No Motivation? How to Start a Task with ADHD

Episode Summary – Motivation and ADHD:

When you can’t get yourself to start something, it’s easy to assume you aren’t motivated enough or don’t really want to do it. But for adults with ADHD, difficulty getting started doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how much you care about the outcome.

In this episode, we’ll look at what may actually be getting in the way when you want to do something but can’t seem to get yourself to start or stick with it. We’ll also consider how a little more clarity, support, and attention to your circumstances can sometimes make taking action more possible.

What You’ll Learn About How To Get Started With ADHD and Low Motivation:

• How to distinguish wanting to do something from being able to start and persist
• Why knowing what to do isn’t always enough to get you into action
• How unclear tasks and not knowing how to do something can contribute to difficulty getting started
• When accountability or body doubling might provide the support you need
• How your physical state, timing, and environment can affect your ability to work
• How perfectionism, competing tasks, and emotional concerns can interfere with motivation
• Questions to ask yourself when you’re having trouble getting started

Transcript:

(00:01):

I know if you’re an adult with ADHD, you’ve thought about and perhaps even agonized over questions of motivation. You’d be wondering why you can’t just start and follow through, especially when something is important to you.

You’ve tuned into Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD adults like you who want to learn the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired.

I’m Marla Cummins, an ADHD and executive function coach. And I’m glad you decided to join me today on this journey toward finding what matters most to you without trying to do it like everyone else. I work with people struggling with motivation day in and day out, as you might imagine.

And at some point in our work, most people inevitably wonder about their perceived lack of motivation. It’s also not uncommon for people to infer that if they don’t start and follow through on a task, maybe it’s that they don’t really want to do it.

ADHD Motivation: Why Wanting to Do Something Isn’t Enough

(01:10):

And sure, sometimes that’s true, but more often, I don’t think it is. Here’s how I think about wanting to do the task. It’s deciding to do something because the outcome is important to you. It’s something you value.

I don’t think of it as wanting in the way you might think of, “Wow, this is really interesting. I can’t wait to do this,” though that may be the case. And we know that for adults with ADHD, even if something is important to you and you want to do it, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll feel the energy in the moment to act when the time comes.

The inertia you feel may be like standing in quicksand. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to do it. And honestly, I think this is really what many people mean when they say they’re not motivated. That is, they just can’t get started.

(02:10):

The key to this for ADHD adults is not to conflate having a hard time starting with not wanting to do something. And then there’s a third thing people mean by motivation: staying with it. Because one of the hallmarks of ADHD is inconsistency.

So one day it may be easier to start and persist, and the next day, another. So wanting, starting and staying with it are three different things. And I know that in many cases you really do want to do the tasks that matter to you, regardless of what it may look like to others from the outside.

So where does that leave you? No doubt, a certain number of your challenges with starting and persisting stem from factors you don’t have much control over. Your ADHD is one of them, and there can be plenty of others. But there are also factors you do have some control over, and that can help or hinder you from getting started.

(03:16):

Those are the ones I wanna talk about and focus on today. And for purposes of this podcast, I’m focusing really narrowly on motivation to work on a task in one sitting because sometimes your work really does get done by stringing enough of these together, even with the ups and downs from day to day. So it’s worth making the one right in front of you today as productive as possible.

How ADHD Makes It Hard to Start and Follow Through

(03:47):

And the first stop of this journey is to understand a bit about what could be behind your troubles getting started or sticking with something. And as you know, it’s not always about your ADHD, of course, because like everyone else, you may struggle with motivation because you are exhausted, stressed, anxious, depressed, burnt out, grieving, in pain, overwhelmed, or facing a task that is too big, too vague, or simply unrealistic given everything else going on in your life.

In addition, it’s common for other mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, OCD, or something else to occur alongside ADHD, which of course makes starting and following through even harder. So as your motivation challenges relate to your ADHD, one connection is that your ADHD brain does not easily turn understanding into action.

I won’t go into the specific brain areas that have been shown to contribute to this. You’re welcome.

(05:01):

But suffice it to say that even when you know exactly what you need to do sometimes and care deeply about the anticipated reward, the outcome, whether that’s completing a project, improving your health, getting your finances in order, strengthening your relationships or something else, that distant reward sometimes just isn’t enough to provide the motivation you need, partly because people with ADHD tend to discount delayed rewards more steeply than people without ADHD.

This means that a distant payoff has less influence on the decision happening right now when you’re trying to work, even when the payoff is important to you. And it’s not because you don’t understand the consequences of inaction or again, you don’t want to do the task.

So you may honestly think, “I want this. I know why this matters. I know that doing this small thing today will help me get the outcome I want and still find it remarkably difficult to start.” It’s also hard to be motivated to start because of your executive function challenges related to your ADHD, of course.

