortly of bursts of motivation, but secondly, it doesn't actually create productivity. It doesn't create creativity. Doesn't create striving because all you're trying to do is do the bare minimum to get the reward with the bare minimum of not to get the stick.Okay, so that's extrinsic motivation.
The other type of motivation is intrinsic motivation. And the first type is intrinsic. Goal-based motivation. Meaning you were motivated by something that is personally meaningful to you, but you focus on that goal. So for some of you guys, you're like, man, I just want the A, I want the A and all you think about is the A and that's an intrinsic goal.
So yes, it means something to you. Cause you may not want the a cause I want, I want to feel good about myself. I want to feel like my hard work has paid off. That's great. But the problem is now you're looking at a goal. And when you look at that goal, it seems great. It does lead to more motivation.
It does lead to more productivity because now it's something that's meaningful to you and will drive you and will stay motivated. But the problem is joy is lacking. Contentment is lacking. Peace is lacking because we're never at the goal. So we're always striving. And so we can't be happy until we reach that goal. Does that make sense to everybody?
So the third type of motivation, which you want to try to get to is an intrinsic journey based motivation, meaning you tie your journey in each part of that journey needs today in each moment of that journey to the end goal. And you recognize the steps that it's taking you to get to that goal. And you appreciate, and you are motivated and you are rewarded by these simple steps that move you closer to a goal that's different, right? Did you guys see the difference there?
So your goal can be get an a, but the intrinsic journey based person will say, okay, to get that a, I need to get through all of this material and to get through all of this material and know it. I need to make sure that I'm working every day consistently.
And it's part of working every day. I wanna make sure that I'm working hard during my study blocks. Then I'm taking an adequate break so I can be consistent. So that way I know, okay, wait, I need this many blocks. So if I get my two hours in today, that's a successful part of my journey.
And I appreciate, and I celebrate those two hours and people used to ship off this. You guys, well, I'm very unorthodox, but during college I would go into tests and I'm yelled domination. But what I, I less often talk about is that after I would study, I would also dominate, not loud.
You know, if I'm going to lie or whatever, domination, just like, yeah, yeah. I would vocalize it domination just to myself because I want to celebrate the journey. I want you to celebrate. I want to appreciate that moment when I was in residency, even in these down moments, when I felt really in the sludge, what got me through was recognizing and pulling myself back.
The fact that it is a journey, it is a journey and the difficult patient you just had is setting you up. So that way, when you are an attending, when you are alone, you will be able to care for that difficult patient. You would have seen it before. You would have been through this, that gunshot wound, blood everywhere at bloody airway. These are the moments that are training you to journey.
You got through it. Domination, domination. Yes, yes. Right? And recognizing that we have a choice every single day to stay on a path or get off that path. The journey we have chosen should be fulfilling because we chose the journey. You do have a choice. You always have a choice. So choose the right path for yourself. And it's amazing how much more motivated, how much more happy you will be because you will have actively participated in the selection process of that journey that you're going to be living for. Who knows how long forever, because truly guys, the reality is, is even now, right? I'm a physician.
I practice anesthesiology. I've reached a pinnacle quote, unquote of where a lot of guys want to get it. It's still a journey. There's still goals. I have so aspirations. I have every single day thing, things I want to do. And so it never ends that journey never ends. So we've got to change how we're looking at it, going from extrinsic to instruct, to goal, to intrinsic journey based motivation guys. Yes. Right. Again, we're still looking at the sentence where so far we are real peace and contentment in our lives.
Come from realizing that life is a process to engage in a journey down a path that we can choose. So choose that path wisely guys, and enjoy every moment of it. Guys find the joy, even in the bitter moments that are hard, that are difficult. So thank you guys again for joining me. I'm Dr. Pinesett and my website is thestudydoc.com.
Lots of great courses over there. Guys. Lots of great programs for you guys to help you guys study better, have a better mindset to be successful in college, to be successful, graduate school, to get into medical school, to help you guys throughout the entire process. So, so please go check out my website thestudydoc.com. I also, if you guys don't know, I've got the podcast popping off, you got multiple podcasts. So get search my name and your podcast engine check out my podcast. The other thing is the YouTube channel. You guys know. So actually you guys like subscribe and hit the bell to turn on notifications. Cause I go live regularly on this YouTube channel. So I want you guys to make sure you're getting these messages every single day.
And we always end the same way guys. How do we end? How do we cap everything we bought together? Let's bring all together.
No excuses just dominate. So you guys next time today is the day. Guys. No more excuses, no more complaining you're going to take your future in your own hands. You're going to dominate. You're going to be successful. Get to my website, thestudydoc.com. I challenge you. What are you going to do today to make your life better?
The Dr. Pinesett Digest
Receive exclusive discounts, special offers and be the first to get fresh updates from Dr. Pinesett.