We are in the thick of college essays and applications at our house right now. We have no idea what we are doing since this is our first child to reach college age, and we are all trying to make sure we meet all the important deadlines. But of course, that isn’t the only thing going on for our son. He just finished up swimming for the school team and competing at State, he has a full load of AP and concurrent college classes and he is trying to enjoy all the fun of friends and Senior year activities. So it isn’t surprising that writing college essays and filling out applications is not something he is super excited to spend his time on. To be completely honest, I have made just about every mistake I shared last week trying to motivate him. And I have practiced all the helpful strategies too. I am right down in the trenches with you in this parenting thing and the tools and strategies I share here on the podcast are the tools and strategies that I am using in my own home too! But even when I am trying to do all the right things to help my fabulous high school senior stay motivated to get those college applications done, there have still been some challenges that have come up along the way. So, today I am sharing a few of those common roadblocks to motivation and what you can do to help your teen (or yourself) work through them. And, at the very end of this episode I have a quick checklist you can go through with your teen when they aren’t feeling motivated to help them figure out what is keeping them stuck. And yes, the same checklist can help you when you feel stuck too. Five Roadblocks to Motivation and How to Handle Them 1. Stress When your teen is stressed out or overwhelmed it activates the fight or flight response in their lower brain. Think about how you feel when you are stressed out…it is the opposite of motivation. If motivation feels like hope, possibility, empowerment and excitement; stress feels like discouragement, overwhelm, self-doubt, and dread. You feel frantic. You don’t know where to start. You feel inadequate. Your brain starts looking for more evidence that this is hard and makes your problems seem even bigger than they already are. When your teen is stressed out, help them figure out the next step. Ask them: What can YOU do right NOW? And then have them take action on that one small thing. Often stress will cause us to focus on the things that are out of our control, so we need to redirect our brain to the things that are within our control. The key is to start small so you can move out of the stress and get a quick win that will create some momentum to move you into motivation. The task you do doesn’t even have to be related to the stuff you are stressed about. Often when I am stressed about something that is out of my control at the moment, I do a task that makes my space feel more calming and comfortable, like making my bed, clearing off a counter, going through a pile or putting away everyone’s shoes. This can work for your teen too. 2. Fear Fear is another emotion that activates the fight or flight response in your teen’s brain. Whether they are afraid of rejection, what others might think, missed opportunities, or failure, fear can cause them to play small or to want to hide to stay safe. The desire to hide and play small keep us from the anticipation that would create motivation. Like we talked about back in episode 14 about Fear in Parenting, (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-is-going-to-be-fun-enjoy-parenting-teens/id1631742255?i=1000580794686) Fear also causes us to bypass the part of our brain responsible for creativity, logic and problem solving so we aren’t able to generate ideas or solutions to move forward. And if it slows down our progress, the reward seems so far away that we don’t experience motivation. Alternatively fear might move your teen to taking action. Fear of missing the deadline or not getting into the college he wants has definitely moved my son into action, but it is fleeting and it doesn’t produce his best work. After all, writing essays requires the use of your logical, creative, problem solving brain. When your teen is experiencing fear, ask them this question: How can you succeed at this? It seems so simple, but it moves our brain out of fear and into possibility and hope, which are key ingredients for motivation. The idea of success will give them something to look forward to and anticipate creating that little sample dopamine reward. 3. Lecturing and Nagging As parents I think we all know that lecturing and nagging are not the best strategy, but it can be so challenging not to do it! But lecturing and nagging are one of the fastest ways to KILL your teen’s motivation. Nagging is a natural result of you as a parent being more committed to something than your teen is…and wanting to motivate them to take action. The problem is, the developmental purpose of the teen years is for your teen to separate themselves from you. They are designed to seek out their own identity…separate from you. So, every time you make a suggestion, they are wired to push against it and do it their own way. The more you try to get them to do what you want, the more they push back, even if it is something they do actually want. This creates a lot of resistance for your teen…not the anticipation and excitement needed for motivation. They may