MOTIVATION IS ONE OF the toughest and most nebulous aspects of becoming a better student, yet it’s also one of the most essential. The human mind is a complicated thing, and there aren’t any step-by-step instructions you can follow to give yourself an attitude adjustment. But knowing what’s at stake, what motivates others to succeed, and what your goals are is a pretty good start. And since you’re reading this book, chances are you already have an interest in doing better in school—and that’s half the battle!
In high school and college, one way I stayed motivated was by thinking of myself as a top athlete. I got up early to train (study and do homework), took my workouts (classes) seriously, prepared for the upcoming meet (the exam) every day, and maintained healthy sleep and eating habits (this one’s straightforward). I took pride in my work and my achievements. For me, becoming valedictorian of Stuyvesant was kind of like winning the Olympics.
In general, though, students don’t get as much attention as athletes. They don’t have crowds of people shouting their name, or fans following their every move, or lucrative product endorsements. That’s why, to do well in academics, you have to know what you’re studying for. You can’t always depend on other people to cheer you on, so you’ve got to have something deep inside yourself that keeps you going. This chapter will look at how you can get—and stay—motivated from orientation all the way to graduation.
Let’s take a look at the most common reason for wanting a better GPA: it improves your chances of getting into a good school and landing a good job. This may sound obvious to many of you, but it’s worth taking a closer look at why grades matter. The more you understand about what you’re working for, the easier it is to stay motivated.
When applying to college and grad school, you’re asked to provide such a wide range of information—your transcript, standardized test scores, essays, letters of recommendation, extracurriculars, work experience, and so on—that it’s hard to know how much your academic performance really matters. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s one of the most important parts of your application.
I’m not saying that you have no chance of getting into your dream school with a mediocre transcript, or that a high grade point average will guarantee you a seat at Harvard. But admissions officers place more emphasis on your grades—especially the ones from rigorous, high-level classes—than almost any other factor. Yes, schools like to see that you’re well rounded, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to neglect your GPA. Plus, if your standardized test scores are high but your grades are low, schools may start to wonder whether you’ve really been applying yourself for the past four years.
Every year, college admissions officers from around the country take a survey on what really matters to them. In 2010, grades in college prep courses, strength of the student’s course of study, and grades in all courses, in that order, were three of the top four factors. College prep courses, by the way, include Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, college courses taken while in high school, and other advanced or college-level coursework.
Grades in these classes were the highest ranked factor, with 86.5 percent of respondents giving grades a rating of “considerable importance.” Next came strength of curriculum at 70.7 percent, admission test scores at 57.8 percent, and grades in all courses at 45.6 percent. The following table from the NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) gives you a good idea of how colleges really view your application:
How Colleges View a Student’s Application | ||
Factor |
Considerable Importance |
Moderate Importance |
Grades in college prep courses |
86.5% |
11.5% |
Strength of applicant’s curriculum |
70.7% |
22.0% |
Admission test scores (SAT, ACT) |
57.8% |
32.0% |
Grades in all courses |
45.6% |
43.9% |
Essay or writing sample |
26.4% |
37.5% |
Teacher recommendation |
17.4% |
47.7% |
Student’s demonstrated interest in the school |
20.7% |
27.0% |
Counselor recommendation |
17.1% |
50.0% |
16.3% |
42.2% |
|
Interview |
6.6% |
26.3% |
Subject test scores (AP, IB) |
7.0% |
27.2% |
Extracurricular activities |
8.9% |
43.9% |
SAT II Scores |
5.0% |
11.0% |
Work |
1.7% |
20.2% |
Source: Melissa Clinedinst and David Hawkins, “2010 State of College Admission,” National Association for College Admission Counseling, accessed December 12, 2012, http://www.nacacnet.org/research/PublicationsResources/Marketplace/Documents/SoCA2010.pdf.
