Skills Guide
Teaching: Motivation
Motivation
Why This Skill Matters
Motivation is a core driver of resilience because it fuels effort, persistence, and engagement. When students lack motivation, it often reflects discouragement, disconnection from purpose, or repeated failure rather than laziness. Teaching motivation helps students understand how challenges can either drain energy or become fuel for growth. Motivated students are more likely to persist through difficulty and invest in their own success.
Student Challenges This Skill Helps Address
- Apathy and disengagement
- Learned helplessness
- Giving up when tasks feel hard
How WhyTry Builds This Skill
WhyTry teaches motivation explicitly through the Motivation & Resilient Mindset unit. Facilitators help students identify what motivates them, practice positive self-talk, and recognize the role of support in sustaining effort. Students learn to reframe challenges as opportunities to grow resilience and momentum.
Motivation & Resilient Mindset
(“Motivation Formula”)
In Motivation & Resilient Mindset, students learn how motivation is shaped by mindset, purpose, and self-talk. Facilitators guide students to identify what fuels or drains their motivation and how challenges can either shut them down or push them forward. Processing emphasizes building internal motivation that supports sustained effort, helping students remain engaged even when external rewards or encouragement are limited.