Boost Your Concentration: Load Up on WIIFMs

Once we had a camper, Katie, who came to us very unfocused. Throughout the early parts of the program she kept thinking about giving up and going home. We tried to help by giving her whatever tasks would distract her from the urge to quit. On day nine, during a simulation for practicing new skills in real life, three team leaders were trying to distract her, offering her fun things to do. She stayed strong and told them, "I need to focus. I want to graduate SuperCamp."

Katie got focused when she got in touch with her WIIFMs.

WIIFM stands for What's In It For Me? It's the motivating force behind nearly everything we do. Teens and adults alike can accomplish almost anything when their WIIFMs are strong enough. The most powerful WIIFMs are immediate - pleasure we'll gain right away, rather than at some undetermined future time. They're also positive. We're more likely to motivate ourselves to gain pleasure than we are to avoid pain.

Let's say a teen has just been given the task of memorizing all fifty U.S. state capitals for a test next week. What's the thought that's going through her head? The same thought that goes through anyone's mind when they face a new task: "What's in it for me?"
We may not be consciously aware of asking this, but the question's there.

For most young people, the only clear answer to that question in a situation like this one is "a passing grade on the geography test." How motivating is that? As adults, we feel a strong temptation to add something like, "It's for your future. How well you do on this task today will make an impact on your college career." The adult who says this is right, but the teen may have difficulty getting in touch with the idea.

Teens aren't likely to focus a lot on learning those fifty capitals if the only motivation she's got is "It will help me - some day." But when their WIIFMs are strong enough, they pay attention.

Intrinsic motivation, which by definition comes from within, is the most powerful motivator. Nobody can motivate kids just by telling them to be more motivated. Instead, we help teens tap into the powerful WIIFMs that are already built into school success - WIIFMs they might not have realized were there - like the great feeling of learning something new and the thrill of accomplishment.

We do this by tapping into successes they've had already - and every teen has had some. We help them relive previous successes, then we ask them, "How did it feel?" They glow with the memory. Success feels great. It's an emotional rush. We help them celebrate those moments and tap into their power. They learn to build new successes on previous ones. The spark gets brighter and brighter. Once they get a taste for what it feels like to succeed, they're hooked! The rush of success becomes an increasingly powerful WIIFM - strong enough to motivate them to sit up, pay attention, and jump into their schoolwork with full concentration.

The hunger for success is a powerful WIIFM, but we can add more. The more WIIFMs an experience carries, the greater the effort we give it. When teens focus more on what turns them on about school, they become more deeply engaged in it. Concentrating on the things they do enjoy, and making choices that give them more chances to experience those things, make the WIIFMs stronger: "I love basketball. My school's team requires a minimum 3.5 GPA to participate. A higher GPA means I can get on the team."

Then there are the other less tangible WIIFMs that can add to the whole package such as easier study sessions and finishing math and reading assignments in about half the time. Oh yes, and our personal favorite: more fun!