If you’re trying to get into a highly selective school, your transcript should be top-notch. According to the admissions FAQs on Harvard’s website, for example, “the strongest applicants take the most rigorous secondary school curricula available to them,” with most admitted students “rank[ing] in the top 10–15 percent of their graduating classes.”7
Similarly, Yale states that the high school transcript is the “single most important document” in a student’s application, and while your academic record can make up for a lackluster SAT or ACT score, “it is unlikely that high standardized test scores will persuade the admissions committee to disregard an undistinguished secondary-school record.”8
Many of the highest ranked colleges have stopped releasing the average high-school GPA of accepted students, but of those that do, Princeton reports a 3.9, the University of Pennsylvania a 3.8, Vanderbilt University a 3.7, and the University of California at Berkeley a 4.0.9 The expectations of many good but less competitive schools are also startlingly high. Take a look at the average high-school GPA of students accepted by these “more selective” schools (a step down from “most selective”). The numbers speak for themselves:
Average High-School GPA for More Selective Colleges |
|
School |
Average High-School GPA |
Binghamton University-SUNY |
3.6 |
George Washington University (DC) |
3.6 |
Pepperdine University (CA) |
3.7 |
3.5 |
|
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY) |
3.7 |
Fordham University (NY) |
3.5 |
University of Georgia |
3.8 |
Hofstra University (NY) |
3.4 |
University of Delaware |
3.5 |
Source: Anne McGrath, ed., U.S.News & World Report Ultimate College Guide 2011, Table: More Selective Schools, p. 96. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Once you’ve made it into college, don’t expect to be able to coast for the next four years. If you’re thinking of going to grad school—whether to a master’s or PhD program, law school, medical school, or business school—it’s more important than ever to keep your grades up. Here’s a chilling fact: as of 2012, the median GPA of students entering Yale Law School was 3.90, with 75 percent having 3.98 or higher.
Now, Yale Law School is one of the hardest schools to get into in the country, so you shouldn’t take its standards as, well, standard. But most competitive graduate programs expect a GPA of 3.5 or higher, especially in the area you’re going to specialize in. The specific requirements for different types of grad schools are too numerous to include in this book, but you should keep in mind that the higher your college GPA, the better your chances of getting merit-based financial aid.
Okay, so getting better grades will help you get into more prestigious institutions, but does it really matter where you go to school? Well, that question opens up a huge can of worms. People have asked for a long time whether students learn better in more selective schools. According to recent research, the answer is a qualified yes.
In their study “Improving Undergraduate Learning: Findings and Policy Recommendations from the SSRC-CLA Longitudinal Project,” Richard Arum, Josipa Roksa, and Esther Cho found that the following types of students were more likely to improve on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test—which measures critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication skills—at the end of four years:10
• Students who spent more hours studying alone.
• Students who took courses requiring both significant reading (more than forty pages per week) and writing (more than twenty pages over the course of the semester).
• Students who said that their school’s faculty had high expectations.
• Students who had done more advanced coursework in high school.
Although all institutions had some students who showed substantial improvement on the CLA, the schools that are more selective had more of them. According to the research, a school’s selectivity does “make a difference in improving student performance,” with “23 percent of variation in CLA performance occur[ring] across institutions.”11 Hard-to-get-into schools are more likely to have rigorous classes, students with advanced backgrounds, and faculty with high expectations. For example, 71 percent of students at highly selective institutions had twenty or more pages of writing in at least one course per semester, compared to only 39 percent of students in less selective schools.12 Arum and Roksa define highly selective colleges as those with “students at the 25th percentile having combined verbal and math SAT scores higher than 1,150” and less selective colleges as those with “students at the 25th percentile having combined scores lower than 950.”13
In their book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Arum and Roksa mention another reason why top schools foster greater learning:
Being surrounded by peers who are well prepared for college-level work is likely to shape the climate of the institution as well as specific student experiences. Having high-performing students in the classroom can help improve achievement of all students, including those who have accumulated fewer skills before entering college.14
At Columbia, I definitely felt challenged by my professors, my classmates, and my course requirements, and while those high expectations could be annoying or even overwhelming at times, they pushed me to learn much more than I would have otherwise.
Of course, school is about more than learning for learning’s sake. It’s also about gaining the skills and experience necessary for a successful (and hopefully lucrative) career. Doing well in school will give you an edge when you enter the job market. More than 73 percent of employers screen candidates based on GPA, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2012 survey. Most use 3.0 as their cutoff, but some companies set the bar much higher.15
In addition, 73 percent of employers look for a strong work ethic in a candidate’s resumé, and having top marks goes a long way toward showing you’re a hard worker. Grades are especially important for someone who’s just graduating and doesn’t have a lot of work experience. What’s more, having significant academic awards can really make your resumé stand out from the crowd.
The school you attend may also have an impact on your future salary. Take a look at the 2012–2013 starting median salaries and mid-career salaries of a sampling of “most selective,” “more selective,” and “less selective” schools, as provided by www.payscale.com.