eventually do what you say just to get you to stop bugging them about it…but taking action begrudgingly will never create motivation or momentum because they don’t get to experience the reward of completion when they are bitter about it in the first place. When you find yourself lecturing or nagging your teen, STOP and apologize. And then get curious. Maybe in the moment or maybe later when emotions have calmed down, ask them what they want and why. Who do they want to be? What do they want their future to look like? Let them imagine what it will be like if they do this thing…or if they don’t. Guide them through the process of finding this answer for themselves. Dreaming about their future connects them with their WHY. Knowing your why is so important to creating motivation because it is the reward we are seeking. If we don’t know what it is, it is much harder to get excited to seek it. Dreaming about their future also creates hope, excitement, possibility and anticipation…the perfect recipe for motivation. 4. Criticism Have you ever done the dishes (or some other task) with someone else watching over your shoulder and telling you all the ways you are doing it wrong? How motivated are you to keep doing those dishes? Simply put, you can’t feel hope and possibility when you are focused on all the ways you are falling short and failing. Trust me when I say that your teen is well aware of all their shortcomings. They are constantly being judged and compared and measured. Teens are hard enough on themselves and we don’t need to add our voices to the rest of the criticism they are facing. The last thing they need is you reminding them that they are behind or that they aren’t doing it right. There is really no upside to criticizing your teen. Feeling bad about themselves will slow them down, create self-doubt, and focus their attention on all the things they aren’t doing. Not only will they still have all the same things to do, but they will be trying to do them carrying a backpack full of inadequacy, self-doubt and shame. Instead, focus on the things they are doing well. Give them positive feedback. Remember that motivation is created by the anticipation of a reward. And more rewards create more motivation. Your positive feedback and encouragement is the reward, so give it freely and often if you want to motivate your teen. 5. Remember, challenges are not a problem I know this might seem a little out of place in a list of challenges you might face, but knowing that challenges aren’t a problem is essential to moving forward when they come. There will be challenges along the way. We can count on our teen feeling uninspired and discouraged about half of the time. And when we teach them that this is a normal part of life, it is so much easier for them to work through it and move forward without letting it hold them back. The best thing you can do to help your teen keep going when things get hard is to help them plan for roadblocks, challenges and objections. With my son’s college applications, we talked about his plan for how he would get them done. When would he work on them? What would he do if he didn’t feel like it? What about the days when he had a lot of homework or his friends wanted to hang out? Having a plan in place for how he would get them done was essential. And, instead of me being the bad guy in the moment saying no to hanging out with friends, I got to be the helper, reminding him of the plan HE made. Having routines is especially helpful with the reward seems really far away or not very exciting. You know, the things your teen doesn’t really care about but still needs to get done. Just like we create a bedtime routine with our little kids to minimize their resistance and get them in the habit of self-care, routines make it easier for our teens to take action when they don’t feel like it. And it always ties back to the WHY we talked about earlier. Our little kids may not want to brush their teeth, but they do want to have a beautiful smile. Our teens may not want to do homework, but they do want to be able to get into college or find a good job. Creating routines can help them get in the habit of doing what needs to be done when the anticipation of a reward isn’t as compelling. I hope this gives you some new tools to help you support your teen in finding motivation when challenges come. But if they aren’t feeling motivated and can’t figure out why, here is a simple checklist to help them spark some motivation and figure out what to do next. o Look Ahead and find the WHY– Who do I want to become? Why does this matter to me? Is the reward compelling? o Confidence Check – Am I confident in my own skills and ability to do this? Do I need help, information, support or tools? o Motivation Sweet Spot – is the task at hand it too easy or too hard? How can I move it to the sweet spot? o Physical Needs – Am I getting enough sleep? food? Exercise? Fun? o Just Start - What is one thing I can do right NOW to take action? If you haven’t listened to last week’s podcast episode: Motivating Your Teen – Part 1, make sure you go back and check it out so you can create an environment where motivation can grow. And if this has been helpful, I would love for you to leave me a rating or review. Your feedback is one of those rewards that helps motivate me to keep creating these podcast episodes for you!
