Teen Talk

Keeping Up with Motivation 

By Gabi Harris

It’s Springtime! No more having to endure the brink of groundbreaking coldness and degrees being in the negatives! It’s time to store away the turtlenecks and to bring out the florals. With spring comes a new sense of mind for me. Mainly that I don’t have spring clothes and that I should really engage in spring cleaning. It’s that point in the school year that it’s so close to the end of the year that I can almost touch it. I’ve recently been making lists in order to keep up with everything I need to attend to so I don’t forget. It keeps me calm, collected, and organized. Being a senior, at this point in the year I’m stressing over prom, graduation, college, work, school work and just balancing this all on my plate without going insane. Also trying not to endure the major side effects from senioritis which include just being completely unmotivated to do anything school related which most seniors have well already hit.

I find that keeping a planner throughout the whole school year is extremely effective. I don’t just use my agenda, or planner for school-related things, but for everything so I don’t forget. Highlighting events in certain colors helps a lot to make the organization process much quicker and easier to look at than just plainly writing it. Without my planner I probably wouldn’t know anything that’s going on in my school life, work or online classes; it has been a life saver to say the least. Keeping up with your planner just makes life easier and keeps you from questioning what’s due in a class or when your next test is.

Counting down seems to also keep me motivated. Just the words “thirty more days” or “just one more month” really help me when it comes to getting motivated. Just telling yourself little words of motivation here and there can really boost up your levels of knowing you need to do well in these final months of schooling. There’s no effort and it’s quick and easy just to remind yourself that you’re doing great (hopefully) and that the pain is almost over and summer is almost here.

When having your next test or homework assignment, try to make it more fun for yourself! No, don’t just reward yourself with phone breaks every ten minutes after reading a sentence in your textbook. Play some music that keeps you at your best or have a quick snack for every couple of pages that you pain to read through. The studying will pay off in the end and it’s not a waste of time! There are tons of ways to make studying a way more enjoyable time than just crying as you read your math textbook. Surprisingly those articles online about weird, quirky things to do while studying really can help! Check out this one. (http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/17-little-tricks-to-help-you-ace-all-your-tests?sub=2193072_1135720#.itapYk9N9) I find that writing information on index cards, even if you can’t use them on the test, is very efficient! Bring them with you to work, to the bathroom, when out with friends and just do a quick brush up on your lesson for your test and you’ll be good to go! Also rewriting topics in general helps with memorization.

You can do it! There’s only a few months left.  Just push yourself, don’t slack off with your studies – you’ll really regret it if you do.

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Gabrielle Harris is a senior at Wellington High School. She is involved in the Quidditch team, Key Club, and is the social media and news editor for the WHS Wave school newspaper. She hopes to study mass communications in college and aspires to someday tell her travel stories to the world.