(06:27):

So when it’s time to start, it may be difficult for you to hold the goal in mind, identify a realistic next step, organize your attention, manage distractions, tolerate boredom or uncertainty, and persist in keeping on in choosing the action that moves you toward your goal rather than defaulting to something easier, more urgent, more interesting, or just more immediately rewarding.

How to Get Started When You Don’t Feel Motivated

(07:03):

And telling yourself that you just need to do it, hoping that force will work, isn’t the answer. So now here’s your mission if you choose to accept it. It’s to learn what will help you get started despite these challenges. And with that, let’s get started on the next part of our journey.

When it comes to motivation, let’s start with the one that may seem obvious once I mention it, but I also think is the one most often missed. And that is: do you know your objective, and do you know what you need to accomplish that objective?

The objective might be to complete a specific task with, of course, a specific outcome or just work on it for a certain amount of time, even if you won’t complete it. But rather than lacking motivation, you might just be lacking clarity about what you actually need to do, so you don’t get started because you don’t know where to start or you’re unclear about what you are trying to accomplish.

(08:11):

For example, as I often share, when I sit down to work on a podcast, I don’t just think to myself, “I need to work on the podcast.” I specify what it is that I need to do and what it will look like when I’m done for that sitting, which might be decide on a topic, research on Reddit questions people have about the topic for no more than 10 minutes, decide on a title, write 300 words, or start with a third section and work for half an hour and so on.

Having a specific time may help, but not always; you know that. So let’s say you have an insurance item on your task list and you’re not really sure what to do. It just says insurance. You might have difficulty getting started, not feeling motivated. I’m sure that makes sense to you. Maybe you’re unclear about your policy, but when you look at it, you just get more confused.

Why Clarity and Knowing the Next Step Matter for ADHD Motivation

(09:16):

Honestly, maybe you just need to call your agent to have them walk you through your policy so you can better understand it and ask questions. And your first step might be, well, find the phone number. So take a minute to think about a task that you feel you’re not motivated to do.

What exactly is the next step you need to take? If you’re going to put aside time to work on that next step, is it for a certain amount of time, or do you have a specific outcome that needs to be achieved? Another often overlooked factor that can feel like low motivation is simply not knowing how to do a task, so you don’t start.

I think adults with ADHD may be more prone to this because they are less inclined sometimes to reach out for help, as it may feel too vulnerable to admit they don’t know how to do something.

(10:14):

And this may be true sometimes for you, especially if you have a history of feeling like you’re not keeping up. Even though you intellectually understand that no one can do everything on their own, everyone needs help, you might even advise someone else in your place to reach out for help.

For example, I work with a client who has been a partner in an accounting firm for over 20 years, yet she had no process for following up on unpaid invoices and felt bad about chasing people for money. Once we agreed that people did expect to pay for her services, she could then move on to the challenge of the lack of a process.

And that turned out to be an easy fix too. She met with another partner, her peer, who’s also her friend, and asked him how he handled it. He had a process she liked, and now she uses it.

(11:12):

That’s all the help she needed. Where do you need help?

How Accountability and Body Doubling Can Help You Get Started

(11:18):

And then when it comes to motivation, there are times you actually do know what to do and still don’t have the motivation to get started. Again, as I said, you may also need help in these instances. So it’s worth considering whether accountability in some format may be what you need.

That may be body doubling where you’re working side by side with someone in person or virtually. You may even use an app like Focusmate or just an accountability partner you check in with, perhaps before and after a work session or once a week or whatever cadence works for you.

Again, I know you may be reticent to do this if you feel you should just be able to sit down and get to work on your own, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But if it works, it works. So who might you ask to provide some sort of accountability?

(12:18):

And here’s another place that gets conflated with motivation, and that is you’ve decided that you’re clear on the objective and you have what you need, including any support. The next step you can take to maximize the chances of being able to start and persist in a working session is to make sure you’re well physically ready to engage with the work.

That means that you’re nourished, hydrated, appropriately dressed so you’re not too warm or too cold. Thank you, Goldilocks. It might also mean that you’re engaged in some sort of movement so you don’t have shpilkes, as we say in Yiddish, or in other words, ants in your pants.

I know this sounds obvious again, but how many times have you sat down to work and then had to get up because, well, you needed something to eat or a sweater or something like that? Then there’s the part of taking care of your body and brain that you can’t fix at 2:00 in the afternoon when you wanna work, but you might need to address in order to be more effective long-term.

