# How to NEVER Burn Out again: 3-Step framework

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vPAYLYLbMQ

[00:00] what are you meant to do when you're burnt out?
[00:02] take a break obviously.
[00:04] uh today we're gonna be talking about why that may not actually be the best idea.
[00:08] now i want you to imagine this, this is the story of every burnt out student.
[00:10] you've got a goal in mind, you are highly motivated, this big new sparkly goal.
[00:15] maybe it's to get a certain exam score or get into a university that you want.
[00:20] maybe it's to get a promotion.
[00:22] and you're super motivated and you channel all that motivation and energy into creating a great schedule and this awesome to-do list.
[00:31] you're feeling good.
[00:34] you get down and you're studying and you spend all day and all night studying.
[00:39] you do this again and again and the outcome is potentially either good and that you were able to reach a certain goal like you got a test result that you wanted or it was not so good and that you didn't get the result or you did but at what cost?
[00:55] maybe you sacrificed all of your friends, all of your hobbies and all of your sleep to get that and that's not really
[01:01] sustainable but as goals go there's always the next goal.
[01:07] so we set our sights on this new goal goal number two.
[01:10] and again we're renewed with motivation.
[01:13] uh although if we didn't do so well we may be feeling a little bit uncertain.
[01:18] we may be feeling a little bit anxious a little bit insecure.
[01:19] but either way we're gonna double down.
[01:22] we're gonna try even harder.
[01:24] we're not gonna let that sit back slow us down no.
[01:26] we are driven we're motivated.
[01:29] we're gonna push through to reach this next goal.
[01:31] we're gonna create a new schedule a new to-do list.
[01:34] we're gonna study again all day all night.
[01:36] we're gonna repeat that and hope that we get the right outcome.
[01:41] but what if you don't.
[01:43] what if you continually seem to get an outcome that is just below what you wanted or far below what you wanted.
[01:49] what if every time you achieve the outcome it never feels like it's sustainable.
[01:53] that produces a lot of frustration a lot of demotivation and it frankly makes you very tired.
[02:00] now this is
[02:03] the way that most people go about trying to achieve their goal however this is not the best way to achieve it because there is fundamentally a problem here.
[02:12] and that is that motivation and productivity are coupled so here's what that looks like.
[02:16] we know based on extensive research around motivation and behavioral psychology that motivation is influenced by multiple factors.
[02:23] it's not a a plus b equals c kind of equation.
[02:28] there are lots of components that contribute towards your overall feeling of motivation and there's extrinsic or intrinsic motivation all these different angles that we can take on it but fundamentally because there are so many things that influence motivation it is essentially unheard of it doesn't really happen to the human being for motivation to stay constant.
[02:47] motivation is often not a constant just plateaued thing.
[02:51] motivation goes up and it goes down that's just the nature of human beings and so the problem here is that if motivation is going up and down then not only are we
[03:04] feeling sometimes really hyped up on some days and then on some days we're not.
[03:08] if our productivity is coupled to that that means that our productivity is also going up and going down as well.
[03:16] and so that is less desirable but here's where it gets really dangerous is that when your productivity is a little bit lower.
[03:23] let's say that this is the minimum level of productivity that you would need to achieve your goal then in these areas we are actually not able to achieve our goal.
[03:32] and so what happens is that here we experience what we might consider a failure and what that will do is that actually reduces our motivation.
[03:42] so instead of our motivation tracking along like it did before.
[03:46] instead what's gonna happen is that we have a little bit less motivation and so we spend a little bit more time down here which means that this is now leading to failure and that reduces our motivation even more and more and more.
[04:00] and so what happens is that because we inherently
[04:04] have motivation linked to our productivity and because inherently motivation goes up and down then therefore productivity also goes up and down and if our results aren't always good that means that each failure can reduce our level of motivation and so we end up in the cycle this very dangerous spiral where we're putting an effort and we're trying and trying and trying but we're not getting the result that we want that demotivates us further that causes us to put in more effort into a system that is fundamentally not working to our advantage and then our results are not as good and so we are getting you know worse and worse and worse our motivation is still going up and down but the overall trend is that it's getting lower and lower and eventually we just don't have enough energy left to put in we don't have enough effort we're too demotivated and we're entering into a situation where we conventionally call it burn out what happens when you're already here what happens if you've been riding this cycle and you've
[05:06] been kind of just scraping by and summoning all your will power on a daily basis to scrape through and now you're here rock bottom burnt out you can't even be bothered getting up and thinking about studying let alone actually going and studying well this is a bad place to be in and the best thing to do here is to avoid getting here in the first place.
