Have you ever heard of the placebo effect? You take a pill believing that it’s some powerful medicine that will make you feel better and so it does. But later you find out the pill was nothing more than sugar, it was only your confidence that made the so-called “drug” work. The sugar pill motivates you. The pill gives you a reason to believe you’ll be healed. If confidence in a fake drug can motivate you, why can’t confidence in yourself do the same?

As this spring semester starts, confidence is the key to catching a second wind that will help you continue and improve from the fall. The placebo effect can be achieved just by pushing yourself harder than normal. Belief in your abilities will help motivate you to do better this semester.

A friend of mine had been running two miles a night all last semester. There was no desire to change. He was perfectly okay with finishing the last lap every night and calling it quits. Or so he thought. On the day he got back from winter break he went to the gym and did his usual two miles but impulsively decided to do a half mile more. A half mile more led to another and another until he had finally done six, and he wasn’t even tired. The next day he did six miles again no problem. He could have improved his distance much earlier if he felt like it. The problem was he kept making excuses. There wasn’t enough time. He was already in good enough shape. Why bother to do more? All these excuses we’re thrown out the window after he tripled his distance overnight.

Another friend had a similar experience. She had been complaining about not reading enough extracurricular books. She heard of others who managed to read two or three books a week and wondered how they did it. Her rationalization was that the books would still be there tomorrow, and she’d be able to read them someday, just not today. She went on thinking like this until winter break when something clicked and she read four books over the course of a weekend. Like the runner, she didn’t even set out to read more than normal. When she returned to school she was able to keep up the habit of reading one to two books a week despite classes and work.

All a sugar pill does is bring out suppressed confidence. It’s not the pill that changes, it’s the belief. Even though they tried to hide it, my friends had both the desire and ability to do better. After they destroyed their doubts by accidentally doing something they never thought possible, their habits changed instantly. The random acts of pushing themselves further, even just one time, served as placebos that motivated them to change by realizing they had the ability to do so all along.

Second semester is all about finding the motivation to make this year better than the last. You may think you’re content to ride this semester out like all the others. Or maybe you want to change but are too scared. Sometimes laziness and excuses only keep you from seeing that you’re really just afraid. The opposite of the placebo is the nocebo, the sugar pill that convinces you it will cause harm, and in doing so, actually does. Excuses and justifications for inaction are nocebos, and you’ll never get anything done if you believe them. Don’t be so quick to write yourself off. Change is easy. Conviction is a placebo, and all you need is a little taste of it to be healed.