Back to School Success Starts Now!: Helping Teens Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Back to School success starts now! Having teens start the year off with a proactive approach can make all the difference. In order for teens to set themselves up for academic success, they need to become self-aware of how they motivate.

There are two primary ways that get us moving:

1. Moving away from what we want to avoid
2. Going toward what we want to get 

Most teens operate under the first model. “Moving away from what you want to avoid” is a reactiveapproach. Teens often start the school year without a concrete plan of what they want or how to get back on track when they get knocked off. As a result, things may start off well, but they may begin to coast and grades may slip. This causes panic and stress from the students and the parents. Because they want to avoid getting the bad grade and getting yelled at by mom and dad, they may get a short boost of motivation and study really well for a few days to bring up their grades. However, they will then slip back into the not-so-useful habit of coasting along until things go south again. This reactive approach is not very sustainable because it causes a lot of stress and anxiety.

When teens learn how to plan ahead and start moving toward what they want to get instead of moving away from what they want to avoid, their confidence and motivation will rise. When teens create a vision of the life that they want and make daily action steps toward that vision, it is proactive. They are in control of how they want their academic life to be instead of only taking action when things go bad. Creating a system of working toward what you want is more sustainable, less stressful, and ultimately more fulfilling.

As a certified Academic Life Coach and consultant for LA’s new Incubator School, I help empower teens by identifying their goals and creating a vision of the life they want in their academic and personal lives. In addition to honing executive functioning skills, I help students link a sense of purpose to their work which brings them greater fulfillment, passion, confidence, and motivation into their school life.

A former tutor for over 10 years, I realized that at the heart of many teens’ academic struggles was confidence and motivation. Now that I’ve coached many teens in the Academic Life Coaching program, a number of whom were high achievers, both they and their parents say that I provided the “missing piece” of academic success: directly addressing confidence, motivation, and the bigger picture of who they want to be and what they’re working toward.