Keep in mind, though… these aren’t really good “long term” techniques, but if they get you going in the right direction them I’m all for it. Go ahead and try these on other things besides Japanese study too. You’ll find they work just about anywhere where motivation is a concern. Let’s do this thing.

Imagine the Finished Product

One particularly neat (and easy) brain trick is to simply just imagine the finished product before you start. Say you’re learning a set of kanji. As you sit down to get started, imagine yourself being able to read all of the kanji and associated vocab words. Imagine how you’ll feel when you get done. Feels good, doesn’t it? Ahhh, those feel-good brain chemicals are being released now. Ooh, that’s encouraging me to want to study so I can reach this end goal and be happy, finally!

This won’t work if you do it all the time, but it’s nice in a pinch. Creating those good feelings that we get from finishing something we don’t necessarily want to do can create a nice association with the actions. If you don’t normally like studying kanji, doing this will slowly but surely turn you into someone who kind of enjoys studying kanji. Them chemicals are teaching you to like it, whether you like it or not.

Try it out the next time you have to study something you don’t want to. Imagine a nice outcome, and enjoy the feeling of having learned something new. You can read all these kanji that you couldn’t read before! How amazing is that? Oh, wait, now it’s actually time to study them. Strangely, I feel good about it now. Hmmm.

Don’t Tell Anyone What You’re Doing

You should give this one a try. Might be hard with past goals that you already have, but with future goals it might be worth a shot. You can even come up with some small goals to try this out on. Maybe your goal is to learn these next 100 kanji? Cool, don’t let anyone know you’re doing it. It’s our little secretsesessss, precious.

I don’t think this works for everyone, but it’s not going to hurt if you do it a few times to see if it’s effective with you. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t follow through with your goals (aren’t we all?) then this might be for you. On the other hand, maybe you should be setting higher stakes, instead. Mix and match and see how it goes.

Take Studying Away When You Want It Most

Photo by thecrazyfilmgirl

I’ve written about this before, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. When you’re at the point in your study session where you want to continue… stop. Take the candy away from the baby while the baby still wants the candy (not when she’s asleep). This idea actually came from a Haruki Murakami Book (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running). He said that he would stop writing when he wanted to continue, so that way when he woke up in the morning he’d want to keep writing, and then motivation wasn’t an issue.

You can use this idea on just about anything else, too, including learning Japanese. Essentially, you’re using reverse psychology on yourself even though you know you’re using reverse psychology on yourself (does that make it double reverse psychology?). If you do this you’ll put down your Japanese studies, then be able to jump right back into it next time, motivation already ready to go. So give it a try sometime. It might be a little painful but it’s worth it if it works, I think. Let me know how it goes for you!

Other Ways To Trick Your Brain

There are plenty of other ways to trick your brain into wanting to study. Some are:

• Try changing your environment. If you find that your computer area makes you prone to distractions, go someplace completely different where that trigger does not exist. Move away from bad triggers and you’re left with more motivation to do the thing you want to do.
• Try changing the temperature to 77°F (25° C). This is supposedly the ideal temperature for being able to focus.
• Natural light and sun supposedly make you more productive as well. Try to get some sun to get those motivational juices flowing. Don’t get too much, though, that would make you sleepy.
• Take a nap. Sure, you spend 20 minutes taking a nap (don’t take a longer one, you’ll be groggy), but it’s amazing how much this helps with willpower and therefore motivation. I sometimes find myself staring at my computer screen, hardly doing anything. Then, I take a nap and magically I’m a magic productivity guru once again.

There are many more brain tricks you can do to help your motivation, I’m sure, so if you know any of them be sure to share them in the comments! We can all use a little more help when it comes to motivation at times (unless you’re a robot. Are you a robot?), so I’m looking forward to reading what you come up with! :)

What Are The “Little Victories”?

The idea of little victories is really simple, though quite difficult to achieve… especially if you’re learning on your own. A little victory is basically one of these things:

1. A sense of accomplishment after you’ve done something.
2. The act of finishing something… anything really.
3. Understanding something (i.e. a concept, remembering a word, kanji, etc).

Now, little victories may seem simple, but that’s only when you’re really thinking about them. If you’re using most textbooks, resources, etc., there’s almost no focus on little victories. Instead, your “victories” are spread thin, take more effort to complete, and are generally forgotten about. Sure, there are “chapters” set up, and you (in theory) learn something (or often, somethings) by the end of it, but you rarely realize that you’re making an achievement.

