Everywhere you look, there are resources for improving motivation. Books, news articles, research studies. You can have a whole career in motivational speaking. Why, because we know that without motivation, there can be no success. That doesn't necessarily mean all motivated people are successful because some are delusional about their abilities (think of those people in the first few episodes of American Idol who truly believe that the judges will regret their decision to not send them to Hollywood). But success and opportunity knock; they don't break into your house. So, there is a lot of money to be made in helping people become more motivated.
But here's the thing . . .
Success breeds motivation.
It's probably not going to surprise you that I am about to use an example from the Y. I have been having some motivation issues since October. Not with going; I am always motivated to go. I have struggled to push myself harder in my classes. For over a year, I had been setting goals and improving, and then I hit a bit of a wall. I just couldn't get any better. When I went home and wrote my numbers in the tracking grid I had on the refrigerator, I was far from motivated. In fact, I was demotivated.
I didn't go out an buy a self help book or look up exercise motivational speeches on YouTube. That may work for some, but I felt it was unlikely to help me get past this wall.
I decided to take some time to appreciate exactly where I was. I stopped tracking numbers for a while, knowing that just going and doing the workout was good for me. I gave myself until Thanksgiving to just let things be what they were and not worry about it.
This week, I started in my efforts to improve again. I haven't yet sat down with a goal sheet or a grid, but in each class, I have said, "I want to increase my squat weight today" or "I want to average at least 16mph on the bike." Is this back up where I was in the spring and summer - no. Setting an unrealistic goal will no motivate because it will not lead to success. These numbers are above where I was two weeks ago. It may take a little time to get back up to where I was at my peak, but achieving these small successes will motivate me to get there.
How does this connect to education. When students who have traditionally made good grades slip a little, they feel a sense of failure at a more profound level than your students who fail regularly. They aren't used to it, and their instinct (as well as that of their parents) is to get them back up to where they were quickly. Depending on the cause of the slip, that may or may not be possible. If it resulted from night when they didn't sleep well or they had a cold on the day they took a test, then quick recovery is possible. But, if they have slipped due to chronic illness, a long term absence, or an unidentifiable sense of demotivation, it will likely take time.
That were the teacher comes in. Give them a realistic sense of what is possible and help them set a goal. "I'd like to make an A on my next test" will be demotivating if that isn't doable for them right now. However, "I'd like to aim for 5 points higher on this test than I got on my last test" might be. Perhaps they can get one excellent paragraph of an essay written or do four projectile problems in physics.
Don't set the goal so easy that it results in meaningless success because that's not motivating either. No one says, "Yeah for me because I walked to the mailbox today" (unless that was something they hadn't been able to do for a while). But there is a sweet spot where it is motivating. Just before an endurance song, I tell my cycle classes to set a goal that is "challenging but doable." Succeeding at that kind of challenge improves what we view as "doable" and allows us to set bigger goals.
To sum up, if you want your students motivated in your class (especially those who don't think they "are good at it," you gotta get a few wins under their belts early on. During the first week of class, set a challenge that they have to reach for but isn't out of their reach. Then (and this is important from a growth mindset standpoint), don't just say, "Hey, look, it turns out you are good at this." Instead, ask them what they did that enabled their success. Encourage those actions for the future. Point out each time they have a success, no matter how small it is, that it was the result of the work they did.
It's also helpful to remind them that growth is not a linear process. There are twists and turns and ups and downs on your way to a long term goal. While it may feel unpleasant, it is perfectly normal and part of what makes life so interesting.
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