I've found that the biggest motivator throughout this course is a funny little monkey I animated last semester. Whenever I feel like I'm not making progress quickly enough, I look at the monkey.
It was the most I could make in Maya. A brokenly rigged monkey I found online that my pal helped me fix- and then slapped together and playblasted out because I didn't know how to render. It's a miracle I even got the textures in. But it's a great point for me to go back to whenever I'm grumbling over something I want to go back and change entirely in Maya- I'll always know better for next time!