So, to sum it up, most resources either don’t pay attention to victories at all, or their victories are too big / too spread apart.

Why Are The “Little Victories” So Important?

When you “complete” something or “get something done,” you get an energizing boost from it. The funny thing is, “big victories” and “little victories” are nearly equal when put side by side. Little victories, however, can happen with so much more frequency and this is is what makes them so powerful.

When you create “little victories” with you Japanese learning, the “energizing” effect starts to snowball, and you’ll want to study more and more and more. The long your go without a victory, the more your energy to study depletes, and eventually you start running on empty. When you run on empty, you start associating bad feelings with Japanese studies, which means you end up quitting altogether.

How Do You Create “Little Victories” For Yourself

Basically, here’s what it comes down to: Set your goals small

I know this seems kind of lame. “But I want to set big goals to achieve!” … “But I want to be a go getter!” etc. Small goals, however, are the key.

Basically, here’s all you have to do. Basically, there’s a kind of hierarchy to everything you use to study with, and I’ll map out some of them.

Traditional Textbook “Victories”

Level 1: Finishing the entire book

Level 2: Finishing a “section” (usually 1/2 or 1/3 of a textbook)

Level 3: Finishing a chapter

Level 4: Finishing a segment of a chapter

Level 5: Finishing one grammar point / one area of a segment.

Now, most people / resources will have you focus on Levels 1-3. You want to get rid of that notion, and focus entirely on levels 4 and 5. Sure, have a bigger goal that you’re working towards, but when you sit down to study, you should take your textbook, and break it up into small, almost laughable pieces. Things that will take you 5-10 minutes to complete.

Vocab / Kanji Lists

Level 1: All the vocab words in a stack. This could be 100+ plus items!

Level 2: Half of the words in the stack.

Level 3: Set of 10 words (this is where things start to get little, though I’d break it down further)

Level 4: Set of 5 words to learn.

Level 5: One word to learn.

You want to focus on 4 & 5 again. Each time you get one of those things done, remind yourself that you’re getting closer to your ultimate goal of learning Japanese. Also remind yourself that each time you do one of these little things, you’re accomplishing something and moving forward. Basically, we’ve turned something that would normally be one big achievement (let’s say 100 words learned) into 20-100 little victories. Each one of these victories will motivate you to keep studying, and make learning Japanese a lot more enjoyable.

One last thing I should mention is that before you start on a “little victory” section, you should spend a minute or two planning out what you’re actually going to learn during that period. Whether it’s a set of five kanji, a grammar concept, or whatever, the important thing is that you know what it is you’re setting out to accomplish. I know this may seem like a lot of extra work (going in and planning each little victory) but it will really help you out a lot in the end.

Really, though, the most important thing is to just know the (little) goals you’re working towards. If you don’t know where the little victory finish lines are at it’ll be pretty hard to feel any sense of accomplishment when you end up getting to them. The power is in your hands – you choose what counts as a little victory.

What Are Your Little Victories Methods?

The more you think about little victories, the more you can see them in the real world. What resources are you using, and how can you break them down into smaller, bite-sized pieces?

P.S. Achieve a “little victory” right now by following Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. I’m currently working on converting all the lessons on TextFugu over to this concept, too, so if you like the idea of “Little Victories” you should take a look!

Image Source

This idea is one of those things. I think it works pretty well… sometimes, and it probably won’t work for everyone. The idea is simple: When studying Japanese (or doing anything else), you should stop when you least want to (i.e. when you want to keep studying). Sounds counter intuitive, right? Here’s why it works.

Where It Came From

I learned this idea from Haruki Murakami’s non-fiction book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” which is the only book of his that I’ve read. I liked it. It was inspiring and fun to peer into his mind a bit (and even got me to consider running… hasn’t really worked that well though, I’m more into sitting). In his book, he said that he stops writing when he most wants to continue writing. What!? That’s crazy. Shouldn’t you take advantage of that motivation to keep going and keep writing? Murakami didn’t think so, and I think he’s on to something.

I’m paraphrasing, but he said that the reason he stops writing when he’s most motivated to continue writing is because that means he knows he’s going to be excited to write some more the next day. Since he stopped when he didn’t want to stop, he’s going to look forward to starting up again the next day and won’t waste any time doing so.