Median Salaries for Different Types of Colleges |
||
School |
Starting Median Salary |
Mid-Career Median Salary |
Most Selective |
||
Harvard |
$50,700 |
$111,000 |
Stanford |
$58,200 |
$114,000 |
Yale |
$48,900 |
$105,000 |
Columbia |
$54,700 |
$105,000 |
Princeton |
$58,300 |
$137,000 |
Brown |
$52,400 |
$109,000 |
MIT |
$68,400 |
$118,000 |
More Selective |
||
Binghamton University |
$49,100 |
$84,600 |
George Washington University |
$47,300 |
$93,100 |
SUNY—Stony Brook |
$45,800 |
$91,000 |
Northeastern University |
$50,400 |
$84,900 |
Pepperdine University |
$44,700 |
$88,900 |
University of Florida |
$46,200 |
$80,800 |
University of Maryland |
$49,100 |
$87,100 |
Syracuse University |
$47,000 |
$86,200 |
Florida State University |
$39,000 |
$73,400 |
University of Nebraska |
$39,000 |
$72,600 |
Clark University |
$39,600 |
$78,500 |
University of South Carolina |
$40,500 |
$71,500 |
University of Cincinnati |
$44,800 |
$76,600 |
University of Denver |
$44,500 |
$82,000 |
Source: 2012–2013 PayScale College Salary Report, www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools.
As you can see, the alumni of more selective schools tend to have bigger salaries, both when they graduate and when they’re midway through their careers. The median beginning salary for Ivy League grads is 32 percent higher than that of the alumni of small, private liberal-arts colleges, according to a 2008 Wall Street Journal article.16 However, this isn’t the whole story. The difference in pay may be due more to the types of jobs their alumni pursue than to how selective the school is. A large percentage of Ivy Leaguers are drawn to high-paying jobs in finance. And the graduates of many engineering schools have higher median salaries than the alums of more selective colleges. If you want to know which colleges give you the biggest bang for your buck in terms of initial cost and alumni salaries, take a look at PayScale’s 2012 ROI Rankings: College Education Value Compared, at www.payscale.com/college-education-value.
No matter what school you attend, however, ambition and hard work can help you get a higher salary. Researchers Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale have made the intriguing discovery that “[s]tudents who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges.”17 In other words, people who applied to top-tier schools but did not go—regardless of whether they were accepted—wound up earning salaries on par with alumni from those schools.
This could be because students who are ambitious enough to apply to selective schools are likely to pursue high-paying jobs, no matter where they graduate from. Studying more in college is also associated with higher wages, according to researchers Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks. Of the individuals they surveyed, “a standard deviation in hours studied…is associated with a wage gain of 8.8 percent.”18 So it seems that working hard and doing well in school can give your salary a boost.
The bottom line is that no school is right for everyone. It depends on you and your priorities, and many people are perfectly happy outside the ivory tower. But research supports that a more selective institution can help you learn, and having a strong academic record can help you succeed in the workplace.
If you’re in high school, do you know where you want to go to college? If you’re an undergrad, do you have your sights set on a specific career or grad school? More importantly, do you know how to achieve these things? Getting detailed about your dreams can make a huge difference in your performance. Students who wrote about their goals and planned how to achieve them raised their GPA by 30 percent, according to a 2010 study at the University of Toronto. These students also reported feeling less anxious and stressed.19
The key is to break your goals down into manageable chunks. If your aim is simply, “Get into a top-tier college,” that’s not going to help you much. If, instead, you deconstruct this into highly specific subgoals—such as (1) get my math grade up this term, (2) take a practice SAT exam once a week, (3) find a teacher who can write my letter of recommendation, and (4) join the school band—you’ll find it much easier to stay on track. To help you get started, I’ve included some goal-writing exercises at the end of this chapter.
It’s a good idea to research schools and careers you’re interested in as soon as possible—preferably years in advance—so you can develop concrete goals. If you’re in high school, make a list of colleges you would like to attend, including dream and safety schools. Find out the average GPA (or, if that’s not available, class percentile) and standardized test scores of accepted students. If you’re in college and plan on continuing your education, do the same thing for grad schools.
The Princeton Review and U.S.News & World Report (available online at www.usnews.com/education) provide rankings and admissions information for colleges and graduate programs, and are fantastic resources. Read up about the requirements for careers you’re considering, and ask people in those industries for advice on how to prepare.
For a good (and free) introduction to many different types of careers, including their educational requirements, check out the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, available online at www.bls.gov/oco/ (click on the Index link to see a list of jobs). Knowing what’s required will make it easier to set goals for your GPA, your curriculum, your test scores, your skill set, and much, much more—and with goals comes motivation.
