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Posted on 20. Dec, 2010 by George in Accelerated Learning, productivity Do you find studying difficult as well? Do you have a hard time understanding certain topics or concepts? It doesnt matter whether you are one who often ace or fail the exams. No matter how smart or stupid you think you are, you can become 10 times or even hundred times better than you are right now. In todays blog post, Ill be sharing with you the 7 habits to become smarter in your studies and understand faster.
to grow faster, and we can play games among our friends and with other strangers online. Games like Counterstrike, Starcraft and Warcraft were some of my favorite games. And that was why Im pretty good at winning my friends at that point in time. I somehow knew that interest is important in our studies, but I couldnt understand how to love what you are studying. Later on, it was because of the rejections from some junior college that got me fired up and putting more interests in my studies. I learned to like what I was studying. As I looked back towards my journey, and how I started to like what Im studying, I realized that I used some of the motivational techniques to spark off the desire and interests in my studies. Pain and Pleasure We need both pain and pleasure for us to take action so that we move towards our goals. Some people are more motivated when they have pain, a few are motivated when they are moving towards something pleasurable. For us to shift our interest to study, we need both pain and pleasure to motivate ourselves to love what we are studying. Let us go in depth into whats pain and pleasure. Pain Most parents usually implement some punishments for their kids if they do not study or do well for their exams. Well, this is known as external pain and it may work or may not work for you as a student. I dont think external pain is very effective as I was a very rebellious student, and the more punishments there were, the more I will try to find a way around it. I feel that most students nowadays are like this as well. What I feel that is more powerful is the intrinsic pain that comes from inside. Like I want to do well so I could support my parents, I want to do well because I am sick of being in poverty, I want to excel in my studies so I could find a cure for my mums illnesses. For me, I was trying to get into the junior college and the principal rejected me, even after pleading with her. It was humiliating and I felt like Im not smart enough.
And it was in that point in time that I said to myself that Im going to prove her wrong and get all Aces for my Cambridge A Level Exams. This became a real motivation for me when I was studying for exams. Whenever I got stuck in some problems or questions, this whole incident would appear in my mind and I would continue to crack my head for answers to these questions. You need to search deeply for whats making you pain that will make you take MASSIVE ACTION towards studying. Pleasure We feel happy when there is a positive outcome in an experience. When we reached our goal, we will experience the positive outcome. Most parents try to reward their kids when they study hard and achieve good grades. And this is also a form of external pleasure to motivate the students. Different people have different values in what makes them happy. Some people yearn for fame, some needs love, some feels happy when they achieve something. Just like pain, you need to know what gives you the real pleasure. Not those kinds of external pleasure like winning a lottery, but those internal pleasure like having quality times with your loved ones or achieving the results you desired. If you talked about games, what really makes the games so addictive is that every time you win someone else, you feel a sense of satisfaction and achievement. Sometimes you lose the game, and sometimes you win the game. But the more you played the games, the better you become and the more times you will win the game. The truth is winning a game isnt easy. If you are a parent and you try to win the game, youll know that its not easy. And because it is not easy to win, when you win a game, you feel more sense of satisfaction and achievement. This sense of satisfaction and achievement is very strong. It can make you addicted to the game so badly that sometimes, a person sense of self worth depends on the game.
That was how I felt in the past. As a 14 year old teen, I was pretty good in the game and it made me feel that I can only succeed in the game (especially I failed so many of my tests). What if you can transfer this sense of satisfaction and achievement from winning games to winning your studies? That was exactly what I did. However, in the case of winning in studies, it is a matter of winning myself. Every test, I made it a point that I must get better grades each time. And each time I get better grades, I feel the sense of satisfaction and achievement just like winning the game. I then became more and more interested in what Im learning in school. And the more interested in my studies, the easier and easier it became. If you can control these 2 pull and push motivational factors well, you can easily motivate yourself to be interested in your studies. Start by finding out whats your own inner pain and pleasure buttons.
He imagined that if a person were to stand at the clock tower, the clock would seem normal to him. But when the bus moves at the speed of light, the light from the clock is not able to catch up with him and hence the clock would stop moving. And this was how he discovered the theory of relativity. To learn effectively, you want to tap into both sides of your brain and apply whole brain. By using whole brain learning, you are able to connect your facts and ideas effectively and look from a bigger picture. Whole brain learning is about using more senses in learning visual, auditory and kinesthetic. With your imagination and visualization, you are able to tap into apply whole brain learning in your studies. In fact, whole brain learning is a entirely different system of learning that is much more powerful than what we are usually taught in school. Back in those junior college days, I had a classmate who often topped the class with the best grades. He is different from many other friends as he would often crack lame jokes using what we are taught in class. Sometimes he even cracks lame jokes in class and the teachers would be exasperated with him. As I looked back in those days, that was exactly what made him scored so well for his exams. He was unknowingly using his imagination to crack those jokes and enjoying himself in the learning process. Sometimes a little humor and imagination could also help us to learn more effectively in class!
The initial phase of learning a new thing is the most difficult stage. Even when we play a game, the initial phase isnt easy as easy as we thought. But once explore and learn through it, it becomes easier and easier. This applies to our studies as well. We will face many hurdles and confusion when we first started to learn it. But if we give up without even thinking, then we are not learning anything at all. When I was practicing questions back in those days, I had gotten stumped in some difficult questions for a few days. And I never give up till I work out the solutions all by myself. As a result, the methods Id use d to solve the questions left a lasting impression in my mind. But thats not all. Usually advanced concepts and topics are developed upon the easier ones. If you dont understand the easier concepts, then itll be harder for you to understand the difficult ones. The key here is to think of the solution by yourself for some time. Even if you have done it wrongly, it doesnt matter, you just need to learn from your mistakes.
got to revise a little for it. They can still have fun and play near the exams. Even when you use whole brain learning, you also want to learn consistently. Do You Study Consistently?
No, I studied only when there's a test Yes, I studied for an hour a day Yes, I studied 2 hours a day Yes, I studied more than 3 hours a day View Results Loading ...
3rd hour, you became even more tired and can only 25 words in that hour. If you add that up, you have memorized a total of 175 words in 3 hours. Can you see that you are not using your time effectively when you study too long without resting? You need to take a rest too when you study so that you can keep your productivity at 100 words per hour. Heres what you can do to keep your productivity levels up. Take a 15 minutes break after 1 hour. During the 15 minutes, do something else like washing up, exercising, playing a musical instrument, go for a toilet break. But dont do anything that suck your concentration away like playing computer games. Take an hour break after 3 studying session. After each studying session, take an hour break before you start another studying session. With these strategic allocated breaks, you will have no problem in studying effectively and keeping your productivity up.
There was a period of time when I usually get Cs, Ds or Fs. And at that point in time, I took a close look at my exam papers to find out what kind of mistakes do I usually made. And most of the time, I found that I dont understand the concepts or facts well enough. As a result, I went back home and redo the questions again one more time. After that, I also took similar questions from past year papers and try to do it again to see if I understand how to do it correctly.