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Some students will have a drive from inside to learn new things and explore new ideas while some others look into successful persons around them and get self-motivated to learn hard.
However, this is not the case for all students and many of them will need immense motivation and inspiration from teachers and parents to work hard.
Stories are always a favorite area for students that invoke their love and interest. This is one of the reasons why teachers use this as a tool to motivate them in many areas.
This includes many common folk stories with a good moral at the end, real-life examples of successful persons and simple stories of normal people who have been part of their life journey.
Here we can have a look at a few motivational stories that help students to work hard and lay their foundation for a successful life.
1. The Elephant Rope
A man was walking nearby to a group of elephants that was halted by a small rope tied to their front leg. He was amazed by the fact that the huge elephants are not even making an attempt to break the rope and set themselves free.
He saw an elephant trainer standing beside them and he expressed his puzzled state of mind. The trainer said “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them.
As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
Moral: It is the false belief of the elephants that denied their freedom for a lifetime. Likewise, many people are not trying to work towards success in their life just because they failed once before. So keep on trying and don’t get tied up with some false beliefs of failure.
2. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
He is a seventh grade dropped out who tried many ventures in life but tasted bitter every time. He started selling chicken at his age of 40 but his dream of a restaurant was turned down many times due to conflicts and wars.
Later he attempted to franchise his restaurant. His recipe got rejected 1,009 times before the final approval. And soon the secret recipe, “Kentucky Fried Chicken” became a huge hit worldwide. KFC was expanded globally and the company was sold for 2 million dollars and his face is still celebrated in the logos.
Moral: Have you stopped your attempts to a venture just because you were rejected or failed a few times? Can you even accept a failure of 1009 times? This story inspires everyone to try hard and believe in yourself until you see success despite how many times you have failed.
3. Seeing opportunity in obstacles
Once there was a king who was curious but wealthy. He decided to test his fellow people to know who has a got a good attitude in life and who would spare some time for the country’s progress.
He placed a huge boulder right at the middle of the road and hid in a nearby place to see if anyone would make an attempt to move it off.
He saw some wealthy merchants and courtiers passing by the road. None of them made any attempt to move it off but simply walked away while some others blamed the king for not maintaining roads.
Later, a peasant came the way with a load of vegetables and saw the boulder. He kept his load down and tried to move the boulder away. After strenuous effort, he succeeded in moving it away. He saw a purse lying in the place of the boulder.
It contained many gold coins and a note from the king which read ‘this is the reward for the person who moves the boulder away’.
Moral: It is quite common for people to run away from problems and obstacles. But the story clearly shows the importance of seeing an opportunity in every obstacle which might improve our condition. Invest some time to remove obstacles on your way and experience many unseen presences.
4. Sharpen your ‘axe’
There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best in work and cut 18 trees in the first month and the king was glad.
The next month he put in the same effort but could cut only 15 trees. And the third month, he still tried his best but could cut only 12 trees. The king visited him the third month and talked about his decrease in productivity.
He explained that he might have lost his strength or got too old to do the work. The king asked him “when was the last time you sharpened your ax?” To the surprise, he has not even done it once in the last three months. That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees.
Moral: It is good that you put in a lot of effort and hard work to work towards your goals. But you should balance your life priorities and invest time with your family and save some time to relax which would boost up your productivity.