[05:29] however if you are already here the conventional advice is usually to take a break.
[05:36] to do some yoga.
[05:38] to do some meditation to pick up some more hobbies and play some sports and the thing is that all of these things will help yes it will help you it will help you to relax and recover and take a break and reset.
[05:54] but it's not really going to solve the problem.
[05:57] see back when i worked as a doctor in the hospital one of the most common things that i would see are people that have substance addiction or smokers and it's part of
[06:09] your duty to try to convince them not to smoke or take these illicit substances that may be bad for their bodies.
[06:16] and we knew and we've always known that when you convince someone to stop engaging in a certain type of behavior that if you discharge them from hospital and they go back and all of their friends are still smoking or taking whatever substances it's just a matter of time before they pick up that habit again.
[06:36] and so what we know is that behaviors are really heavily influenced by the environment.
[06:41] and similarly the way that we feel and the situation that we're in has a strong influence on the way that we will be able to conduct ourselves the behaviors we have the ability to engage in and the way that that makes us feel.
[06:52] so if you hype yourself up you watch some motivational videos you relax and you you know go on a holiday for a few weeks and then you come back into the same environment in the same setting with all the same pressures approaching things in
[07:09] the same way that led to the burnout in the first place.
[07:11] it's just a matter of time.
[07:14] it's inevitable that you will just burn out again.
[07:17] and the problem really is that it's much faster the second time.
[07:20] and it's even faster the third time.
[07:21] and it's even faster the fourth and fifth and the hundredth time.
[07:24] to the point where you take an entire month's off and you get back into work and four days into your first week you're already thinking i need another holiday.
[07:26] and i'm sure many of you will be able to relate to that.
[07:30] and so there are two different perspectives at looking at this kind of problem here.
[07:33] one is to fundamentally decouple our sense of productivity from motivation.
[07:35] so that even if our motivation is fluctuating up and down we're able to keep our productivity relatively high.
[07:37] and this relies on us building really good habits so that we don't need motivation to be productive.
[07:39] we are unlinking the relationship between motivation and productivity.
[07:40] and that is a very valid strategy to use.
[07:42] and i encourage you to use it.
[07:45] it's what i
[08:09] teach in my program it's what I talk about in many of my other videos.
[08:13] it's one component of it however we're going to talk about the other aspect of it.
[08:18] which is much less talked about which is actually identifying the root cause.
[08:22] understanding that burnout is a symptom and in order to address the symptom we actually need to solve the underlying root cause.
[08:30] so what does that mean in the context of studying and learning?
[08:34] well if we think about studying and learning this is something that I observe very commonly in my everyday practice is this thing that is called the black box effect.
[08:43] the black box effect refers to when there are things that we do not understand that are a critical part of how things work.