That’s genius.

For the last week, I’ve been trying that with work. When I feel like I want to keep going, I stop. Because I want to keep going, I wake up earlier the next day than I normally would, and am able to jump right back into work, whereas normally it might take some time to get settled in and figure out what I want to do. That right there is wasted time, and this solves it.

Why It Works

The reason this works is because of the way our brains deal with motivation. When it comes down to it, we don’t want to do the things we’re supposed to and we want to do the things we’re not supposed to. By using this “stop when you’re motivated” method, you can flip this on its head. By telling yourself and making yourself not do something, it becomes more desirable, and you’ll want to do it even more.

On top of this, we’re also canceling out the most difficult part of doing any type of work or study (Japanese, of course)… Getting started. How many times have you said “I have to study my Japanese,” and then you just sat there putting it off or doing something else. Once you get started, though, it’s easy to get in the zone and zero in your concentration. The hard part, as you all know, is getting to that point. There’s something about “getting started” that’s daunting, but by stopping right in the middle of something, you know exactly where to start, and you’re even excited to start.

It’s kind of like when your parents used to read you books. They’d stop somewhere exciting, and the next night, you’d know exactly where to start up again (and you looked forward to it all day long).

Applying This To Your Japanese Studies

I’m going to talk about applying this to your Japanese studies, but of course you can apply this almost anywhere else in your life as well. Give it a try for at least a little while, and if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work.

When you’re studying Japanese, get yourself a timer and have it go off every five minutes. At each five minute interval, write down on a piece of paper how much you want to continue. You can even come up with some kind of ranking scale (three out of six batwings?) to help you gauge things. As you go through, keep track of your excitement / motivation levels. Once your ranking scale gets up to somewhere between 80-100%, immediately stop what you’re doing, whether it’s in the middle of a kanji deck or in the middle of writing a sentence. All that’s important is that you’re honest with yourself in terms of how motivated you are to continue, and that you stop when you’re supposed to stop.

It won’t feel good to stop, sure, but that’s the point. You’re giving yourself something to really look forward to, which ends up leading to much more consistent Japanese studies, which is way way better in the long run.

So, give it a shot! Tell me how it works for you in the comments (or why you think this is totally bogus).

I’m continuing to experiment with this even as

Did you make it past that highly distracting image of the butterfly? Whew… then you might not need this article… or maybe you do? We can all learn how to be more motivated and inspired, and we’re all human in that shiny things distract us a …. what was I saying?

Dear Koichi,

Also – and damn what an awkward question this is – is there anything one with both Asperger and ADHD should think about when using TextFugu? I wouldn’t even consider asking this to most teachers out there, but let’s face it: when I read the parts about motivation, excuses etc. it felt like you were reading my mind. Of course, you’re not to be expected with a magical answer on this one…

That is a question I got in my e-mail a few days ago (and of course, I’m keeping this person’s identity secret), and I thought there’s probably others out there who could use some help in this regard. I sent an essay of an e-mail back, but I’ve gussied it up and rewritten it to be a little more in depth and easier to understand. The answer to this question also holds true whether you’re learning Japanese or not… I use these techniques in my work, in my play, in my hobbies, and in my everything else (get your mind out of the gutter!). You definitely don’t need to have ADHD or Asperger’s to try these things out, or at least think about them.

Now, before I start, I just want to say that I’m no professional on either ADHD or Asperger’s. I don’t have either of those disorders myself (wasn’t allowed to watch too much TV as a kid, and I think that saved me) either, so I can’t say I’m speaking from experience. Despite all of that, I have spent a lot of time studying the psychology behind learning, and have done a good amount of research on what motivates and inspires people. Those two things together, I think, helped me to create a formidable theory behind learning Japanese (as well as how to circumvent and fix things like ADHD or Asperger’s).

That all being said, I’m totally prepared for a barrage of angry parents who don’t think it’s anyone’s fault (and sometimes it’s not, though I do believe that a majority cases of ADHD are the fault of environment over time… not to mention prescription-happy doctors who want their pharmaceutical handouts), and I truly am looking forward to hearing and learning from those of you who have more knowledge in this category than I do.

So here we go… prepare for some wordiness.

