How to Get Motivated and Set Goals: The Top Ten Tips
Get Motivated to Achieve Goals
Following is a lesson that I teach at the beginning of the school year and reinforce time and time again. I also walk through these steps with parents at Back to School Night and in parent conferences.
I first learned about The Motivation Cycle in my freshman intro to psychology class at U.S.C. Go Trojans! It just made so much sense. To get motivated to achieve goals:
1. Start practicing with expert advice.
2. Effective practice leads to achievement.
3. Achievement makes people feel good about themselves and the cause of that feeling. In other words, people want to feel good about themselves and so this want transfers to practicing something else to achieve that same satisfaction. A true cycle!
As a teacher, years ago I learned that no matter how well-crafted was a unit or lesson plan, my behavioral objectives would not be met unless I included a motivation stratagem. It’s easy to get students motivated to do something they enjoy. The trick is to learn how to self-motivate to accomplish the things that involve practice that they don’t enjoy. Follow these Top Ten Tips to increase motivation and to set goals that are truly achievable for your students.
1. Define your goal. You’ve got to clearly understand where you want to end up before you begin any journey. Set goals that are realistic and specific.
For parents: If your child got all D’s and F’s on his last report card, straight-A’s on the next one not not be realistic. A goal of “do better” or “improve” is not specific.
2. Don’t try to do everything at once. Limit your goals to follow a one-at-a-time model. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
For parents: Avoid tutoring in all subjects. Better to tutor in one to a certain level of achievement and then tackle the next subject.
3. Make your goals public. Tell those close to you what your goal is and that you want their feedback and support as you work toward your set goals. Ask them to ask about your progress.
For parents: For elementary students, post goals on the refrigerator and use stars or stickers to show progress. For middle school and high school students, host peer study groups and help your child and friends to state their goals.
4. Break down your goal into manageable mini-goals. Get expert help in how to organize your plan to achieve success.
For parents: You may be the expert, but children perceive their teachers as the real experts. Find out how your child’s teacher likes to communicate and become that teacher’s favorite parent. Get advice early and often. Buy Starbucks cards and write nice notes to the teacher and commend her to the principal. Teachers are human, after all.
5. Set personal rewards for achieving each of your mini-goals. Behavioralists are right—positive reinforcement stimulates sustained effort.
For parents: Don’t give $10 for an A on the report card. That report card is month’s away. It’s not the money that is problematic; it’s that the goal is too long-term. Much better to provide rewards such as “I’ll do one of your chores if you do all of your homework for a week without me reminding you” or “I’ll make you and your friends a batch of chocolate chip cookies and let you do a sleepover if you get an A on the next math test. Make sure to state the reward in advance. Also, teach your children how to set their own rewards for achievement. Again, the short-term goal is the key. Sure, we’d all like to have our children focus on intrinsic rewards, but extrinsic rewards are a start and they get results. You may enjoy your job, but you probably wouldn’t do it without a paycheck.
6. Start small, but start. Starting small can produce big results. Even the longest journey begins with a single step, but you have to take that step. Start by spending just ten minutes extra each day, working toward your set goals.
For parents: Try starting with a ten-minute Quick Daily Review to break the forgetting cycle. Check out this powerful small step in my article, “Learn How to Study.”
7. Practice correctly with accountability. More golf swings do not improve a golf game. Expert advice and coaching makes a difference.
For parents: Again, consult your child’s teacher(s). I do favor task-oriented study and homework more so than time-oriented homework. For example, much better to assign your child 18 pages to read in a novel with a follow-up parent-child discussion, rather than read on your own for 30 minutes.
8. Practice consistently but don’t over-do. Limit practice to avoid burn-out. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. So keep moving to accomplish your set goals.
For parents: Parents are the chief reason why students fail to achieve their goals. Brutal, but true. Don’t make promises you won’t keep. If your serious about helping your children improve motivation and achievement by effective goal-setting you have to be there, each and every day. As a teacher, I never let parents say, “School is my child’s job, not mine. It’s up to my child to succeed.” My go-to response? “How’s that working for you?”
9. Avoid procrastination. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. Make consistent effort a habitual practice. However, if you miss practice, forgive yourself and then start again.
For parents: Your best tool for elementary, middle, and high school? Your child’s daily planner. If your school doesn’t provide one, buy one. Require your child to write down something for each subject or class to complete or study every day, as well as upcoming tests, project due-dates and announcements. Check the agenda daily and ask to see work completed.
10. Evaluate your progress toward your set goals and be flexible. What is working and what needs adjustment? Do the set goals or practice need refinement?
For parents: Each child is motivated in different ways. Experiment to find what works and change things up if things aren’t working. Quickly. Don’t wait until your child’s grade takes a nosedive before making adjustments.
The author’s Essential Study Skills is the study skill curriculum that teaches what students need to know to succeed and thrive in school. Often, the reason why
Essential Study Skills
students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because of laziness or lack of effort, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success.
The 56 lessons in Essential Study Skills will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable. Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Essential Study Skills is the ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, Advocacy/Advisory, Opportunity Program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice. Contact the publisher for affordable site licenses.
For parents: My three boys completed each of these lessons during summer vacation over a period of years. I let my sons choose: 4 hours of summer school daily for 10 weeks or 30 minute of study skills, 30 minutes worth of reading (by page numbers) and discussion with me, 30 minutes writing, and 30 minutes of other stuff: Boy Scouts achievement work, church Sunday School lessons, chemistry set work, art, etc. for the 10 weeks (time off for vacation). They never chose summer school!