studyspo:

A lot of studyspo posts talk about finding motivation or how to motivate oneself to study. My own ask box is full of questions about lost motivation and how to regain it.

I’m going to let you in on a secret: motivation sucks.

It’s never there when you need it, it turns up for a day then disappears for weeks, and it isn’t the way to go about studying.

Motivation is your flakiest of friends.

“But how will I get myself to study without being motivated?” I hear you cry.

Discipline. 

It’ll suck at first. It’ll be difficult. You’ll probably hate it.

But discipline is the key to studying, or doing anything in life, when your flaky friend motivation is nowhere to be seen.

Willpower is something that can be built, something that can grow. If only you exercise it.

You’ll need to be tough on yourself at first; you’ll need to do things you don’t want to in order to improve your discipline.

Eventually, as your willpower gets stronger, you’ll realise that you don’t need to be in a certain mood to study. You are quite capable of studying even when you really can’t be bothered. In fact, if you just start you’ll probably get into the rhythm of things and do more than you thought.

If you’re already disciplined enough to not spend hours procrastinating online, or if you have software such as Cold Turkey or Self Control to limit your web time, check out the Get Disciplined subreddit for tips on building your willpower.