Thursday Thoughts: Maintaining Motivation

Where I live, we are in the middle of winter. The weather is cold, the sky is gray, and we have a whole lot of time left before things warm up again. At the beginning of the season, everyone was excited for cozy sweaters, sledding, and building snowmen. But at this point, not even halfway through the season, everyone is feeling disillusioned with the cold. We have to scrape ice off of windows, bundle up, and shovel snow. It just isn’t as delightful as it once was. At the beginning of a season it can be easy to feel excitement. Near the middle of that season, it is harder to maintain that interest.

The same is true for projects we work on professionally, academically, and personally. When something is new, we are more likely to feel motivated and energized by the project. As time goes on, keeping this motivation and interest can become more difficult. As students, maintaining the energy to make it through a large project in a course, or a capstone document, is important – but tough!

Here are some of my favorite Walden Writing Resources to help you maintain motivation:

• Tips for reaching your writing goals because writing is always a work in progress

• Find a writing buddy who will help keep you on track

• Finish something – anything because it will make you feel accomplished and will re-energize you

• Learn how Amy Kubista, Walden Writing Center Associate Director and EdD student, addressed her varying amounts of focus as she worked in her program

• See if a calendar can help you stay on track for the long haul 

The Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews, podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing, and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly work.

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