---
title: Way to go! Motivation via appreciation
description: Motivation via appreciation.
---

[The Colophon - Balfour Yearbooks Blog ](https://blog.balfour.com)

# [Way to go! Motivation via appreciation](https://blog.balfour.com/way-to-go-motivation-via-appreciation)

 Written by [Kel Lemons](https://blog.balfour.com/author/kel-lemons) | Mar 17, 2016 8:05:00 PM

*It’s that time of the year. Inertia has set in and your students are stuck. (Metaphorically, the gas is no longer getting to the engine.) At this point, an adviser’s encouragement only goes so far.*

After wracking her brain for a way to motivate her students, **Samantha Berry** from **Cypress Creek High School** had an idea. She decided to surprise her staff members with positive notes from teachers. She set up a simple Google form to allow teachers to select a student, write a short message and [optionally] identify who the note was from. The response was overwhelming. “I have been close to happy tears all day at the responses, and I can’t wait to surprise my kids,” Samantha said

*[

Here](https://blog.balfour.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Way-to-Go-Samantha-Berry.pdf) are some examples of the wonderful things the teachers wrote to her students.*

*h/t to Samantha Berry from [Cypress Creek High School ](https://www.balfour.com/texas/houston/cypress-creek-high-school)in Houston, Texas, who started this fun thread in Balfour’s adviser Facebook group.*

[View full post](https://blog.balfour.com/way-to-go-motivation-via-appreciation)

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