Finding Your “Flow”

Whether you have ADHD, Asperger’s, both, or neither, you have to know about “Flow.” Flow is a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (don’t even try to pronounce it), which is a psychological state in which you are “in the zone.” To put it less bluntly, Flow is a time where you are doing something challenging and you are completely concentrated on the thing that you are doing. This feeling comes about not because you are getting external motivation to do it (i.e. money, sex, power, etc), but instead because you are getting internal (also known as intrinsic) motivation, characterized by feelings of “absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill.”

So what kinds of things create flow? Well, it depends on the person, but there are a few common characteristics of these things:

• Time goes by quickly
• There is a clear goal (for example, if you were a mountain climber getting to the top of the mountain would check this one off).
• Everything you do gets you closer to your goal

Probably the most common “flow” experience among the Tofugu reader base comes from video games. Sure, you’ve probably all experienced it elsewhere (and I hope you have!), but if there’s one thing I notice about people who have ADHD, it’s that they are somehow able to focus on video games really really well. Even though it’s not necessarily a positive thing, that is flow. Time goes by quickly, there is a clear goal (well, for most video games), and everything you do in the game gets you closer to that goal. That is flow. So, if you have ADHD and you can still focus on video games, I’m going to call BS on you if you claim you can’t focus on anything else. You can, though it’s going to take some practice.

So why in the world can you focus on video games and not learning? It’s because…

Schools Have Destroyed Our Desire To Learn

Alright, alright. I don’t want people saying I’m anti-establishment or anti-school. I’m a huge supporter of schools and learning, I just think there needs to be some big changes (like we need teachers who know how to teach… which is strangely lacking).

One of the biggest problems with schools is that they’re too structured. Grades shouldn’t exist, and kids should choose what it is they want to learn. Here’s the thing. Children are naturally curious. They want to learn. The problem is that it’s beaten out of them at a very early age. Let me tell you a little bit about my early education, and how it actually saved me from following the rest of the sheep out there.

I was lucky enough to go to Montessori School, which is an elementary school that has as little adult intervention as possible. Students progress in math at their own pace. They progress in reading at their own pace. They progress in everything else at their own pace. Teachers help when helping is needed, but there was no lecturing, and the funny thing is… every single student was leaps and bounds ahead of other public school kids their age. We kept our innocence, and learning for the sake of learning was rewarding. We were intrinsically motivated to learn. Humans are naturally want to learn new things, but once you add rewards for learning these new things, it is no longer rewarding and becomes extrinsic. It becomes “what can I do and what loopholes can I take to get a higher grade?” Suddenly, learning is a chore.

I was in “alternative” school programs until 6th grade, and that’s when I noticed things starting to change. Learning stopped being fun. I was working for my grades, not for the greater purpose of improving myself. Over the years, I got worse and worse at math (which I was several years ahead in by 5th grade), got worse at reading, and got worse in just about everything else. Yes, the public school system destroyed my motivation to learn. Ouch.

There are plenty of examples of this in the real world, too.

• Open source projects like Firefox have armies of volunteer workers, not making any money at all. The reason they do it? Most of them just feel good about doing something, helping, and learning something new.
• For those of you who have graduated college – have you noticed that it takes a couple of years to want to read again? I’m just getting to that point. In school, reading is rewarded with grades, which actually makes you less interested in doing it. After a few years being away from that, you rediscover your interest in reading, and start reading because it’s intrinsically rewarding, not because you’re getting an extrinsic reward.

Right, so what does this all have to do with ADHD and Asperger’s? It all comes back to “flow.” You have to change the way your brain thinks of things in order to give yourself the ability to reach flow in your Japanese (or other) studies. Learning is most likely ruined for you (if you are reading this, you’ve been in school long enough). The challenge is changing the way you think about learning (or making it so you don’t think about it at all!). How can you make learning as flow-worthy as video games? It’s hard, but it can be done.

Changing The Way Your Brain Thinks

Our brains are a funny thing, but the cool thing about them is that you can actually change them in whatever way you’d like (at least when it comes to thinking). You can exercise your brain too, just like you’d exercise your arms, legs, or abs. Depending on how you exercise these things, different parts of them will get stronger. With your brain, you can change the way it’s wired by forcing yourself to rethink certain things. Think of your brain like a blanket of snow with one path cut in it. Maybe you decide you don’t like that path (because it makes you think negatively about things). You can let snowfall fill that path, and create your own path. The new path won’t be easy to create (there’s a lot of snow in the way!), but you can do it with persistence.

