Whether you’re going into your final year of high school or your final year of college, you may find that you’re having a tough time motivating yourself to do your best. This is certainly a common issue. Many seniors find themselves in a “slump” and don’t want to work very hard in school. However, it’s important that you stay focused and do what you can to make sure that your grades stay up.

The first, and most important, step in avoiding the senior slump is to keep thinking about the future. Remember that there’s a lot more to your educational and professional career and that a lot of it might be riding on your GPA. Getting into college—or graduate school—can be seriously affected by the grades that you get, so you don’t want to bring them down. Even if you’ve already been accepted to a college, most of them can withdraw your acceptance if your grades tank during your last year or semester. And even though you may think that your last year of college won’t matter, as long as your GPA is high enough to graduate, you’re wrong again—some potential employers may ask you your GPA, and you never know when you might start thinking about graduate school.

Setting goals can help a lot in getting you focused. Make it a goal to improve your GPA by the end of the year, or to get an A in a tough class that you’re taking. At the very least, set a goal to not lose any GPA points. Or your goal can be something a little less measurable—study for every test, or complete every textbook reading on time. Things like these will help keep you focused on school instead of thinking about other things you’d rather be doing.

Keep a calendar, and stay organized. Write down what you need to do, when it needs to be done, and when you plan on starting it. All of this information will help keep you on-task and leave you without excuses if you forget to do something. Don’t just use it for school-related things, either—put football games, school dances, concerts, and anything else that you’re going to be doing on the calendar so that if you plan something on a day, you know what else you’ll be doing or thinking about around that time as well.

Don’t do it alone—get your friends and your family members to set goals, too! Not only will this help you by keeping you accountable, it will also help out your friends and family, because they’ll be setting goals and staying organized as well. Definitely a win-win situation.

And don’t forget get to reward yourself! If you got an A on a big test, or did every reading for a full semester, go out for pizza or a movie, or spend a little extra money on yourself. You deserve it!

As always, if you have any questions, comments or funny stories you'd like me to share about college or the blog, email me at stu@stuvu.com