As we near the end of first semester, many students are starting to feel academic burnout creep in. With seasonal challenges and the holiday rush, many students can start to feel unmotivated, overwhelmed, unproductive, and burnt out. 

This type of burnout can affect students mentally, emotionally, physically, and academically. In this post, we'll help you move past burnout and prevent it from happening again with these actionable tips.

First, what is student burnout? 

Burnout is a state of chronic stress that can hinder someone's ability to function, both in their academic and personal life. 

Some common signs of burnout include:

• physical and emotional exhaustion
• lack of motivation
• feeling detached, alone, or depressed
• sense of failure or self-doubt
• feeling helpless, trapped, or defeated
• increasingly negative outlook
• decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment

If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, you may be experiencing academic...

Procrastination: the bane of every student’s existence.

Everyone – even highly-driven and accomplished individuals – struggles with procrastination. So, what’s the key to conquering it? A mindset shift. Everyone thinks, learns, studies, and works differently. The only way that anyone can overcome procrastination is by changing the way they think about their work and learning some common strategies about what works for them. 

Recognize that you’re procrastinating 

As mentioned above, everyone thinks, learns, studies, and works differently. Consequently, the strategies that help someone else overcome procrastination may not instantly help you. To start, you’ll want to stop and acknowledge:

• That you are in fact procrastinating
• Why you’re struggling with procrastination 

 Often, procrastination is painted as “laziness,” but this is an oversimplification of the issue. There are numerous reasons why people...

“Ugh I just can’t get motivated.”

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard a student say that. It happens all the time, and there’s a really simple explanation for why it keeps happening.

You’ve been lied to.

Seriously.

Think back to a great movie you’ve watched where the main character finally tackles a challenge they’ve been faced with. What happens? Usually, the character has been struggling for a while, when all of a sudden, there is a split-second where everything changes and suddenly they become inspired. They’re struck with a great idea, become super energized, and are ready to take on the world. That jolt of motivation somehow carries them through an all-nighter, hours of basketball practice, the longest car-chase ever, or while climbing an entire mountain. 

Has that ever happened to you? 

Probably not.

That’s because motivation doesn’t work like that....