[08:55] so for example when it comes to studying we understand that when we put an effort and when we put in time and then we do this thing that is called studying we presume that we will get this outcome for example our exam results however the
[09:10] black box is everything in the middle
[09:12] what is happening while we are studying
[09:15] that converts the effort and time into the exam results
[09:18] it's not just the more effort and the more time you put in the better your results are
[09:23] because then the people with the greatest results would consistently just be the people that study the most or put in the most effort
[09:30] and that's not the case
[09:32] there are plenty of people that are trying very hard and putting in lots of time more than other people that are still not getting the top results
[09:38] likewise there are people that are putting in very little time and getting great results
[09:43] i used to be the first one putting in heaps of time to overcompensate to get the results
[09:48] and now i'm the second putting in as little time as possible achieving actually even better results
[09:56] so uncovering and opening up this black box and understanding where effort and time is wasted allows us to have more control over the outcome
[10:04] because we could put an effort in time and maybe while we are studying in our brain and cognitively
[10:11] from a learning point of view maybe this is what's happening and so in order for us to get that result we need to put in so much time and effort because there's so much waste we're going on detours we're going back and forth and we're not using our brain or our processes in the most efficient way whereas maybe we could make it a little bit more like this and therefore get the same result but we're translating that much more effectively across and so opening up this black box is what allows us to have more control over the situation and with control comes confidence because we don't have to be anxious about whether we're going to get the exam result or not you see the reason that a lot of students find that they are anxious about their exams and they're not sure whether they're going to do well or not is because they don't know how this effort is going to translate into the result they're always thinking is this enough have i studied enough what if they asked this question what if they asked about this i didn't study this part in depth there's all these question marks around whether they're going to get that result because
[11:12] they're not sure if the studying that they did was sufficient because they're not even sure what boxes need to be checked in order for it to have been sufficient in the first place and it's actually frankly very difficult to get a grasp of that without knowing a little bit more around how learning actually works and so this is the thing i preach constantly for people to learn a little bit more about the metacognition the thinking behind the thinking learning about learning because it allows you to be the mechanic of your own brain it allows you to problem solve and fix and have control you don't have to have anxiety because it's what if this and then what if this you know what will happen it's predictable what the outcome is going to be because you know what it took you know what processes are in play and if something goes wrong you at least know why it went wrong rather than having an exam result getting the result back and then thinking man i thought i was going to do really well i ticked all the boxes in my own head however the result is not
[12:12] whatever I expected and then that's very confusing.
[12:15] And if you tried really hard and you spent lots of time studying for this exam, this is very demotivating and this is very frustrating.
[12:19] So opening up this black box allows us to influence more control here.
[12:25] It allows us to optimize the process.
[12:27] It allows us to see where we're wasting time and wasting energy and ultimately refine the system so that we're able to use our time more effectively and therefore fundamentally make it so that our results are going to be better.
[12:44] That we are not putting in time and effort and then being frustrated from it and therefore it's not having a detrimental effect on our motivation because we are changing the approach that we are using.
[12:52] We are fundamentally less likely to burn out in the first place because if you think about it, if you imagine that you're right in there and you are traveling along this windy, windy path to try to get to your result.
[13:07] How many people are going to be motivated doing that?
[13:09] How many people are out there that are going to be motivated?
[13:14] going through this windy torturous path.
[13:17] to get to the result every single time.
[13:19] they sit down and study.
[13:21] not many in fact it's incredibly rare.
[13:25] it's weird actually to go through a process like this and actually feel hyped up and motivated and enjoying the process.
[13:31] the only way you can fundamentally change the game is if you change the way that you're approaching it and you change the strategies that you're using.
[13:38] so if you're burnt out and you're spending some time and energy doing something yes you can take a break.
[13:42] allow yourself to recover.
[13:47] but don't just blindly put yourself back in the same situation that created the problem in the first place.
[13:51] instead use that time invest time into your future in changing your approach and the way that you do that is opening up this black box and the way you open up this black box is by learning more about how learning works.
[14:05] you have to understand a little bit more about the learning theory how learning happens in the brain and how your techniques stack up against
[14:14] but the thing is that learning is not straightforward.
[14:17] in fact it's incredibly complicated.
[14:19] so to learn everything that you need to know about how learning works is frankly not possible for most average students.
[14:28] and i know someone's going to probably write here in the comments under this video saying so how does learning work?
[14:33] well it will probably be hundreds and hundreds of pages, hundreds of thousands if not millions of words to write out a full report of all the ways that learning works.
[14:42] because it's one of the most complicated processes that we know that occurs in the human body.
[14:46] as you can see here from this diagram, there are lots of components that are interacting with each other and this is just the basic outline and already there is a lot to go through.
[14:57] but just because there is an insurmountable amount that you need to know doesn't mean that you can't start the process and still gain knowledge and information that can legitimately help you right now.
[15:09] because you don't need to know everything to help you, you just need to know what's going to be relevant.
[15:15] for you right now that's a journey that all my students running through my program are going through.
[15:21] so here are three steps that you should take if you want to never get burnt out again.
[15:27] first of all and number one map out your learning system.