If you don’t know what you want to do with the rest of your life, however, don’t despair. (I was in this situation throughout high school and college—which might explain why I went from history to art history to considering law school to computer science!) Many students are conflicted about their career paths, and this is the perfect time for exploration. Don’t let uncertainty about your future overwhelm you! Keep yourself motivated by focusing on more immediate, short-term goals, such as:
• Completing the coursework in each class to the best of your ability.
• Fulfilling your school’s graduation requirements.
• Preparing applications for college or graduate school.
• Applying for internships or jobs.
• Studying for standardized tests.
If you’re in college, you have additional goals such as:
• Deciding on a major. You can do this by looking at the requirements for each department, taking a wide variety of classes to see which ones you like the best, researching what kind of jobs are available for the majors you’re considering, and taking a career evaluation test at your school’s career services center.
• Completing the requirements for your major, once you declare one.
• Deciding on and completing a senior thesis, if required.
Even if you don’t have concrete plans for the future, try to do the best you can in every class. Good grades will help you no matter what you choose to pursue in the end. You’ll learn valuable skills in almost every subject, and at the very least you’ll come away with a better sense of what you like and don’t like. Remember: Don’t let uncertainty about your future paralyze your present.
It’s tough to figure out what makes top students tick—but in an attempt to do this, I asked my group of scholars how much they attribute several factors to their academic success, on a scale of 1 to 10. Here are the results:
Factors Top Students Attribute to Their Success |
|
Factor |
Average Importance |
Determination |
8.98 |
Hard Work |
8.82 |
Desire to Learn |
8.73 |
Pressure from Self |
8.69 |
Ambition |
8.64 |
Self-Control |
8.22 |
Intelligence |
8.02 |
Supportive Family |
7.51 |
Good Teachers |
7.04 |
Good Time Management |
6.93 |
Parental Pressure |
4.20 |
Peer Pressure |
3.25 |
Let’s take a closer look at these results.
• Determination. This was the top-scoring factor among high-achieving students, and it’s a telling sign of their attitude toward school. For most of them, their primary motivation didn’t come from external sources such as pushy parents and teachers or from being such geniuses that everything came naturally to them. It came from the inside—from their own desire to succeed. Force of will, combined with good old-fashioned hard work (which was the second most highly rated factor), helped them come out on top.
• Desire to learn. Most top students are in it for more than just the grades. They actually care about what they’re learning. It’s important to have curiosity about the world, a longing to understand things. Take me, for instance—I’m a voracious reader of all kinds of books, Wikipedia is my favorite website, and I feel bored and unhappy if I’m not constantly learning.
• Pressure from self. Like determination, this high-scoring factor reflects a student’s inner desire to succeed. It was ranked much higher than external forces, such as pressure from parents and peers.
• Ambition. This was another high-scoring factor, and though it’s similar to determination, ambition is more focused on the end result than the here and now. For many top students, getting high grades is important because it will help them pursue their careers and achieve personal goals.
• Intelligence. Okay, no one’s saying intelligence doesn’t matter, but it’s considered significantly less important than things like determination and hard work. The point is, you don’t have to be a genius to excel in school, and most top students have to work hard to get where they are.
• I’m going to combine the following factors here: supportive family and parental pressure. As you can see from the chart, top students ranked having a supportive family much higher than having parents who constantly nagged them to get straight As. In my survey, the vast majority—75 percent—said that their parents were supportive. Only 18 percent said they felt pressured by their parents to get good grades, while 7 percent had parents who didn’t care much at all about their school performance. This is important to note at a time when so-called “tiger mothers”—parents who aggressively push their children to excel in school—have been receiving a great deal of attention. Few of the high achievers in my survey had such domineering parents.
• Good teachers. The results indicate that having good teachers is important but not extremely critical to top students. Having teachers who can inspire you and push you to do your best is great, but you shouldn’t depend on this being the case. You’re probably going to have some truly awful teachers in your academic career—I know I did—so you should be prepared for all personality types.
• Peer pressure. This does not seem to be a critical factor. While it may help to have friends who challenge you to excel, most top students didn’t feel this was vital to their success. Again, these external factors seem less important than the students’ self-defined and self-determined desire to succeed.
