The power of a study mantra
When I was a graduate student at Oxford, the screensaver on my laptop was just one word:
Patience.
It reminded me that:
If I was feeling anxious, the only thing that would calm my anxiety is to persevere.
The things I was learning were complex and I wouldn’t find them easy overnight - it would take time.
I may have had qualities in my favour that got me where I was, but I needed patience to let the world see them.
Screensavers may have become a thing of the past, but not the power of a good study mantra. To figure out your study mantra, think of a quality you wish you had - something that you feel would make you a better learner (often, it is a quality we see and admire in others). For instance, I chose ‘patience’ because I had a tendency to feel insecure if I didn’t find things easy straight away; my mantra helped me stay with a problem longer.
Do you find yourself wishing you had the get-up-and-go attitude of some of your friends? Then your mantra could be ‘action’. It can remind you that:
Inaction is a form of action: by not doing, you are actively choosing not to give things a try.
Those who act, make mistakes. The only way to protect yourself from those is to do nothing.
Action is not a one-off: get into a rhythm and follow one move with another, until it becomes a habit.
Or perhaps you tend to go into panic mode unless your work is perfect? A friend of mine had the letters C A L M displayed on her bookshelf. Looking at them made her remember that:
She could take on a challenge and worry sick about the result, or she could take on the same challenge and work at it calmly.
If her work wasn’t perfect the first time, there would be opportunities to improve it.
If she stayed calm, she’d have more energy to meet her own high expectations.
Whatever your dream quality, it is important that the meaning of your study mantra come from you, and you only: think carefully about the significance your chosen word has for you. Its power comes from its ability to evoke certain thoughts, but for each of us, these thoughts will be different. Your mantra must reassure and empower you, not make you feel deficient in any way (because you’re not!).
Once you have chosen your study mantra based on personal word association, place it strategically in prominent places where you are bound to see it frequently. Why not:
Type it up large so it fills an A4 page, print it out, and hang it above your desk.
Set it as a locked-screen background on your phone.
Write it on the cover of your notebook.
Set it as your laptop background.
Make yourself a bracelet that spells it out.
Put it on a mug and use the mug when you study.
By the way, one of my favourite personal mantras - or mottos - belongs to the textile designer William Morris: si je puis (‘if I can’) prompted Morris to do all he could before giving up. He even incorporated it into the tiling and stained-glass designs of the house he’d built for himself and his wife. Talk about prominent reminders!