LYNX LIFE LIBRARY

When it comes to starting your next term at CU Denver, the spring term is usually the toughest one for students for many reasons. The sun sets earlier, the weather is colder, and there aren’t as many outdoor activities happening around campus. However, the spring term is a great way to take a moment to reflect on how your fall semester went and what your goals are for the spring semester. For many students, one big goal is finding and maintaining motivation to finish out the academic year. Below are some of First-Year Experiences’ (FYE) recommendations for finding and maintaining motivation for your spring term. 

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

One of the most prominent researchers on growth mindset, Dr. Carol Dweck, shares that students who foster a growth mindset show greater academic tenacity throughout their time in college. Growth mindset is when someone sees a challenge or setback as an opportunity to learn, versus fixed mindset is when someone has the belief that their intelligence or learning is limited. Throughout our lives, we oscillate between fixed and growth mindsets, but the more aware we are of when we fall into a fixed mindset pattern, the faster we can pull ourselves out of it. 

Fixed mindsets tend to look like the following examples: 

• Students choosing not to read feedback on their assignments from their professors
• Students deciding a course is not worth their time and not engaging with lectures or turning in assignments 
• Students not asking for help for fear of being seen as "not smart enough"

Growth mindsets, on the other hand, tend to look like the following examples: 

• Students reading feedback on their assignments and re-doing their work to try to get points back, or using that feedback to approach the next assignment in a different way that incorporates the feedback 
• Students going to office hours to ask their professor for help on an assignment, or going to tutoring to get additional help on building skills in difficult courses 
• Students getting a low score on a quiz or test and reviewing it to understand what they missed and how they might approach studying for that class in the future 

Engaging in growth mindset activities can help bolster our motivation while also encouraging us to utilize our resources at CU Denver! 

Set SMART Goals

Having goals allows us to measure our progress, which can be a motivating factor for many of us. We recommend setting up your goals as SMART goals. SMART goals stand for the following areas: 

S – Specific: Specific goals mean going from something broad, like “I will earn good grades”, to something more specific, such as “My goal is to get at least a B+ in all of my spring classes” . 

M – Measurable: Measurable goals are goals that we can track our progress against. For example, in the earlier goal, “My goal is to get at least a B+ in all of my spring classes”, we can easily track our progress on this goal by checking our grades in Canvas. 

A – Attainable: An attainable goal means a goal that we believe we can accomplish. For example, saying “My goal is to run a marathon in April” in March when you’ve never run a long-distance race before is not a very attainable goal. However, the goal of getting at least a B+ in all of your spring classes is very attainable, especially when you have access to various resources and support systems at the university, such as peer tutoring, professor office hours, and academic coaching.

R – Relevant: A relevant goal means that it is important and applicable to your life. Therefore, you want to make sure your goals are related to important values you hold and identities you hold in your life. For example, having the goal of getting at least a B+ in all your spring classes is related to your overall goal of graduating with your degree. The more relevant the goal, the more motivated we will be to accomplish it. 

T – Time-Bound: A time-bound goal means that there is a specific deadline for when the goal progress will be measured to determine whether or not you accomplished the goal. For example, the goal of getting at least a B+ in all your spring classes is time-bound, because the spring semester ends in May. Therefore, that will be the deadline by which you will measure whether or not your accomplished your goal. 

By using these tools, you can continue to work on your internal motivation when it comes to accomplishing your goals during the spring semester. Soon, the weather will get warmer, the days will get longer, and you will be able to celebrate all of your accomplishments at the end of the term!