How to Build Motivation and Momentum

(upbeat music) - Welcome. This is Learn Well for Student Success out of the Student Success Center in the School of Health Science and Wellness at UW Siemens Point. It's our mission to help support the whole student, honoring individual experiences and getting each person access to the tools and resources that will help them achieve their goals. If you've ever struggled to get going on an assignment, have ever been challenged to set goals, felt overwhelmed or felt as though you were an imposter in your own major, then this is an invitation from us to you. We understand the inherent challenges of being a college student, and we know that with supports and connection, you can make your college experience one that's full of opportunity and growth. Listen in as we talk to campus and community experts and students about their strategies for success. (upbeat music) - It's not all that uncommon for students to walk into the Success Center in the School of Health Science and Wellness with the worry that they're just not motivated, but when asked if you follow up questions, they can easily recite all the reasons that do motivate them. From the dietetic student who's passionate to help young kids with diabetes, to the medical lab science student who's excited to work behind the scenes, setting up new equipment to help assure reliable diagnoses, to the athlete who wants to do well in school and also show up for their team. What they then describe are barriers in building momentum towards their goals. In other words, students often have a desire to be successful, but they just aren't as confident in how to get started and overcome roadblocks. Our conversation today will centered on building that momentum and building resilience to overcome challenges. And joining us in this conversation is Chancellor Thomas Gibson. Dr. Thomas Gibson is our 15th chancellor here at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He is on a mission, a driven leader, focused on three key goals to achieve student success. They're ensuring academic excellence, expanding inclusive excellence and increasing enrollment and growth. Dr. Gibson came to the university with a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience in growing resilience systems in students. He's helped numerous physicians to enhance student success and equity in higher education. He was the associate vice president of student affairs at Ball State University in Indiana. He held several roles at York College in New York City. He led academic support services at Queens College and at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Gibson served as vice president for student affairs and vice provost at Bowling State University in Bowling, Greenaway. At UWSP, Dr. Gibson focuses on enhancing student success and inclusive excellence through purpose-driven education. Within his first month at UW-Stevens Point, he created a chancellor's commission on ancestors buried below us to expand the educational opportunities for native students, families, and communities. He's building an environment that opens more doors and fosters a sense of belonging, pride, and support for students, faculty, and staff. So welcome and thank you so much for joining us in this conversation today. - Thank you, Rachel and hello, pointers. - As chancellor of UW-Stevens Point, you work in many ways, the work of momentum and growth. And you think about this, the individual and the systemic levels. So what are your thoughts on the difference between motivation and momentum and how they work together? - So that's a very good question, Rachel. So I think that there's a relationship between motivation as well as momentum. But if I am to think about motivation, for me, that is an internal driver. It is something that must begin with the individual feeling the need to work towards a particular aim or goal. Motivation requires this internal driver, if you will, to propel an individual towards it. Again, a particular aim, goal, or a particular behavior. Whereas momentum helps one keep working towards that defined goal or particular aim. So momentum is those consecutive small steps that's required to help push and direct an individual towards a particular goal. So certainly they're related, they're different. I think you must start with having that intrinsic or extrinsic, excuse me, motivation in order to really capitalize on momentum. And momentum, well, motivation rather is tough. You know, that's the first step. That's going to require a huge source of energy and commitment to get started. - I think you used a word that sounded really powerful. You said propel, and then you talk about energy and how you get that going. Where is that momentum? Is that kind of steering that energy in that direction? - Yeah, so when I think of momentum, I think of action. It's as activity, you're engaged in this work that requires a certain level of commitment and dedication. And momentum is largely what most individuals need in order to accomplish what was seemingly an impossible task or goal. It's not just enough to have an idea, but these follow-up steps kind of have to take place. - Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, by having these smaller, consecutive follow-up steps, it gives you the encouragement. It gives you the will to see that progress is being made and that you indeed are well-positioned to accomplish a particular task or goal. - Yeah, so you've already kind of given us insight on what this may be if we had to break it down into equation, like what this might look like. But what would you say to a student who was kind of stuck in the beginning, whether it's starting an assignment, starting to study something big, starting to get their resume together? How do you create that initial traction, that initial momentum? - Right, so for me, I like to start as early as possible because it allows me to reduce or hopefully eliminate some of the anxiety that seems to be involved when you're trying to pursue something that's new or extremely difficult in nature. So again, I like to start early. I like to draft everything that I know about a particular topic or subject. I like to talk it out at times with individuals just to have someone consider rather or not, if I'm thinking about a particular topic in the right way or not. And I like to sometimes read things that's unrelated to the topic that I'm needing to make some progress on just to think about the topic from a different perspective and try to situate it within a different context. And I've always found that to be helpful when trying to get started. That's the toughest part. - Yeah, Juan, there again, you mentioned a key word. You mentioned that anxiety. And we hear about that a lot coming in the success center of just that worry, what if I get it wrong? What if I make a misstep? And if you start early, that gives you opportunities to make mistakes and learn or figure out where you might be stuck and try something different, like you said. - Absolutely, I think the stakes are somewhat lower when you're able to start early and make some of those mistakes earlier. What's the adage, is it fail fast and fail quickly? Something along those lines. You often hear that within a business model context. But I think there's some truth to that in educational pursuits as well. We often learn from some of those earlier mistakes and those mistakes allows us to refine what we think is the most viable path forward. - Yeah, it's not a loss if you have that time. And then you also mentioned the opportunity to plan it out and make tweaks along the way, getting social support, getting input, and then taking that different perspective. - Absolutely, all extremely important. - Yeah, so how do you reignite momentum when you come up against a hurdle or a challenge? 