The same thing goes for reworking your brain so that you can enjoy learning again. Although what I’m going to say seems a bit drastic, it’s not.  You have to convince yourself that grades are not important, and that they should be completely ignored. If you do this properly, I guarantee your grades will be way higher than if you paid close attention… or, at the very least, you’ll be more confident, smarter, and better prepared for the real world (seriously, I use only like 5% of what I learned in school).

This is going to sound a lot simpler than it is, but here’s how you do it.

1. Every time you get some homework or school work, catch yourself every time you think “how will I get a higher grade on this.”
2. Whenever you catch yourself thinking that (or something like it), replace it with something else. Perhaps “how can I solve this puzzle?” or “What part of this research am I interested in?”
3. Do this over and over again, and if you’re persistent, you’ll begin to find learning enjoyable again. Something that you do for yourself because it’s genuinely interesting to you, and not because you’re getting an A, B, C, or D on it.
4. When you get something back that’s graded, try not to look at the grade. Work something out with your teacher if you can, where they can keep your grade on file (or whatever they are required to do), but they don’t put it on your papers, assignments, etc. Instead, just ask for the feedback and corrections.

One other thing that’s also very important is changing your mindset on how you approach new challenges and problems. Tell me, do you think:

1. “How can I do this task with my current skill set” or…
2. “What can I learn in order to accomplish this task?”

You have to think the second one. People who go into challenges and problems thinking “what can I learn” are far more successful than those that only try to use the skills they currently have. These are two completely different people, and the second one is always happier, more successful, and has more meaning in their lives.

I do also believe that those with ADHD and Asperger’s can change the way their mind works too. It will take persistence, and it will be difficult, but those are the only thing stopping you from a very meaningful life. Humans are naturally interested in learning, but our upbringing and our schools take that away from us. If you can change the way you think about learning and attain flow, then things like ADHD and Asperger’s will only be an afterthought (especially if you make it to the end of this very long article, then you know you can do it).

To sum it up, catch yourself when you think “I can’t,” and force yourself to change it to “I can.” It’ll be slow progress, but you’ll get there if you really want to get there.

Applying All This To Japanese Learning

See! I knew we’d get back to the topic at hand. To be honest, though, there isn’t too much more to say. You’re going to fall into one of two camps:

1. The camp that learns Japanese for extrinsic motivators (grades, to make friends, to get a job, etc).
2. The camp that learns Japanese for intrinsic motivators (because it’s genuinely interesting, because it’s like solving a puzzle, etc).

Now, I’m not saying that wanting to get a job with your Japanese or getting good grades is necessarily a bad thing (okay, it is when it comes to long term learning), but I guarantee you the #2 camp is going to study a lot longer and a lot more effectively than the #1 camp.

It’s been shown time and time again that extrinsic rewards, such as grades, money, etc., only provide short bursts of motivation. Sure, give someone $100 bucks to learn Japanese for a week and they’ll study really really hard for a few days, but after that I guarantee they will end up studying way less and enjoy it way less by the end of the week (whereas the person who studies for personal growth is going to surpass the first guy no problem). Plus, if you want to keep motivating the first guy, you’re going to have to give him $200 the next week, and $300 the third. It becomes a situation of “that first $100 wasn’t enough, I’ll need more now to get that excitement back.” When you do something for a reward (other than the reward of doing something great) the excitement goes away and you associate the action (learning Japanese) with money. It’s like parents who give their kids money to do chores. Do that for a few months and try to ask your kid to take out the trash without paying them. They’re not going to want to do it, even though it helps the entire family out.

So, to learn Japanese more effectively, you need to figure out how to make learning Japanese intrinsically gratifying. You need to cut out all extrinsic rewards and come to terms with the fact that learning on its own is rewarding in itself. You’re going to have to backpedal all the way back to preschool, where learning wasn’t about grades and golden star stickers. Becoming a better person has to be the reward, and if you can do that, I promise you that you’ll learn a lot of Japanese in a short amount of time.

Recommended Reading:

• Flow Wikipedia Article
• Drive (book)
• Maria Montessori Wikipedia Article
• Unschooling Wikipedia Article

P.S. Despite the lack of extrinsic motivators, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter

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