On Staying Motivated
As exams are fast approaching (again), I've been struggling to find the motivation required for me to dive into all this material. The one thing I've realized about studying med is that the hardest part isn't in understanding the material, but rather accepting that it's all I'm going to be looking at for the next several months of my life. In the long term, 16 months is no time at all. However it can be so difficult to visualize the end goal when you're 10 slides into learning a 100 slide lecture, 1 of 20 for one class, during one block. On days like today, where I become endlessly distracted by the myriad of articles, news updates, images, tweets and videos presented to me by various media, it's necessary to take a chunk of time to get out of the books and do my own thing. However, days like today seem to happen more frequently than not and I've been frustrated with my inability to find fun in my studies. All that I'm learning is so fascinating! But there is so much to learn that I barely have time to scrape the surface of many topics worth looking into, reading papers about, and grasping a full understanding of.
This feeling of overwhelm is the root of my lack of motivation, I think. It was during today's me-time that it dawned on me how in order to best focus on my studies, I've gotta get my creative juices flowing. (I am an arts major, after all). It has taken some time for me to realize what type of outlet I need during all this, but it's become increasingly apparent that what I'm passionate about other than my current academic interests is generating content. Feeling like I've done something. The satisfaction of completing short-term tasks, rather than studying, studying, studying for an end goal that is far out of sight. That will continue, of course, but only as I achieve mini projects along the way. It isn't easy to be a med student, and it's only going to get harder, but I'm convinced I can find a way to make it damn interesting! Let's see how long it takes...
Originally published 22/03/2015
