Motivation - demotivation

My oldest son have had many challenges this last year in school and it has been very much related to motivation and some other things as well. Lets concentrate on the motivation stuff since the other challenge has been solved by Barbie moving out of their fathers life.. sorry and puhh ,, but what a relief.

His motivation grade has been so very low and of course I have tried my best to keep it up, talked about it, tried different thoughts and suggestions, tips and tricks and others... And the more I have tried, the more low the motivation and energy did go.
So, what to do?

One thing is for shure. Motivation is something you need to find and make mostly on your own. No one else can boost you to any 100 motivation grade, it has to be yourself to find your forces to what makes you motivated. You and I can give some very short term boosters as rewards, money or any other kind of competitive challenges... but mostly, you need to find your motivation energy and feeling.

This is not to easy really, and not only some simple trues about how to do it,especially not to a teenager.

What did I do? One good thing was to stop DEMOTIVATING him!! really. Because that is what I realized that i was doing. I stopped with everything, I just supported him to think out of his box and about the things he were doing, what he wanted, what he liked, how would he be affected by the choices and who will pay the consequenses of the actings, choices of studies and a lot else.


Let say I left him with his thoughts for some weeks and what happened.

One day he came to me and he really surprised me in the very best way.

He was informed, he was prepared, and he told me with his energy what he wanted, what he thought and what choices he would do to this coming gymnasium studies.I was so extremely happy for him. To show this energy again to some wantings.

He just realized, that now, the choices and decisions he did was his. Best motivation ever.

The eager he has shown to produce all the application material, 5 different paintings , has been fantastic to follow. And he really has a talent. I am happy he finally can combine this in his studies.

Monday coming week I will follow him to the application reception to show his material and he is very exited and nervous about it. He is proud of what he has done and so am I. He also knows that he will be evaluated and that has been motivating too.

Today he showed me the final result and I was just overwelmed by the paintings.
As proud he was to show me, the same happiness I felt. So happy that I cried.

I was also very reminded, that he was very happy about what he did was for himself and not just to me to show what he was able to do.

So, i will forever be reminded about stop demotivating, that will be the best motivation input ever. I think I had done that even without being aware of it to my son, and the intention was to motivate.

The same goes for a lot of things. Sometimes you just try to hard to get things done and be so very very good... and it does not work always.

Take care and celebrate energizing and motivation in their best ways.
Love A