The difficulty with motivation seems to stem from my lack of a consistency. It is difficult remain motivated to any one goal for any length of time. It is difficult to keep on target. When I then lag or fall off from my routine I have to start all over again.
I know all the things about goals, habit and routines. I know all the steps to setting them all. And yet, persistently I lack the motivation to align my brain to set up these routines and habits long-term. To sustain them. Maintain them. When I hold them, I struggle to do so with an iron fist of pure determination on my part, but no consistency. And then, I flag. An obstacle in my health arises. Often pain or fatigue, and the routine fails me. Back to the beginning after a break of days, weeks or even months.
As you can imagine my main goal of exercise, which is necessary for me in many ways, has remained elusive to me. And so we begin again, one step at a time, with a walk today. And these are some of the things I do and struggle with when it comes to motivating myself to establish new routines and habits.
The things I know and struggle with
List– List your reasons for making a specific goal of habit. And I think of this one for lifestyle changes of any sort. For my exercise and my quitting smoking of the future changes I want to make.
Struggle– Making a list in my head apparently is a horrible idea. I need one in my face. Or in my planner. Or on a calendar. Or all the spaces around me all the time reminding me of these reasons. Because some habits for me, like lifestyle changes, are the hardest the make and sustain and ingrain, but are vital, so I need that in my face list to remind me of all the reasons I am doing the things.
Goal structuring– Knowing how to set up goals. Setting up small goals. Not choosing too many goals at once. Setting them up in increments. Having a nice good timeline for your goal to establish a routine before setting up any new goal. Give yourself room for mistakes and re-aligning the structure of the goal to your personal needs.
Struggles– I struggled with goal design but I know now to Keep it Simple. And I keep it simple I do. Not DO all the things. I still struggle aligning my life to that specific new thing. Whatever it may be. Setting up this new habit and fixing it into my life in any specific way. But it helps to if I tie it to another habit. Like do this thing alongside this other thing that is already an ingrained habit.
Acknowledging accomplishments– I used to do a thing and I have no idea where I picked this idea up. But I would write down a list every day of every single little accomplishments I made that day from small to large. To simply teach my brain that I did the things. Acknowledge all the things I did. When you acknowledge what you do in the day it is supposed to feed the brain on that goal process. As in, you are making progress. That feedback it needs to feel as though it has forward momentum.
Struggles– I struggled to accept I was doing meaningful things. But the exercise is to help your brain acknowledge all the things you do. All the little steps in progress you make every step of the way. I would add a thing I was going to do the next day. And three things I was grateful for that day. And this helped motivate me every day.
Reward System– The brain wants to have a little bang for its buck. A little boom. Do the thing. Boom. And if we have no boom, then we have a hell of a time establishing a routine. So the idea in general is reward your brain at specific intervals and this will help you with your motivation towards setting up your routine. This is actually a very valuable method in developing a routine. One example is when quitting smoking, people will set aside that money, save it and spend it on something they want.
The reward system in chronic pain malfunctions due to low dopamine activity according to research.
Effects of acute versus chronic pain on reward processing and the underlying neural mechanisms involved: First, different symptom expressions in acute and chronic pain; second, different activities of the dopamine and opioid systems in acute and chronic pain; third, different mechanisms of neural activity in the neural in acute and chronic pain; and fourth, different mechanisms of reward processing in acute and chronic pain caused… in chronic pain conditions, activation of these brain regions is abnormal, reducing the motivational and hedonic components of reward processing.. Study
Struggles-I definitely struggle with this more so because a lot of the routines I want to develop there definitely is no boom. Exercise being my main goal right now. And my brain is not Yay exercise. It is definitely on the Boo exercise side. And it is constantly struggling to do it. No matter what reward system I set up, at what interval, I have this constant struggle with no internal reward system in my brain giving me any feedback. Which I think, frankly, it should.
In this case the external reward system is my friend. Do the thing for such a time, or interval and assign a reward. Or assign a specific goal post and when it is achieved then, get an external award.
Chronic illness motivational struggle
A major motivation issue with chronic illness is there is a cost and a price to everything that we do. We have to weigh every single action and every single action has consequences. So fatigue has a massive weight to it. And motivation lags hard under that weight. Which means when I choose to do something knowing that weight, I will have the consequences to pay for that. And the same with the price we have to pain for pain. This is why we have to pace every single action. Why we choose every single goal we make ever so carefully.
But motivation is an intense debate and struggle. Not a drive. It is a thought. Not an action. It is a determined choice. Not this thing people seem to just have more of than I ever seem to do when water logged with pain and fatigue. Where motivation seems to be getting up. Tidying up the kitchen. Cleaning the litter box. Making lunch. Pacing between every small task. So when it comes to something larger I want, even need to do, I have to force myself to push forward. With willpower from somewhere else. And the next day, again, willpower. And again, willpower. And again no boom of dopamine for me.
So I do the tips and tricks, but I still struggle for the oomph. And I still get no bang for my buck in my brain to push me forward into the next step. And the next and the next. Until I have a formed habit.
These are good tips and tricks to try. And to be kind to yourself along the process. Our brains reward system may malfunction but we can still form and maintain habits. I just get there the long, twisty road of routine formation. Maybe a few steps back and a few steps forward and so forth. So even though I struggled with some of the physical symptoms, which we all do, we all have tips and tricks we can use to bypass these and work our way to achieving our goals. Just remember to be kind with yourself on this journey. Every inch forward counts to an objective and, yes, motivation is tricky for us at times. It is.
Chronically Nikki 
Leave a comment