\*as someone who thrives on validation.

Please, give me your most sane or unconventional advice, I beg.

I don’t think this is a time management issue anymore; I think it’s a lack of obsession.

Rn I’ve got an exam in roughly 2 days, and I know I can smash it. I’ve done it before, but I can’t keep living like this.

The truth is, I fill my time with leadership roles, committees, and responsibilities. And I’m good at them. I'll be honest, if I don't chase people / do my tasks, nothing gets done. In a way, I'm important. I think I’ve realised… I’m addicted to that. The validation, the immediacy, and mostly the feeling of being needed.

Studying? I do enjoy it as well. I'm really lucky that I find medicine fascinating, and moreover, I love the idea of getting to help people for a living. But if I’m honest, what I used to love about studying the most, what resulted in me having a genuine obsession with my subjects, was the validation from teachers. Now in university, there's no such accountability, so the obsession is gone too.

Instead, I work on these roles until it's just before the exam, stress, doom scroll (make it make sense), then panic and perform. And because I do perform well, the cycle never breaks.

I’ve tried all the tricks - timetabling, strict schedules, accountability buddies/bf/paying a 'tutor' to check up on my progress, etc. Nothing seems to work.

What I really want to know is this:

How do I build that kind of obsession again?  
That almost unhealthy focus, because honestly, I remember how good it felt to have a passion/something to work for and somebody to impress. In fact, I know this feeling acutely as rn, this obsession lies with my roles. I'm hoping that once I start placement properly, in the next few months, I'll have this feeling stem from there. 

But moreover, I want to move away from relying on external validation, and instead cultivate an obsession purely based on my love for medicine - the kind the greats seem to have.

But I'll be honest, I feel like I'm very validation-driven, so I think I'll start there.

Any tips on how to develop this kind of obsession with studying?

  
\*\* Also I don't mean being a 'gunner' necessarily - I just really want to fall in love with med, just as much as I have with my roles, and to prioritise it just as much.

How to become obsessed with studying?*