As students reach the middle of the spring semester, it's possible they may begin experiencing difficulty maintaining motivation with academic work, social engagements or other responsibilities. Balancing many responsibilities can create emotional burn-out that results in a low mood, loss of interest or difficulty maintaining motivation. Here are some tips to recognize this challenge and to help you connect with your student to provide support.
Help them address what specific barriers are causing a loss of motivation.
To improve, it’s important to understand what’s going on. Some areas to consider when beginning to look at next steps in improving motivation:
- Are they experiencing fatigue or sleep difficulties?
- Are they feeling behind or overwhelmed and are unsure how to be successful as they balance multiple responsibilities between classes, work and extracurricular activities?
- Are they feeling uninterested in course content?
Help them identify things within their control.
Students don’t always have control over their academic or exam schedule, expectations of classes, when meetings or social engagements are scheduled, or how these things sometimes fall within the same week. This can contribute to feelings of lack of control and sometimes hopelessness impacting motivation.
- Help them identify small ways to increase control, such as looking at ways to improve their daily routine, implementing time for self-care and things they enjoy, or ways they can communicate boundaries with their time, if needed.
- Your student may struggle to acknowledge how far they have come and that they may have experienced similar feelings throughout the fall semester. Ask your student to think about how they overcame difficulties in the past and identify ways that your student can implement similar action steps this semester.
Help them identify what they are excited and passionate about.
Help them find things they can look forward to or that make them want to stay motivated. This can include being excited to reach the end of semester, getting a good grade on an exam they’ve been studying for, learning a new role in their extra-curricular activities, or simply knowing the sooner they finish an assignment, the more time they can spend with friends.
Set realistic goals.
College can be fast-paced and also can cause students to feel that they have to accomplish everything right now. Help your students set realistic goals by identifying smaller achievements to contribute to their overall success.
- Setting realistic goals for their study schedule, achievements within their extra-curricular activities or finding a balance between time with friends and other responsibilities is important.
- Encourage flexibility within these goals and ask how your student might like support from you to help check in on these goals.
Celebrate successes, big or small.
Help your student identify what’s going well and how they can celebrate every success and accomplishment.
- Did they make it to all of their classes and maintain their study schedule this week? Did they feel that their leadership skills grew within a club? Did they feel supported by and spend time with friends this week? Did they earn an "A" on the exam they've been studying for? All of these things can be celebrated and may help focus on what goal they want to accomplish next.
If your student still experiences motivational challenges, Counseling and Psychological Services can help. Students can call (402) 472-7450 to set up a same-day initial evaluation.
More details at: https://caps.unl.edu/