Hey VIPs, I hope you and your teens are doing super well.
I have just jumped off a consult with a wonderful student and their mum, and I’m gonna give you a few little details, but I’ll try and keep things kind of neutral so that I don’t embarrass them or give away some of the things they were sharing with me. But I think there’s a really important concept or lesson and takeaway that is gonna be really helpful for a lot of people to hear. And I see it happening with a lot of people, and I think it goes a little bit unrecognized, and I wanna shine a bit of a light on it.
It’s this idea of motivation, because I generally work with really committed and highly motivated students. And this particular student was saying that sometimes they find it hard to get motivated. They even corrected me, because at one point I said something like, “Okay, here’s how this works, and I can tell that you are pretty committed to motivate,” and they were like, “Whoa, whoa, let me stop you there. Sometimes I really am not motivated.” And they even went on to share with me this kind of system that they have developed with their parents where, when they’re kind of in the zone and things are going well and they are just naturally—let’s just say—feeling motivated (I’m gonna come back to that word “naturally motivated” in a moment), when they are feeling motivated, they kind of set themselves up.
They almost, let’s just say, store some “carrots.” If you’re thinking of carrot and stick—like I said, I’m not gonna give this whole thing away—but it was really great to hear how proactive they were. This is the thing I loved about it: they were really proactive, because they said, “When I’m in a really good space and I’m feeling motivated, I wanna set myself up proactively, knowing that at some points I’m not gonna feel very motivated.” So basically what they do is they store some carrots with their parents, right? And then when there are times that they aren’t feeling very motivated and they’re struggling, they basically then request that carrot to be dangled on a stick for them. Okay, I hope you’re going with this. I hope this is making sense. And I was like, “I love it,” because it shows how proactive they are, how self-aware they are.
But what we kind of got into was the thing that they found they were really struggling with—I'm gonna do inverted commas here—“motivation.” They said particularly the more open and vague tasks (their words and mine), especially in subjects like English. So they were very clear on telling me that English is not a subject that they have selected. They would rather not have to be doing it, but it’s a compulsory subject, and they really do not like and do not enjoy having to write those bigger essays and those big analytical extended responses.
And what I got into here with them, and this part I wanna share with you, is: is this down to motivation, or is this down to lack of clarity, lack of direction? And when I say direction, I mean having steps, having structure, having a clear path forwards. Is it a lack of certainty that is actually keeping them stuck? Because like I said, this student—they’re hardworking, they have high ambitions, they’re very smart. And I think this is true for a lot of students out there. And if you’re listening to this, it very well may be true for your teen as well.
And so what I shared with them is: I don’t think it’s an issue of motivation. Because we could put on motivational music, we could have the biggest carrot, we could have the biggest bundle of carrots, and it isn’t enough to get us momentum. And this is the other word I wanna bring in here. I actually wanna bypass this idea of motivation just for a moment. I want us to think about certainty and clarity—or lack of certainty, or uncertainty and lack of clarity—and momentum. Because often, I think students mistake (and I think it’s very easy for us to do) mistaking motivation for clarity and momentum, and that movement forwards down a direct, smooth, clear path.
And so we had a bit of a discussion around the fact that they’re already using the words “more vague” and, let’s just say, less clear answers where there’s more than one right answer, or there’s not just one right or wrong answer—and just thinking about how that feels and what that looks like when we’re trying to get started.
So I gave the analogy of: let’s just imagine someone said, “Look, I’m gonna give you this wonderful plot of land”—for me it would be an ocean or a water view—and you are gonna have this beautiful new home. You’ve just gotta build it. And for me, I was like, “I wouldn’t know where to start.” I know you’ve gotta kind of do some foundations before you can start building a house. I have no idea what you even lay as. I mean, I know it’s a concrete slab. That’s pretty much all I know. I don’t know how deep it needs to go down. I don’t know how you mix the concrete. I don’t know how you lay the concrete. I don’t know where to start. I know that we are gonna need some walls, and we’re gonna need some structural components, and we are gonna need to at some point put a roof on and some windows in.
I know all of the “whats,” okay? So what needs to go into that essay, or what that essay needs to look like, or have—I know what that is. Every student knows we need an introduction, and we’re gonna need to have some kind of hypothesis or thesis statement in there—the actual answer to the question. And we’re gonna need body paragraphs with supporting evidence and analysis of that evidence. We may, if it’s an evaluation-level essay, need some judgment in there as well. You can already tell, I could talk about this forever. And we know that it needs to have a conclusion. We know all of the “what,” and most students know that.
So it’s not like, “Do I know what I’m doing?” It’s not about the what. It’s how. So I know that in order to construct this house, I’m gonna need foundations, walls, windows, a roof, some other stuff—clearly I don’t know. But my motivation would be there. I am highly motivated to build this house. This motivation could not be higher. I have a huge amount of motivation. I have like the biggest carrot of all time, and yet I still don’t know how to get started. And let’s just say I take my best guess, because that’s what we need to do in study. It’s also what I would do in that scenario. If someone gave me the scenario with the house and the land, I would make my best attempt. But here’s the thing: would I have clarity? Would I be feeling confident? Would I be feeling certain? Would I have clear steps and structure and strategy to go about doing it? No.
And I would say, look, students are gonna be in a better position than me trying to build a house. I know they’re gonna have maybe 70%, they’re gonna have 80%, they might even have 90% of clarity and certainty and direction and clearness in that path forwards. But whether it’s a 5%, a 10%, a 20% level of uncertainty or lack of clarity, or just lack of knowledge of how to go about doing this, then that path to creating that outcome is not gonna be as smooth as it could be. It’s gonna take longer than it needs to, and the finished output, the finished outcome, is likely to be a lower quality than if we did have structured steps—if we had the how, if we had the full training in how to do it.
So what I wanted to really share with that student, and I wanna share with you here today is: is it motivation? I think it feels like it’s a lack of motivation. Is it motivation though? Or is it a lack of clarity? A lack of certainty? A lack of skill on how to go about doing this in the smoothest, most efficient, and highest quality way? And I would argue for a lot of hardworking students, for a lot of committed students, it is that how. It’s the lack of clarity, the lack of skillset in breaking down that task and knowing exactly how do I go about each of the steps, each of the parts, in the smoothest, most efficient, and most effective way.
And when we have that, then the momentum will come. We will know how to get started. We’ll know the steps to go through. We know how long we should be spending on things. We have strategies to complete each of those parts in really effective, high-quality ways. Like, how do I create a structured, high-quality analysis? How do I select the most discerning evidence, the most appropriate piece of evidence? And how many pieces do I need? Again, I won’t go into lots of detail on that—that’s like a whole other podcast episode. But as soon as I have all of that, even though I may not love the task (like I’m not necessarily gonna love building the house), do I want the outcome? Absolutely. And do I want it done? Absolutely. Do students want that essay written at a high quality in the most painless, pain-free way? Generally, I would say yes.
So I wanna get across this idea that it’s clarity and certainty and strategy and skillset that creates momentum, and maybe it’s not about motivation at all. I would love to know your thoughts on this, and if any of this resonates, and if you’ve kind of seen this happening for your teen, and maybe it’s time to consider things from a different angle than just motivation. Because we could have all of the carrots in the world, but if we don’t have the steps and the strategy and the know-how and the skills to be able to create the outcome that we need to or want to, it’s gonna be extremely hard to get started. It’s gonna be extremely hard, and just hard-going, completing that task. And so getting the how in place is gonna make such a massive difference.
I hope that this is helpful. I would love to hear your feedback. You can email me support@rocksolidstudy.com
I will see you on another podcast or in your inbox again very soon. Take care. Bye.
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