'Cause I think that's the other thing we hear a lot about, like students get started, but then they hit some kind of barrier. So what do you do then? - Personally, I like to pause. Sometimes I just need to stop, walk away, refresh, and then revisit the particular task at hand. And again, I noted earlier, sometimes I like to read about the topic or read about an unrelated topic. And sometimes I can find inspiration and just considering other folks' thoughts on a particular topic. And again, and by totally disconnecting and engaging in something, again, entirely unrelated, it allows you to consider how might I approach this particular task in a rather unique, unrelated way. And for me, that opens the door for greater creativity and the way that I'm thinking. Again, I like to invite other voices in. You may refer to it as a sounding board. Again, just to hear a different perspective. But for me, just being immersed in a particular topic, just the innate competitiveness that I think I have for wanting, maybe it's not innate, maybe it's more intrinsic to do well, it allows me to stay committed to our particular task to see it through completion. - Yeah, and that kind of takes us back, full circle to the beginning when you mentioned, you need that drive first, like that's a key key. So if you're missing that to revisit, what is your why? - Absolutely, and I think most folks can tell you their why. And I would argue that one should utilize that why to develop that motivation that's needed to accomplish a particular task. - Well, I think it's also important to highlight the piece that you mentioned about it's okay to take breaks 'cause we're kind of talking about this almost with the idea that this is a big project or something, but I also think about the study skills that we talk about. So if you're studying chemistry, you study for 25 minutes, you take a five minute break. So it can be applied all across the board. And I think that's really helpful, it's so practical. - Yeah, totally agree. I think one would be surprised when they began to face a mental roadblock or barrier, the power of just walking away for a moment and engaging in something entirely different to help stimulate ways of knowing and doing. But let's not spend too much time away from whatever that task one is engaged in and get back to it. And I think folks will begin to see connections, they will begin to see a path forward where, if you're preparing for an exam for an example where the material may begin to make greater sense if you're able to apply it in everyday context. - Yeah, it's a fine line, isn't it? Where it's okay and beneficial to take a break, but then to not take a long enough break where you lose the momentum that we're talking about on a personal plane. - Absolutely, absolutely. - What point does it take energy away from what you're trying to accomplish? - Right, and ultimately becomes a distraction. Yeah, and that's what we want to avoid. - So how does all of this relate to growth mindset and why is it important for college students specifically? - Yeah, I think that there's this false belief that intelligence and abilities are innate. And a growth mindset would suggest that, intelligence and abilities and skills are developed over time, largely through hard work and determination and strategic efforts. So students should understand that the more effort that they put into a particular course or an individual assignments without perhaps having passed knowledge of a particular subject area, there is just as likely or more likely to achieve success in that course or on that particular assignment rather by committing to the studying or being committed to working with someone in the student success center to help talk through and think about particular assignments. So students should fully have the confidence in their ability once they put the work in to be successful in these particular assignments. - Yeah, that's interesting 'cause everyone comes to school with their own context, their own struggles, even inequities play into it. And what you're saying is we all have power too at the same time. So that's gonna look different for everybody, but there's opportunity there. - Absolutely, and I would argue to take advantage of the support services that are available. Not everyone start from the same place, but there are support services in place that could even, if you will, the playing field and really position students well for equitable outcomes. So just because one may have had the advantage of personalized support through tutors and through high school, there are ways in which an individual who may have not have that same or similar experience could still be equally as successful as another peer. 'Cause again, a growth mindset allows students to commit in such a way to help foster their individual success. - Yeah, so we have that power, and I know we mentioned this before, but I'm curious if you had to boil this down to an equation, what would be your one, two, three, what would be the variables going into all of this? - Right, so I think it's, and it's largely the topics that we discussed today. It's about motivation plus momentum, plus I would say leveraging academic support services, the resources that is available to one, and that equals student success. So you have to have the motivation to accomplish the task. You must seek to build some momentum, and that can start again by small steps, but you have to move to action, and then you would leverage the resources that are available to you. And I would say that you have positioned yourself for success. - And that does break it down, it makes it more manageable. - It does, I think so. - So what did we miss in our conversation today? What else do you wanna offer to students? - I think students should know that at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, we've made no mistakes in admitting them to our institution. They have earned their position and their spot here at this university, and there may be times where you may doubt that, I think we all experienced the imposter syndrome at some point or another, but you should know that you worked hard to be a part of our university community, and I have no doubts that you have the ability to succeed in our learning community. - And that's such a great reframe, because we often hear in the center as well, some of those reverse thoughts, right? I'm not a good study, I don't belong here, but really the thought that everyone can take out of this is I do belong here, I'm meant to be here, and that gives you a different starting point, and honestly, that starts building the momentum, doesn't it? - I think so. I think it allows one to build the confidence that's needed to take some risk, to trust themselves and their abilities, and watch the momentum take place and drive them to where they're looking to be, and I suspect that's ultimately the completion of a college degree from our university. - Thank you again, Dr. Gibson, for joining us today. - Oh, my pleasure, Rachel, it was good talking to you. - And thank you for all of you that are tuning in to our Learn Well for Student Success podcast. We hope you leave here today with new insights and ideas that will help you feel supported. Connect with us by visiting our webpage or emailing us at [email protected]. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)