[15:30] what i mean by learning system is not just here's a technique here's another technique it's about how do the different techniques that you use complement each other to produce a singular unified purpose.
[15:45] the techniques that you use during class the way you write your notes when you revise how you revise and review your material how you prepare for your exams.
[15:57] the techniques that you use at each of these stages should be strategic.
[15:59] they should complement each other.
[16:01] now for most people they're not aware of exactly what techniques they're using.
[16:06] they don't know why they're using it other than the fact that someone told them to and that's what they've done in the past.
[16:11] but you have to be very critical about this.
[16:13] we have to understand what techniques are we're using and why are we using it.
[16:18] if the only reason we're doing it is because that's what everyone says you should do then you really need to think about that very carefully because if you're doing the same thing that everyone else is doing you can't really expect to get a result that everyone else isn't getting and again if you're really early on in your academic stages like junior high school maybe or like primary intermediate then yeah you can maybe get away with uh just putting in more effort and trying harder than the people around you and yeah you can maybe get to the top but at a certain point especially senior high school university college especially competitive programs and definitely so in professional life when you're trying to aim for the top a lot of people are trying very very hard and it's hard to differentiate yourself with effort alone and if you're trying to do that you're gonna have to sacrifice more than is necessary i'm not saying don't work hard but i'm saying work smart first and then when you work hard it's going to be an unbeatable combination so start off by noting down all the techniques that you use as many as you can think of the ones that you are actually using obviously not just the ones that you've heard of and have
[17:19] planned to use i'm talking about the techniques that you genuinely truly use in everyday life from the moment you consume your first piece of information all the way through to your assessment.
[17:29] if you have one and start thinking about why you use each technique that you do and whether you know enough of the learning theory behind it to see if it's well and truly supported or not.
[17:41] the answer to that question for most people for most of your techniques will be i don't know why i use this technique and that is fine because it's the beginning of the process and you can now go on the journey of learning more about each of these techniques and therefore you can start optimizing and modifying them but it's perfectly normal to know absolutely nothing about this at the beginning.
[18:03] that's exactly where i started from as well.
[18:04] the only difference is i didn't have a youtube channel where i teach the learning theory to make it easier for me to learn off of because you know like time travel reasons it's not possible.
[18:16] so the second thing that you want to ask yourself is not just why am i using this
[18:20] but also how do each of these techniques complement each other and again the answer may be either that they don't complement each other or i have no idea.
[18:28] and again that's fine it just means there's lots of things for you to learn about but on the other hand there are that many opportunities for you to improve.
[18:35] the second thing you want to do is start scheduling 20 minutes every three days or just twice a week during your weekdays where you are reflecting very critically on the learning system that you're using now that you've mapped out the techniques and it may take you a few weeks just to figure out what techniques you even use if you've never thought about this before that's totally normal too.
[18:59] once you've mapped it out we need to start reflecting on how effective these techniques actually are.
[19:03] are they working for us are they producing the desired result at the end of using each of these techniques what is the outcome that i expect and what is the outcome that i actually gain from it.
[19:14] this is very important because it allows us to break up an entire learning system into individual components a lot of the
[19:20] time people look at their learning system as this one big chunk and they say it's good enough it's working for me because i'm able to get these results.
[19:28] however most of those results may be coming from just one or two components of their technique.
[19:35] they could capitalize on that turn them into huge strengths and get rid of all the rest to increase their efficiency.
[19:41] so it's important that we think about each component of our learning system and how that affects the outcomes that we get because that opens up into the next thing which is to start experimenting and reflecting on the experiments every three days.
[19:55] so now not only are we thinking about how each component interacts with each other we're also thinking about how we can modify that component.
[20:04] we can learn a little bit more theory about that particular component.
[20:14] we can watch some of the youtube videos uploaded by this very generous learning coach who puts things out there for free despite getting hate all over the internet called justin sung.
[20:20] or you could go and read some research articles and just you know waste away.
