Motivation For ADHD Adults

Topic: ADHD and Motivation For ADHD Adults. See the other Adult ADHD Issues.

Facilitator: Pete Quily

Thanks to Derek for taking the notes and passing them on.

July 25th, 2006 Meeting Notes for the Vancouver Adult ADD Support Group

See also my adult ADHD blog post for some questions on ADD and getting motivated.

We talked about how it might be useful to create a list of some tasks that you’re motivated to do because they are enjoyable to you. Then find ways to apply or modify them to tasks you’re not easily motivated to do to increase your level of motivation, and likelyhood of completion.

Ingredients of an enjoyable task:

Challenge of engaging analytical abilities

Closure

Competence

Creative

Fast paced

Feedback from people or situation

Human interaction

List things that bother you in order to unload them from your mind

Pleasure of positive feedback

Pressure/stress/adrenaline/deadline

Produce tangible result

Realistic, not stressful

Satisfaction with result

Sense of purpose

Sensory tactile stimulation

Spontaneous

Task breakdown to manageable parts

We then talked about tasks that you don’t feel motivated to do and listed some ways to transform these tasks to increase your level of motivation, and likelyhood of completion.

Boredom/transformation strategies:

Acknowledge newness of strategy on old task

Break task into small tasks

Decide what is important about the task

Engage kiss principle

Have a definable, achievable goal

Intersperse boring/non-boring tasks

Involve someone else with the task

Need of self-awareness

Schedule reward first/then the task

Use methods that work for your unique ADHD brain vs your organized friend or family member.