A 17-year-old client of mine just discovered a brilliant way to motivate herself doing homework:

If she dedicates an assignment to a friend, she finds she’s more inspired and puts more effort into it than she would have otherwise!

Although I’ve never tried this technique with academic assignments, what I do know from my experience with teaching and performing InterPlay: when I do an improvisational dance on behalf of someone else, the dance has a whole different feeling than if I do it “just because.”

It doesn’t surprise me that dedicating a distasteful activity to someone about whom I care could transfer some of those good feelings onto the yucky task.

My client had been creating a map for her history class. Her eyes glimmered with pride when she reported how beautiful the map turned out because she put extra time and energy into completing it.

If any of my readers try this, please let me know how it goes!