[20:22] your life like
[20:24] a certain youtuber also called justin
[20:26] sung did or you can save yourself all of
[20:28] the hassle and have a nice streamlined
[20:30] program of development like joining my
[20:33] course where you can check out the link
[20:34] in the description below either way
[20:36] however you're gonna do it you now have
[20:38] certain components about your learning
[20:40] system that you know that you need to
[20:42] get more information about so you need
[20:44] to go and learn more about that
[20:46] component you need to learn a little bit
[20:47] more about the theory behind how that
[20:49] technique is meant to work and what
[20:50] result you're meant to get out of that
[20:52] and as you learn more you're going to
[20:53] have more ideas on how i can modify it
[20:55] okay so this technique is meant to
[20:57] activate this cognitive effect so maybe
[21:00] if i instead of writing out my notes
[21:02] here and then transferring it over here
[21:04] maybe if i start by having an
[21:05] intermediate step that would allow me to
[21:08] activate this cognitive effect more
[21:10] effectively okay we can try that and the
[21:12] best part about this is that there's no
[21:14] real risk because you're only going to
[21:16] be experimenting with one or two little
[21:18] ideas at any given time worst case
[21:20] scenario you do it for a few days it's
[21:23] not as effective and you've wasted 15 20
[21:26] minutes but if it does work that's a
[21:28] game changer that means you're one step
[21:30] closer to having a truly optimized
[21:33] individualized learning system that is
[21:35] tailored for high efficiency and so step
[21:37] three is really just bringing all of
[21:38] that together again and reflecting on
[21:41] the experiments that we've made so step
[21:42] one and step two is giving us the tools
[21:45] and the resources to engage in this
[21:47] cycle of reflection and experimentation
[21:49] step three is about looking at the
[21:52] results from our experiment feeding that
[21:54] into the next one and saying okay was it
[21:56] a success or was it a failure if it
[21:58] worked great we implement that if there
[22:00] was a failure then why how can we modify
[22:03] things in a different way we could go
[22:04] back and we could work on a different
[22:05] component or maybe we want to keep going
[22:07] down this particular pathway this is the
[22:09] exact process that i did tens of
[22:11] thousands of times for several years
[22:14] teaching students what i was learning
[22:15] and discovering as well and that is what
[22:17] allowed me to create an extremely
[22:19] optimized learning system that allowed
[22:21] me to cut down my study hours from 20
[22:24] hours a day down to one to two hours a
[22:27] day and get even better results it's
[22:29] what's allowed me to finish my masters
[22:31] in
[22:32] a tenth of the recommended time it's
[22:34] what allowed me to work full-time while
[22:37] studying full-time but it's not a single
[22:39] step
[22:40] it is the culmination of thousands and
[22:43] thousands of iterations and you may say
[22:46] at this point
[22:47] justin that sounds all good in theory
[22:49] but it just takes too long
[22:52] and you're right it does take a long
[22:55] time doesn't it and to that i just have
[22:57] to say that there's actually no
[23:00] alternative you see if you don't engage
[23:03] in this process you will inevitably end
[23:05] up with the same results that you may
[23:07] have always gotten which may be
[23:09] increasing stress it's getting harder
[23:11] every year you're less able to deal with
[23:13] the challenges every year and you're
[23:15] constantly cycling in and out of burnout
[23:17] because your approach your strategy your
[23:20] method and process is inevitably leading
[23:23] you to that outcome and unless you
[23:25] change that you can't expect the outcome
[23:27] to change and this is something that i
[23:29] think really characterizes someone that
[23:30] is successful they're willing to do the
[23:33] difficult work and the difficult work is
[23:35] not just putting in more hours and time
[23:38] anyone can do that the difficult thing
[23:40] is the time and the effort spent on
[23:43] evaluating critiquing going through this
[23:46] process that other people are not
[23:48] willing to go through reaching just one
[23:50] percent gains every single day until you
[23:53] get to the point where you can look back
[23:55] and you realize you're at the top of the
[23:56] mountain while everyone else hasn't even
[23:58] bothered to start climbing because it
[24:00] looks too high if you think it's going
[24:01] to take too long it just means you
[24:04] should have started earlier some
[24:05] students that i work with will hear a
