It can often be a daunting task studying for an exam, interview, or other similar purpose especially if an individual is having difficulty staying motivated. As a result, it is essential for an individual to find various methods that he or she can use to stay motivated and to make sure that his or her actions are ultimately leadings towards a particular goal. These methods should usually use a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as this will help an individual remain as motivated a possible. However, it is important to realize that there are key differences between the techniques that an individual should employ to use intrinsic motivation effectively and the techniques that an individual should employ to use extrinsic motivation effectively.
Intrinsic motivation, which refers to the desire to complete a task for any of the intangible rewards that an individual receives from himself or herself, can be used to motivate an individual's studying by using a few simple techniques. First, the individual should set a series of goals that the individual hopes to achieve by completing the task. These goals should not necessarily be anything that earns the individual a tangible reward, but rather something that the individual wants to achieve such as learning how to write a computer program or learning the material in a particular chapter of a textbook. The individual should then write down each of these goals and cross them off as the individual completes each goal. This will allow the individual to look at his or her goal list and realize how much he or she has already accomplished and how much more he or she can still accomplish if the individual continues working. Secondly, the individual should identify a series of values that are important to the individual such as "it is important for me to be a hard-worker" or "it is important for me to know what I am doing if I am going to be a doctor." The individual should then attempt to determine how his or her values apply to the task at hand. For example, an individual that hopes to be a great doctor someday may believe that it is important for him or her to know what he or she is doing. Since the individual believes that it is important to know what he or she is doing, the individual may also realize that it is important for the individual to complete certain tasks such as studying the material covered in the individual's medical textbook.