a habit i started yesterday
i link my desired high school with any positive behavior i want to do. every time i have to make a decision, like studying vs eating one more snack, i ask myself, 'what would the ideal student from the high school do?' it's really got me to focus more on what i really want to do for my future instead of being conquered by my past ineffective habits. like today i studied 2.5 times more than i did at this point yesterday! (it's 25 minutes vs 10 minutes but still i did 15 minutes more which is a win, and you are not dismissing it)
sure, it's little things like choosing to study instead of walk around and ramble, write this blog post instead of get distracted by another one. and that would not get me in a top high school but out of the worst student in a mediocre one. but isn't being mediocre the first step to being good? and thinking of being good is way cooler than thinking of being mediocre therefore it serves as good motivation.
when being given the reality, an ideal student in my desired high school would choose to keep the delusion to keep the motivation.
edit 12-28-2025
another benefit of this besides motivation is that i am aware of my actions and get to think about alternative things i could do. for example today i was asking chatgpt to prove something (i was gonna prove it myself if i had time but i did not have a lot) and i couldn't understand it just by looking at it. my first instinct was to give up on it and just do something else on the computer, but then the ideal high school thought just came in me and i thought 'would an ideal student just doomscroll because of a minor problem in their understanding? part of the reason i do not understand the proof on my screen is because i am unfamiliar with some of the symbols there, which i could just rewrite with symbols i already know, plus i tend to understand things better when i write them down, even better if i write it down from memory after i've understood it. an ideal student would definitely not start doomscrolling but bring my notebook and pencil from my room and try to understand the proof by writing it down in a way that is easier to me. on the other hand doomscrolling would not bring any benefits but be a waste of time and make me not want to study even in the future.' see? situation, first instinct to act, alternatives and pros/cons, and choosing the action that's better.
coincidentally, a few hours after writing this i found the book atomic habits that my mom left reading, and since i have a habit of reading whatever is on the dining table i read it. the part i read was about being conscious about your habits (they called it smth like 'pointing and calling') and being specific about how you want to change/remove/make new ones.
sometimes i get too pressured by the high school i want to go existing and having very high standards, meanwhile i do not even cross the basic ones, and i get stressed enough to question everything and do nothing. in that case i would like to put out the high school part but remember this: when i choose something, know what my first instinct is, compare alternatives, and do the thing that's the most beneficial.
i think the popular method of using a stopwatch to time how much you actually studied (compared to what you think or planned) is also one of the ways you can identify your habits, that's why i look at the numbers and feel like every moment i study adds up to something.