How to motivate yourself after coming back from break

Over Thanksgiving break, the majority of us turned off all functions of our brain except those needed to eat and breathe. And rightly so — we deserved that break.

Of course, it only lasted 4 days, which has made it a struggle to switch back to school mode. Just as we were finally sinking into relaxation, we’re forced to go at it again, making us saltier than the Atlantic. Salty turns into a refusal to do work and from there, it all goes downhill.

But now is not the time to be stubborn — finals are just around the corner. Some of you have been failing all semester, saying you’ll make it up during finals so you really need to be on your game.

Here’s how to motivate yourself for one last push after the break.

Countdown the days

As the saying goes, a person can do anything for 10 seconds. Once you conquer your challenge for 10 seconds, you just start counting again. For students, this concept can be used for studying or any kind of effort related to school. Unfortunately, if we counted by 10 seconds we would have to restart the count too many times, but we can most certainly use hours or days.

First of all, we only have about 15 days of classes left. That’s including weekends, which means we have even less. I have faith in everyone that if you’ve conquered school for 10 months out of every year for at least 18 years now, you can survive another two weeks. Take your studying one step at a time and don’t forget study breaks. You can’t consume information like a machine, so you might as well take it an hour or two at a time, depending on your personal ability.

Force your parents to take you on an awesome vacation over winter break

When you have something to look forward to, you’ll be happy to push through whatever work you have blocked your way. Knowing that you’ll be sipping wine in Italy in a few weeks should give you just enough energy to not fail your exams and actually get your homework done; use it as inspiration. Or if that’s not enough, take it as a threat. Maybe your parents won’t take you on that vacation because they’d rather save the money for that extra semester you’ll be taking. Either way, just do what you have to do for that trip.

The Holiday season is here

December is on our doorstep, which means Christmas and New Years. If you didn’t pick up what is so exciting about this, it means lots of drinking. Egg nog, spiked egg nog — spiked everything really. After a semesters worth of hard work, all the comfort food and drinks will be yours. Tis the season to be jolly after all. Even if you’re not going anywhere, you have so much to look forward to. Those cards from grandparents that make it rain with 20 dollar bills, presents from bae, and of course, school’s present to you. AKA time to finally do whatever you want.

This also means reuniting with those too-cool-for-Jersey high school friends that decided to go to school across the country. It’s truly the most wonderful time of the year. Don’t spend it planning which summer courses you’ll need to take to make up for the courses you just botched.

If you’re a senior graduating in December, get your shit together

For those graduating in December, this is the last couple weeks of school you’ll ever face — ever. Imagine failing your courses and being forced to stay an extra semester after all these years of hard work. That’s right, forget that job offer you got, moving out of your parent’s house, becoming a certified adult. It would all have to wait another 5 months. We’re almost at the finish line guys, don’t mess up. Besides, if you do, you may just become the talk of failure at next Thanksgiving’s family dinner. If that doesn’t inspire you, what will?