JONATHAN HASSALL, BN ACC ADHD COACH
If you have ADHD, you know the feeling: motivation arrives like magic, intense, focused, unstoppable but then vanishes without warning. This is a form of motivation, but how it happens is what I refer to as the ”illusion of motivation.” It feels like a force of nature you can’t predict or summon, you just have to wait for it to happen. But what if motivation isn’t actually mysterious? What if it’s something you can actively build?
When ADHD Motivation Shows Up
According to the insights from our book Decoding Doing (co-written with Madeline O’Reilly, clinical psychologist), ADHD motivation typically appears under specific conditions that are largely emotionally driven:
- Novelty: That shiny new project excitement
- Challenge: The mental stimulation of problem-solving
- Appeal or reward: it feel exciting and/or there is an immediate external reward
- Threat: Deadline pressure and looming consequences
- Temporal proximity: When rewards or consequences feel immediate
The problem? This creates an exhausting cycle of last-minute rushes, chronic stress, and unreliable productivity. Some people even unconsciously increase their anxiety just to activate themselves—a pattern that I have particularly observes in women with ADHD.
The Neuroscience Behind the Struggle
Research suggests people with ADHD may have a bias toward operating in the Default Mode Network (DMN), the brain’s “trigger aware” mode associated with scanning the environment for things of contrast, whether they stand out as opportunities or threats. The DMN then (amongst other functions) will create very fast and fuzzy associations with cumulative memory to try to predict what will happen next. This takes the form of an emotional reaction. The process is then meant to include access to the Task Positive Network (TPN), which handles focused, external tasks and detailed planning and down regulates the emotional reaction. This allows a more logical and attention focused approach enabling a more critical appraisal of the information as it is now rather than as a cumulative memory and emotional reaction. This then in turn supports the person using their attention and working memory to create a new emotional association for this immediate situation. In other words, they can choose the emotion that will best serve their goals.
For people with ADHD, the TPN may not activate as robustly or consistently when needed, meaning the DMN stays too active, potentially explaining the distractibility and reliance on emotionally-driven, reactive motivation. Without access to attention, it means that motivation (the emotional drive to activate) is reliant on reward or threat at an associative level rather than being something that is chosen and shaped at an attentional level. This is the usual experience for people without ADHD or other self regulatory presentations. Their feeling of motivation, while able to be of the high emotional type, is predominantly of a low stimulus feeling and is best summed up as “doable, right time”.
Enter the CIMAA Model
With my co-author (Madeline O’Reilly) we developed the CIMAA framework specifically to help build reliable motivation:
Connect: Understand your “why”—the real costs and benefits. Be careful not to underestimate effort or dismiss future rewards due to temporal proximity issues.
Imagine: This crucial stage generates activation energy. Break tasks into concrete steps, visualise the physical process, and consider resources, and context so that the task fits with your life. The goal is creating a “doable, right-time feeling”, calm positivity rather than frantic pressure.
Motivate: At the chosen time of the task (or a few minutes before) check in on your awareness of the process, resources and context. Reinforce the sense of “doable, and its the right time”. If you are feeling resistant, be OK to reschedule, but only to a better time. If there is a tangible barrier to doing the task now, it will be easy to find another time. If not, it will be difficult which will likely prompt the motivation in the form of “doable, right time”.
Act: Execute the plan while problem-solving on the fly. Small progress creates dopamine hits that fuel momentum, but avoid perfectionism that stalls forward movement. Monitor progress and time as you proceed.
Achieve: Reflect on what worked and what didn’t. This often-skipped step builds your toolkit for future tasks and reinforces positive motivational experiences.
Add ADHD awareness to CIMAA
As with all things ADHD, we need to make sure to apply an executive function awareness to the CIMMA solution. In other words, how to help the self regulation of attention, emotion, working memory, and then organisation, time management, and impulse control.
Connect: Understand your “why”:
- Help your attention and working memory by getting it out of your head. Write it down or talk it through with someone.
- Make sure you are able to “see” or hold in mind the complete costs vs benefits.
- Do the same for emotional responses to cost or benefit by reflecting on your current capability (energy, time etc) to deliver the task and the real benefit (create the story of you having achieved it in the future, what will it give you?)
Imagine: Process, Resources, Context:
- Help your attention and working memory by getting it out of your head. Write it down or talk it through with someone.
- Make sure you are able to “see” the steps, required resources, and each step in your calendar. (Context)
- Emotional Check in – does it feel real and doable now I can see it in the context of my life in my calendar?
- Organisation/Time Check – is everything there to make it happen?
Motivate: Trigger activation:
- Create a time prompt that allows for gathering of motivation (set an alarm 5minutes before)
- Have your calendar with the tasks in it to support working memory
- If needed, create a checklist of actions to support attention and working memory
- Create an “On-Ramp” of the easiest first task and only commit to it. Then reassess.
- If really resisting, check there isn’t some other problem by attempting to reschedule the task to a better time. This needs to be done before you skip the time and you must be able to qualify why it is a better time.
Act: Execute the plan while problem-solving on the fly:
- Support attention and working memory by having a checklist you follow.
- Set time alerts to help to keep you aware of progress in time and when you need to finish. Time Timer is also a great tool for this as it shows the time as it passes.
- If you are not progressing as planned, stop and solve the problem. The brief pause will give you so much more time and remove frustration. Notice, Analyse, Choose the solution.
- Be clear on when you are done. Have criteria for success that will give you a black and white list of what means you are finished.
- Have an alarm to warn you approximately 10 minutes before you need to finish. Remember this is not a hyper focus approach. You have other things in life to get on with and this is only one. Having activated earlier and more easily will mean it can be done in stages if needed.
- When you stop for the day with the intent of continuing at another time, capture a note as you finish of the last thing you did and the next thing you will do in the task. Attach it to your work. It will help you connect with the task when you return.
Achieve: Reflection shapes meta-cognition or the mental systems that support self regulation:
- Create alerts to check in at stages as you work through the task.
- Pause at the end of each session to check your criteria and what you would do again and what you would change.
- Create a plan to do both. Make a note in the calendar for the next time you will do the task or even create a daily affirmation prompt to remind you of the focus that works for you.
Transform Your Relationship with Motivation
Motivation isn’t a lightning bolt you wait for—it’s an emotion you can construct. By understanding ADHD executive function challenges and using structured techniques like CIMAA, you can move from unreliable external pushes toward consistent, internal control.
Ready to try it? Pick one small task you’ve been avoiding. Define it, design the action in your mind, and notice what happens when you actually do it. How might this shift your approach to future challenges?
For deeper exploration of these strategies, check out “Decoding Doing” by Jonathan Hassall and Madeline O’Reilly on Amazon.