[24:07] message like this and they will still
[24:10] put it off for a few years and then once
[24:12] they've racked up enough regret they
[24:14] will then engage in this process and
[24:16] it's still going to take them just as
[24:17] long
[24:18] all they did is waste a few years in
[24:20] between now do you have to engage in
[24:22] this process no you can succeed without
[24:25] engaging in this process if you are
[24:26] extremely extremely lucky and i'm
[24:29] talking like you are selected by the
[24:32] universe like you are you know like the
[24:34] neo of the world we're living in a
[24:35] simulation you're the one that's going
[24:36] to set us free if you're that person the
[24:38] once in a generation genius uh that just
[24:41] the stars are lined for then you
[24:44] probably don't need to do much to
[24:45] succeed
[24:46] but for all of us mere mortals who don't
[24:49] want to rely on having universe level
[24:51] luck and plot armor we probably need to
[24:53] engage in a safer process and that is
[24:56] this now i know that this might seem
[24:58] quite logical and intuitive for you to
[25:00] do but you also might be a little bit
[25:02] skeptical or cautious because it's a new
[25:04] method of tackling something like
[25:05] burnout that other people don't often
[25:07] talk about and you'll probably realize
[25:09] if you watch my other videos that i tend
[25:10] to talk about things in a different way
[25:12] and frankly that's just because i live
[25:15] and breathe this stuff it's literally my
[25:17] job to work with people to solve issues
[25:19] like this and there's a lot of things
[25:21] that i've realized from my years of
[25:22] experience so let's talk now to a couple
[25:25] of students that have been in your type
[25:27] of situation before and get a
[25:29] perspective on how this type of approach
[25:32] changed things for them so that you
[25:34] don't have to just believe me you can
[25:36] see it from other people that have been
[25:37] in your exact situation but before that
[25:39] i mentioned my program so if you're
[25:42] interested in learning this type of
[25:43] stuff as well as a lot of other
[25:45] strategies for learning more effectively
[25:47] managing your time procrastinating less
[25:50] developing more self-management skills
[25:52] an end-to-end process all those little
[25:54] things that i went through years and
[25:56] thousands of iterations of trial and
[25:58] error to figure out package neatly in a
[26:00] way that you can learn and develop for
[26:02] yourself then check the link you can
[26:05] join my full program it's a entire
[26:07] guided incubation program that is
[26:09] designed to fundamentally retrain the
[26:11] way that you think and approach
[26:13] different tasks like studying like time
[26:15] management like task management and
[26:17] prioritization so that you can become a
[26:19] little bit more efficient i can
[26:20] guarantee you it is going to be the
[26:22] fastest way for you to make
[26:24] long lasting transformative changes that
[26:28] stay after you're finished that don't
[26:30] require you to constantly be coming back
[26:32] to a course or asking someone questions
[26:34] how to do something it's about producing
[26:36] a change that's going to last but anyway
[26:39] let's now see what these students have
[26:40] to say so throughout high school i
[26:42] definitely observed a lot of friends who
[26:45] would study a lot and grind endlessly in
[26:47] order to achieve a certain goal and i
[26:50] noticed that a lot of them didn't
[26:52] necessarily know what processes they
[26:54] were using or what techniques they were
[26:57] actually experimenting with to get to
[26:58] that you know particular goal and what i
[27:01] saw was a lot of people would pretty
[27:02] much lose motivation they would you know
[27:05] take a break as many people say but then
[27:07] it didn't necessarily get them better um
[27:10] or better equipped to actually you know
[27:11] face the goal because it basically made
[27:14] like they were basically doing the same
[27:15] thing again so nothing really changed
[27:17] whereas i guess for me like initially
[27:19] like i wasn't actually that successful
[27:22] for like pursuing my personal goals but
[27:24] then like after i kind of learned more
[27:25] about like how learning works and like
[27:27] how like you know life kind of works in
[27:29] terms of productivity i was able to kind
[27:31] of improve and reflect upon my
[27:33] experiences more and that meant that i
[27:34] was able to essentially produce like a
[27:36] better version of myself every single
[27:38] cycle of reflection and experimentation
[27:41] so eventually i was able to be like a
[27:42] much better equipped learner and more
[27:44] able to tackle my particular goals than
