Say goodbye to over study forever is the first Study Habits Masterclass. It has been created for busy high school students who want to have study habits that support their health and well being.
Increasing study hours doesn’t sound like a big issue for students, but it causes both poor results and poor health.
Accordingly, the common signs of over studying include:
- an inability to concentrate
- annoyance at silly mistakes
- feelings of tiredness or irritability
- inability to go to sleep at night
- dreams about studying
- progressively worse test scores or grades
- memory less
- depression
You would agree then, anything that poorly affects health and well-being needs to go away forever!
Read on to discover how to choose healthy study habits. Or you can watch my coaching video here.
CAN YOU REALLY STUDY TOO MUCH?
Many of my teen students do not know that they can study too much! They usually believe their poor results are due to a lack of preparation or understanding.
Let me introduce you to ‘Miss B’. We started working together in Year 9 after her grades began dropping in most of her core subject areas.
When I asked her why she needed tutoring, she said that she wasn’t able to keep up with the work load. She was perplexed at how she had dropped being an ‘A student’ to a ‘C student’ despite increasing her study hours, so it was negatively impacting her belief about herself as a learner.
Initially, we worked together in one core subject area and it turned out that she needed help learning how to study.
In one term, Miss B. moved from a ‘C’ to an ‘A’ grade. Although pleased, I spent the next term teaching her how to separate her grades from her self-worth and self-belief.
During our second term together, I noticed how tried and distressed she was becoming. Our weekly chats gave me valuable insight into her study routine. As far as I could tell, her study hours were coming close to her school contact hours and this alarmed me!
As a result, she was making silly mistakes in tests, not able to switch off at night to sleep and felt like she was overreacting to issues in her relationships with friends and family members.
In the next term, Miss B. maintained her ‘A’ grade, but with only 2 hours of study a week. This surprised her and gave me the evidence I needed to convince her that you could study too much!
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE?
Now, obviously, you don’t sit there and choose these feelings. You don’t choose to be worried, not sleep or feel anxious about the future. True? So, why does this happen?
Our childhood experiences contribute to our belief about ourselves, other people and the world. It is the belief, however, about success influences the number of hours that we study.
In my case, when it comes to over study and over work my driving force is to prove that I am good enough. For Miss B. it was to get high grades to prove that she was significant.
What do you think is driving you to study more than what you need to? Is it a need to prove that you are perfect, good enough, significant, capable or worthy of success?
Once you become aware of what drives you to do more, you can choose to ignore them and focus on creating healthy study habits.
CHOOSE A HEALTHY STUDY MINDSET
Now, I want to introduce you to the mindset tool that that will help you say goodbye to over study forever!
I call it the “What You Know & What You Don’t Know” tool. I learned this technique from a recent high school graduate who received an ATAR score of 99.3. She recommended that the focus of study should only be on concepts that you don’t know.
The idea of studying only what you don’t know made so much sense to me, but I was guilty of reviewing content that I already knew. Right?
However, upon learning this tool, I immediately put it into action in my own life. Wow! I significantly increased how much information I could digest and then more time to do other things I enjoyed doing.
Reduce your study hours!
The first thing you need to do is establish ‘what you know’ and ‘what you don’t know’ for your core subjects. You can do this by examining your past assessments and testing yourself on example exam papers, study questions or NAPLAN tests.
Therefore, it means that you can reduce your study hours immediately!
Once you have all the concepts that you don’t understand or remember, you can evenly schedule your study of them throughout the week or month ahead.
As a result, it means that you will feel more relaxed about your study schedule and include more activities that bring you joy. True?
My final thought is a reminder that health and well-being is the most important aspect of life.
Thanks for being here with me. I would love to hear from you about your biggest study challenges and how this masterclass can help you choose healthy study habits in the future.
To join me on one of my online courses or coaching sessions, please click here.
Best wishes, Tara.