Even though everyone tells you that A Levels are important, it can still be easy to lose motivation and avoid studying- especially around exam time when you may start to feel burnt out. However, there are ways to maintain your motivation to keep studying right through to the end of your exams so that you give yourself the best chance of success.

1. Focus on your goal

An obvious way to stay motivated is to focus on your end goal. This can be anything from finally getting a pass in a subject that you’ve struggled in all year, to getting better grades than another family member or even getting into Cambridge or another top university. Try and have a little reminder of your goal around you (like a mug from your first choice university or something similar) so that you can look at it if you’re starting to lose motivation whilst studying.

2. Reward yourself

Another way to stay motivated is to reward yourself. As exams get closer and closer it is easy to start feeling inadequate, especially if you didn’t get the grades you wanted in your mocks. To overcome this try and reward yourself whenever you improve or take the first steps towards improvement. Treating yourself to your favourite chocolate or playing your favourite video game whenever you do well in a test is a great way to remain positive and motivated about studying.

3. Put things in perspective

Even if you don’t seem to be doing much worth rewarding, if you look at how far you’ve come then I can almost guarantee that you will find something positive. Pausing to think about all the things you’ve learnt since the start of the year is an excellent way to put things in perspective and realise that you’re not doing as badly as you think. Even if you’re not achieving the A grades that you might want you will have still come a long way since the start of the year and that’s always something worth rewarding!

4. Create Checklists

Of course techniques like this won’t work for everyone, especially if you struggle to find positives in a situation. Try and create a checklist of everything you need to revise so that you can physically see the progress being made as you continue to study. Sometimes it can feel like you’re just studying endlessly without really getting anywhere but by being able to tick things off it’ll be much clearer how your hard work is paying off.

5. Take regular breaks

You can also use techniques like the Pomodoro Method to avoid getting burnt out during long study sessions. Taking regular breaks will make it much easier to keep going for long periods of time and remain motivated (even if your only motivation is making it towards the next break). Don’t waste your breaks either- it may seem tempting to just check Facebook but that can quickly spiral into a much longer break than you intended. Instead try and get up from wherever you’re studying to get a snack or a drink so that you don’t feel like you’re constantly trapped in the same place.

6. Do your best!

The final thing to remember is that you just have to do your best. For some people that might be pushing to get A*s but for others it could simply be working to understand that concept you’ve struggled with all year. If you work to your abilities rather than comparing yourself to other people it will become much easier to focus on your successes even if they may seem small compared to other people’s. A Levels will not work for everyone and many people have gone on to great success even though they didn’t exactly do well in them; it’s much more important that you just work on doing your best!