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. 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. It is the false belief of the elephants that denied their freedom for life time. 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. Thinking Out of the Box Once upon a time, a merchant named Sam owed a huge sum of money to Tom, a money lender. The time came when the merchant ran out of the last chance given to him to give the money back.Sam had a beautiful daughter who was very affectionate with her father. Tom asked the merchant to give all the money back failing which he will marry his beautiful daughter.Tom was not at all good looking and ill minded and so the merchant was in dilemma. Tom proposed a new condition. There was a mix of black and white pebbles on the ground where they were standing. He will take two pebbles on both hands, one will be white and the other will be black.If the daughter correctly chooses the white pebble, then Tom will write off all the debt and leave the marriage proposal too. But if she chooses the black pebble, he will write off the debt but will marry the daughter.Tom bent down to pick the pebbles from the ground and the daughter noticed that he took black pebbles on both hands. The girl had three choices- to notify the same to her father which may provoke Tom, take the black pebble and sacrifice her life or simply refuse to take the pebble which might land her father into trouble. But what she did totally surprise Tom.She took the pebble from his hand and 'accidentally' the pebble fell off from her hand to ground. She then asked Tom to see which color pebble was left in his hand to identify the color she picked. Tom had no other choice but to show the black color pebble in his hand and set both of them free. Sometimes, life offers you situations which not only demands hard work and perseverance but some creative thinking which saves the situation.