No matter whether you are a student or a teacher, sometimes it can be difficult to find motivation to start or complete a task. Instead, you may spend hours procrastinating with other activities and that opens an unhelpful cycle of stress and unhappiness. Stressful environments which are common in educational settings can increase the likelihood of maladaptive procrastination (1) and hamper motivation. This digest offers four resources on ways to think about and boost (self-)motivation.

1. How to Motivate Yourself: 25 Ways to Increase Motivation by Scott H. Young for LifeHack

An overview of different techniques to increase self-motivation. There are many concrete tips in here. I think, for example, the 5-min Strategy is an interesting one that can help overcome that initial obstacle of starting a task.

2. How to Set the Right Goals and Stay Motivated | TED talk by Prof Ayelet Fishbach

Prof Ayelet Fishbach is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth. In her TED talk she takes the audience on a research-informed journey on how to increase motivation. She uses different practical examples and makes useful recommendations.

3. How to Motivate Yourself: 11 Tips for Self-Improvement by Coursera

Some more tips on how to increase self-motivation that focus more on goal setting and habits but also highlight the importance of emotional aspects.

4. You 2.0: Your Future Is Now | Shankar Vedantam in conversation with Hal Hershfield for The Hidden Brain podcast

I found this podcast episode incredibly interesting. It looks at motivation through the lens of focusing on the ‘future you’. I have never thought of it in this way, and I found this a refreshing view that opens up new techniques to approach self-motivation.

Reference:

Sirois, F. M. (2023). Procrastination and Stress: A Conceptual Review of Why Context Matters. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(6), 5031. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20065031