(13:27):

Sleep is the obvious one. So if you’re not sleeping well, is there something you wanna do to address this? And movement. For me, if I exercise first thing in the morning, the whole day just works differently, better. I also have a standing desk, so I go up and I go down throughout the day, depending on what I need.

(13:49):

And it’s just not about what you need; it’s also the timing. So if you take medication, that’s part of the calculus of this motivation issue. So whether it’s taking it during the hours that you need to do your hardest thinking; also, you know, you have times, regardless of medication, during the day when you just operate better or worse depending on what it is that you need to do.

So paying attention to when you have more mojo for a particular task can be important. Even though, of course, you can’t expect consistency with your timing either; even if you try, maybe most of the time you work well at a certain time, but you just can’t expect that every day. That’s just ADHD, right?

How Your Environment, Energy, and Mindset Affect ADHD Motivation

(14:45):

And how about your environment? That, of course, has an impact on your sense of motivation. And it’s worth taking a quick look around before you sit down. Is the noise level right for you, whether that’s quiet or maybe you need some background noise?

Is the temperature right? If something in your line of sight is pulling at your attention, can you turn it around or move it to another room? I know some of you may be dealing with a lot of clutter, but like addressing your sleep, for example, that’s not something you can fix today when you’re trying to start and persist on a task, though I know sometimes you may feel you need to.

And if you feel like you need to sort out your whole space before you get to work, I think it’s worth at least asking yourself whether the task that you need to do right now is more important than sorting out your clutter or whether you’re trying to avoid the task that maybe matters more in the moment than taking care of your clutter.

(16:03):

Could you instead clear enough of the clutter from your line of sight again and enough off the surface so you can comfortably sit down and focus?

(16:15):

The other thing, and I know you’re already aware of this, is how your mindset can be motivating or demotivating. So it’s something definitely to pay attention to, because you know if you sit down already afraid of failing, it’s going to be harder to start, or if you’re afraid it won’t be good enough, or if you feel it has to be perfect.

The key here is to be aware of the thoughts going on in your head and whether they’re helping you or not. And if they’re not, perhaps talk to somebody about it, either somebody close to you or a professional. What you don’t want to do is just try to push away the thoughts that are getting in your way because you know they have a way of just popping back up.

(17:07):

This next one, I think often, again, doesn’t get enough attention for adults with ADHD when considering what’s affecting their motivation. And that is your thoughts about a different task that you think you should be doing instead.

It might be a task you’ve been meaning to do, a promise you made to someone else, or a sticky situation you need to figure out how to handle. These open loops can be, as you know, as distracting as notification pings and reduce your motivation to stay on task.

The key to handling these in the moment is to be curious about whether you should stay on task and how you might do that. So you might ask yourself, is this something so critical that I should stop what I’m doing and tend to it now? If it’s not something that means I should stop what I’m doing, is there something I could do that would help me stay on task?

(18:14):

For example, last week I needed to arrange something for my daughter, and it was there in the background distracting me. Eventually I decided to take 10 minutes, draft an email that I need to send later, write down a few notes and put time in my calendar to work on it next. I felt better, less distracted, just having started it, knowing what my next step would be and when I would have time to work on it.

What to Do When Worries and Other Tasks Get in the Way

(18:41):

And then there are times that what’s pulling at you isn’t a task at all. It could be a regret about something you said last week or a worry about an upcoming meeting with your boss, grief over the loss of a family member, or maybe burnout from work.

There is no immediate resolution, and cleaning out your inbox isn’t the solution. The answer is first taking a moment to acknowledge what is going on and ask yourself, “What do I need right now? Do you need the support of a therapist, some downtime, a talk with somebody who gets it or something else?”

The thing, again, you shouldn’t do is to try to gloss over it and carry on because you might continue to feel low energy and motivation because of the background of that noise, of the distraction.

(19:40):

So what I hope you take away from this episode is that having a hard time starting doesn’t mean that the task isn’t important to you, that you don’t want the outcome that you’ll get. Those are two different things: wanting and feeling like doing it.

And I see people confuse them all the time. You may just need a little bit more setup and support to get started and follow through. That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me. And if you’d like support in starting and following through and what matters most to you, as you know, I offer one-to-one coaching for adults with executive function challenges.

You can learn more at marlacummins.com/coaching. And if you’re curious whether coaching might be helpful, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to chat. Until next time, this has been Reimagining Productivity with ADHD and Marla Cummins, reminding you that ADHD doesn’t define you, but how you work with it can shape what’s possible.

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Resources To Help ADHD Adults Start When They Do Not Have Motivation

• Learn how to plan better with my Free Guide: 6 Common Planning Mistakes Adults with ADHD Make.
• Join other adults with ADHD and Marla in this virtual live adult ADHD education and support group.