[27:46] i was like a year ago let's say from
[27:49] starting the goal well i guess i it's
[27:51] like a similar thing for me as well um a
[27:53] lot of my friends would kind of run into
[27:55] the same thing and problem and then
[27:57] we'll kind of like repeat and repeat um
[27:59] but i think one of the things that
[28:00] worked very well for me is that when it
[28:02] comes to finding solution to a problem i
[28:05] definitely don't want to be doing the
[28:06] same thing again but the really ironic
[28:08] thing is like in the people who were
[28:10] kind of you know often being the person
[28:12] who burnt out they'd always repeat and
[28:14] do the exact same thing so when it comes
[28:16] to kind of like this approach where you
[28:18] know always reflecting on how you can
[28:19] improve yourself each day that's
[28:21] something that i specifically did even
[28:23] just in my year 12 and year 11
[28:25] experience because i really don't want
[28:27] to be doing the exact same thing because
[28:28] that just has a higher chance of having
[28:30] the same kind of result as well in year
[28:32] nine i started to realize that i really
[28:34] wanted to get higher grades and so i did
[28:36] the typical thing of just like study
[28:37] your guts away essentially um and so uh
[28:41] year ten i basically studied every
[28:43] minute outside of extracurriculars and
[28:45] co-curriculars and such i didn't really
[28:47] play video games much anymore and that
[28:48] was something i really enjoyed and by
[28:50] the end of it i got the grades that i
[28:52] wanted and eventually became ducks but
[28:54] then i quickly realized that for the
[28:56] amount of effort that i had to kind of
[28:57] put in to make that possible it kind of
[29:00] really wasn't being reflected so much in
[29:02] my results like i was still getting you
[29:03] know high a's and a pluses but i was
[29:05] really expecting just you know kind of
[29:07] get near top all marks and and all a
[29:09] pluses and so essentially what happened
[29:11] is by the end of the whole year because
[29:14] everything was kind of writing on the
[29:15] end of your exams as well um essentially
[29:18] straight after the exams were done i was
[29:20] just like fully exhausted
[29:22] and i still remember that
[29:23] kind of the week afterwards my parents
[29:26] were genuinely concerned because every
[29:29] other holidays and such i'd try to just
[29:30] go ahead and play video games but in
[29:32] this instance i was basically just
[29:34] trying to sleep and sleep and like pass
[29:36] time um for as long as i could until i
[29:39] guess my results came back
[29:41] which is something that i haven't really
[29:43] experienced much of before um
[29:46] but that kind of told me that you know
[29:47] looking at year 11 and year 12 i had to
[29:49] do something different entirely
[29:51] otherwise it was just going to be like
[29:52] way worse a lot of the time when you do
[29:54] actually get the results you want to
[29:55] just get so badly it becomes
[29:57] overwhelming and that kind of added to
[29:59] the feelings that i had in year 10 where
[30:00] it's like you know oh i got it but there
[30:02] was so much attic expense for that to
[30:05] occur making it just overwhelming in
[30:06] general underwhelming it as well so i
[30:08] think for myself i was one of those
[30:10] students that really annoyed the rest of
[30:12] my badge because it seemed like i wasn't
[30:14] studying as much as they were my
[30:16] classmates really worked very hard
[30:18] putting in lots of hours of study and
[30:19] here i was seemingly fooling around and
[30:21] getting as good or even better grades
[30:23] and the thing that actually affected me
[30:25] quite a lot was when a lot of people
[30:26] made comments although it seemed like i
[30:29] wasn't putting in as much effort and
[30:31] most of the time i'll be getting good
[30:32] grades there were plenty of occasions
[30:34] where i didn't get those good grades and
[30:36] it felt quite
[30:38] unsettling because i couldn't explain
[30:40] why i couldn't explain why i was getting
[30:42] good grades and i had no idea why it
[30:44] wasn't working so having that black box
[30:46] of not knowing where i went wrong or
[30:48] where i even went right was a bit
[30:50] troubling to know because i had no idea
[30:52] what to do or where to go from here
[30:54] that's why when i started learning about
[30:55] how learning actually works and seeing
[30:58] in theory where i might have gone wrong
[31:00] or what actually might have led to the
[31:02] success it actually helped me to produce
[31:04] more consistent results rather than just
[31:05] like flipping a coin and praying that
[31:07] somehow i get good results
[31:12] [Music]
[31:23] you