Motivation is something you have to keep working at your entire life. It doesn’t happen overnight—it’s a gradual, complicated, and deeply personal process. For most top students, something deep inside them compelled them to succeed. The way I see it, there are good and bad forms of motivation. The good kind comes from wanting to improve yourself and fulfill your potential, and consists of factors such as:
1. The desire to learn.
2. Taking pride in your work.
3. Wanting to do the best you can.
4. Believing you can achieve great things through effort.
5. Setting high expectations for yourself.
6. Trying to achieve realistic goals for your future.
Bad motivation, on the other hand, should be avoided as much as possible, and includes:
1. Wanting to be better than everyone else.
2. Seeking praise from your parents and teachers.
3. Being afraid of failure.
4. Feeling guilty or worthless if a goal is not achieved.
5. Trying to achieve a very narrow goal with a low probability of success, such as becoming valedictorian or getting into Yale Law School.
This kind of motivation can be destructive because it puts undue stress on you, turns your classmates into The Enemy, gives you potentially unrealistic expectations, makes you afraid to take risks, and causes you to rely too much on others for support and encouragement. It’s unrealistic to expect to eliminate all bad motivation from your life, but your resolve to improve your grades will be much stronger and healthier if you focus on the good kind.
I must admit, I was guilty of employing some forms of bad motivation when I was a student, and I can tell you from experience that they’ll only make you unhappy. It can be a struggle to cultivate good motivation and block out the bad, but you’ll be much happier and more fulfilled in the end.
When most people think of top students, they picture overly stressed, hyper-competitive kids who beat themselves up for anything less than an A. And while this stereotype may be true for some high achievers, being a perfectionist actually decreases your chances of academic success for a number of reasons. Focusing on perfection:
1. Makes it difficult to start a project because it may turn out less than perfect.
2. Makes it difficult to complete a project because it never seems good enough.
3. Makes it difficult to budget time, as the perfectionist doesn’t want to move on to a new project until the first one is done right (which may be never).
4. Makes it difficult to learn from mistakes.
5. Makes the perfectionist less likely to take risks—for example, trying challenging projects or taking subjects that he or she feels “weak” in.
6. Makes the person more susceptible to low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
Studies show that being able to accept failure is critical for learning and may actually give your brain a boost. In a 2012 French experiment, students were given a set of difficult anagram problems which none of them could solve. One group was then told that experiencing difficulty is a normal part of learning, while the others were told that the researchers were looking at what strategies they used. When they were later given a test measuring working memory capacity, an important indicator of intelligence, the failure-is-normal group scored significantly better.
So why would a simple pep talk lead to higher scores? According to one of the researchers, Frederique Autin, “By being obsessed with success, students are afraid to fail, so they are reluctant to take difficult steps to master new material. Acknowledging that difficulty is a crucial part of learning could stop a vicious circle in which difficulty creates feelings of incompetence that in turn disrupts learning.”20 In other words, realizing that it’s okay to make mistakes can help you become a better student.
Students also tend to do better when they’re not overly concerned with looking smart. In a startling study, Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck showed how a single sentence—“You must have worked hard at these problems,” said to a group of fifth graders after they completed a test of nonverbal puzzles—led the students to choose more challenging practice problems, work harder at them, try to learn from their mistakes, and score 30 percent better on a test with a difficulty level similar to the first.21
By contrast, a group of kids who were told “You must be smart at these problems” went for the easier puzzles, gave up more easily, did not try to learn from their errors, and scored 20 percent worse on the follow-up test. Since they were told they were smart, they were more afraid to take risks and make mistakes that could hurt their fragile self-image; but in the end, this overly cautious strategy backfired on them.
In a separate study, Dweck also found that students who have a “growth mind-set”—that is, the belief that intelligence is malleable—had a steady increase in math grades over a period of two years, while those who believe that intelligence is fixed saw a drop in their grades.22
The bottom line is that being a perfectionist is more likely to hurt than help you. As these experiments show, changing your attitude about how you learn can have a big impact on your performance. So what does this mean for you? Whether you’re a perfectionist or not, pay close attention to how you react when things don’t go your way.
Since you don’t have a researcher telling you that failure is okay or praising you for your effort, you’ll have to become your own encourager. When you find yourself having negative thoughts—“I’m not smart enough,” “This subject’s too hard for me,” “I’m not good at [fill in the blank]”—stop for a moment and give yourself a talking-to. Remind yourself that:
• Intelligence is expandable, not fixed.
• Your brain is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
• Mistakes are a natural part of learning. View them as an opportunity, not as something to be ashamed of.
• You can learn anything with time and effort.
• Most people who succeed do so through hard work, not inborn ability.
Famous sayings like “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration,” are also good models to follow. When you succeed, take pride in the effort you put in, not your ability. It can be hard to have only yourself for encouragement, so partner up with some friends and support each other when the going gets rough, or ask a parent to egg you on. Just make sure they give you the right kind of encouragement.
