Description: Chemistry tutor Polly shares her thoughts and tips on how to find success by building your motivation through organisation and self-belief.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Unfortunately growing up isn’t as far away as it once seemed.
You have to decide now what you want to do as a career, potentially for the rest of your life, which is quite a daunting thought.
Whether it’s being a doctor, teacher or lawyer, GCSE’s play a key role in letting you reach your dreams.
They decide which A-Levels you can take, and in turn which University course you can get into.
That is why getting motivation levels up now is so important for your future.
However, this can seem like an impossible task when it feels like the world is swallowing you up.
Feeling the Pressure
It is likely that many things will add pressure to your GCSE journey, and can consequently make you feel like the world is against you.
From my experience the initial pressure I felt during my first GCSE year was from my teachers.
During one of my parent’s evenings, my chemistry teacher told me that it was pointless for me to aim for A’s and I should be happy with C’s as predicted grades.
However, I was far from happy with this prediction, as I needed A’s to reach my dream career and go to university. It was that evening I decided to sort myself and motivation out, for good.
Organisation is Key
The first thing I needed was organisation and this was done through my calendar on excel.
It was important for me to put events that were coming up from that point up until my exams.
I made sure to set aside me time so that I didn’t burn out. I then printed out each syllabus for my subjects and split this up to fit into my calendar.
My calendar was then stuck to my bedroom door so that I could tick off each day like a checklist.
Each tick was like a small pat on the back which helped keep up my motivation, even on my worst days. The challenging aspect was still yet to come – revising.
Revision Technique
In order to revise, I figured out that I needed to understand the content rather than try to remember random facts that didn’t make sense to me.
To do this, I watched endless YouTube videos, read textbooks over and over, asked for help from tutors and teachers whenever I could.
The most important bit of advice I can give is to ask questions, even if you need to double-check that you understand something you think is simple.
Once I understood what I needed to learn, I could then start trying to remember this new knowledge.
At first, this seemed like an impossible task, but then I realised all I needed was a revision technique that worked for me.
I tried revision cards, highlighting key points of textbooks and a number of other techniques that teachers had convinced us would work.
It wasn’t until 6 months before my exams that I figured out the right revision techniques for me; posters and self-testing.
My bedroom was soon filled with brightly coloured A4 pieces of paper covered in anything from World War 2 to the Periodic Table.
Each evening I would walk around my room reading over these posters and test myself on their content.
Ones I couldn’t remember I would repeat over and over until the knowledge was firmly set in my head.
These posters helped me achieve A’s and A*’s in my GCSE’s
The countless hours and colouring pens I had spent and used over the previous 6 months were all worth it at that very moment and still are to this day after completing my BSc (HONS) degree.
Believe in Yourself
Finding that motivation after the parent’s evening back in my first GCSE year was what I needed to reach my dream career today.
To find motivation, find what drives you to be the best you can be, whether that’s teachers telling you “it’s impossible to do well”, peers doubting your abilities or the little voice inside your head telling you to “give up”.
Use all of them as a catalyst for finding that motivation. Most importantly, believe in yourself.
By Tutor Polly. Contact Us