In addition to setting goals and adjusting your attitude, here are six easy ways to get psyched about school.
1. Study something you like. Although in high school you may have little control over your schedule, in college you’ll be overwhelmed with choices. Make sure you major in something you like and if you go to graduate school, choose a program you’re passionate about. This may sound obvious, but lots of people fail to follow this simple rule. They major in something because it sounds practical, and they go to law or medical or business school because they feel it’s expected of them. (I almost fell into this trap.) Their motivation quickly fades as they spend countless hours studying something that just isn’t them. (Not that there’s anything wrong with law or medical or business school; it’s just that you have to want to do it.)
2. Take things one day at a time. If you’re constantly thinking too far ahead—weeks, months, or even years into the future—you’ll be overwhelmed by all the things you have to do. Of course you should be aware of when your projects are due, your test dates, your application deadlines, and so on, but you should also be able to push these things to the back of your mind and focus on the task at hand.
3. Watch the game show Jeopardy! Seriously! Jeopardy! exercises your brain, inspires you to learn, and puts you in an environment where knowledge is something valuable. It’s a great feeling when you come across a question that none of the contestants can answer and realize, “Hey, I know that!” I don’t recommend most of the other trivia shows on TV, though, because they emphasize pop culture and dumb luck more than the kind of stuff you learn in school.
4. Reward yourself. Have some concrete plans for how you’re going to celebrate after a particularly grueling project or exam. Go out with friends, see a show, eat in a fancy restaurant, take a mini-vacation—whatever floats your boat.
5. Get lots of sleep. It’s hard to stay motivated when you can barely keep your eyes open; being well-rested keeps your spirits high. More on this when we discuss the mind-body connection.
6. Cast out negative thoughts. One way to do this is by having a mantra—a short, positive, self-affirming statement that you say again and again and again and again. Whenever you feel like you’re not good enough (and believe me, everyone thinks this at some point or another), repeat your mantra in your head—or out loud if you’re by yourself. You can also write it out a few times a day for added reinforcement. It should be something simple and direct, like, “I am smart. I am special. I am strong. I can do whatever I set my mind to.” Or, “I’m proud of myself for doing my best. That’s all anyone can ask of me.” You may be surprised by how a few simple phrases can change your whole outlook on life.
Exercise 1:
This exercise is designed to make you think about your goals and how to achieve them. According to the 2010 University of Toronto study mentioned earlier, simply writing about your goals can improve academic performance. There are no right or wrong answers here, but try to be as specific as you can.*
*If, after completing this exercise, you’d like additional guidance on setting your goals, consider the Self-Authoring Program available (for a fee) at www.selfauthoring.com, developed by the researchers responsible for the University of Toronto study.
Step 1: Using a separate piece of paper, spend about two minutes describing your goals for your education and future career. Just write whatever comes into your head—don’t worry about how it sounds or if it’s grammatically correct.
Step 2: Read over your answer to Step 1. Based on what you wrote, come up with a list of five specific goals. For each one, write down why it’s important to you, three sub-goals necessary to accomplish it, and when you could realistically achieve it. This’ll help you break down your goals into manageable chunks.
Goal 1:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
This is important to me because
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 2:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 3:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
When would I realistically be able to achieve this goal?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Goal 2:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
This is important to me because
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 1:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 2:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
When would I realistically be able to achieve this goal?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Goal 3:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
This is important to me because
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 1:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 2:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 3:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
When would I realistically be able to achieve this goal?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
This is important to me because
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 1:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 2:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 3:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
When would I realistically be able to achieve this goal?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Goal 5:
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
This is important to me because
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 2:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Sub-goal 3:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
When would I realistically be able to achieve this goal?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Exercise 2:
List five things you can do to reward yourself after successfully completing a task—for example, watching a movie, taking a bubble bath, or eating your favorite dessert. Having specific things to look forward to can be an excellent motivator.
1.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
2.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
4.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
5.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Exercise 3:
Write down a mantra (a short, self-affirming statement). Try to say it—either out loud or in your head, whatever you feel more comfortable with—at least once a day, and whenever you have negative thoughts. This is an easy and effective way to increase motivation.
Tip: Your mantra shouldn’t be an unrealistic or overly demanding statement such as “I am smarter than everyone else,” or “I must get an A on this physics test.” It should be something that reminds you of your good qualities and gives you confidence in yourself. For example, “I am proud of myself for doing my best. That’s all anyone can ask of me.”
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________