What motivates you? Are you unmotivatable?

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I have a son who has inattentive ADD, or ADD-PI (or whatever they're calling it nowadays). Basically, he is not hyperactive, but has serious problems with paying attention in a school setting, or paying attention to anything that doesn't include his special interest(s).

My son takes stimulants, which are supposed to help increase his ability to pay attention. I think that they do help with attention, but what I'm noticing now is that he completely lacks motivation to do anything. I do NOT see this complete lack of motivation when he is NOT taking his meds. In the past when I've read about other people who take stimulants, and if they are working correctly, these people maintain that they suddenly feel the desire to finish activities, and that they have sort of a rough time not doing something.

For example, without meds, my son is scattered, but bounces around the house doing a variety of things (it is summer, after all). He doesn't really concentrate on anything, but he enjoys his video games and especially Live Xbox, as well as playing games on his iTouch, or watching TV. He's pretty much game for anything, including socializing. When he's on his meds, however, he plays sudoku for hours on end, never moving from the couch. That just seems to be totally the OPPOSITE of what I was expecting from his behavior on stimulant meds...

Also, I'm wondering -- for those of you who lacked motivation in your teen years -- were you ever able to self-motivate as you got older? Did you finish college, find a job, find a group you felt comfortable with? Or did you never get that far, totally because you lacked motivation?

All forms of motivation can be traced back to fear. I am motivated to do well in school because I fear what will happen if I do not.

Meds made me very obsessive and manic meaning I needed very little sleep. I didn't like the results. I would rather be med free.

One thing that really helped me was getting away from people I went to school with. I waited to go to college and by the time I finally went hardly anyone I went to school with was there. I had this real phobia about bumping into them. If by chance I did, I would ignore them and quickly walk away. What motivated me was fear about the future, not having the necessities, stuff like that.

Money motivates me.

I disagree. Fear is a horrible motivator for many as it makes them clam up. I'm motivated by the fact that I'm stubborn and have a relatively one track yet healthy mindset, to be quite honest, and so when I set my heart on a goal, I pursue it as if it were a special interest.

To the original poster, he has trouble with school work because it's boring. Not everyone is cut out for typical academics. In stead of focusing on grades in elementary school, I would focus on basic organizational skills...don't try to make him a neat freak or super organized, just sufficiently organized to be able to deal with basic every day things when he's an adult. I would also focus on trying to get him to learn the information in alternate ways. For example, games, museums, magazines on the subject that he likes, and activities. The goal should be that he learns something and he has to enjoy himself in the process if he's really going to learn it.

He doesn't have no motivation. He is motivated to play sudoku.

I advise many people to have a plan for themselves while on meds. You need to give a little push but once they get started on something they will stick at it.

My medication motivates me to be a motivational speaker I'm so motivated.

You need to do a little experiment. Get your son to do one small chores while on medication to see what happens.
Also, he doesn't sound like he has inattentive ADHD, he sounds combined.

It sound like the medication working on making him more focused, it's just making him focus way too much on something unimportant. My meds actually do make me more hyper and so I get that urge to do some important task. And I'm hard on myself. I'm motivated by fearing my future failures and being extremely strict on myself.

As a teen I was just the opposite of what I am now. I was unhealthy, unfit, had no organisation whatsoever. So it does eventually change.

I'm diagnosed with ADD/PI although the diagnostic process was just me describing a few symptoms such as lack of motivation, difficulty prioritizing and mental fatigue after simple things like going to the library or grocery shopping. Meds were prescribed and they helped but they do not fix the problem by any means. I still struggle quite a bit. Since the diagnostic process took all of a few minutes, I don't know if that's the real story. Structure is the key, I think, but I can't manage that on my own. Maybe some outside structured activities would help your son, like a day camp or something.

I preferred goals in my life that were more tangible, like having more diplomas, a good job with better salary and respect, all of it because it meant a status to me and a future, in turn lower anxiety level. As a child, I was given a reward when I studied better, for example a new Lego or a bicycle. I've been taught the more I study the better I'll be able to cope in life. Attending a course for a postgraduate diploma helps to keep the mind exercised in a relatively controlled environment, while to be honest it can be very hard to actually put the academic knowledge to work in real life where the rules are much harder to figure out. It also helps to show up well in a Resume. Strangely enough, money and material reward doesn't motivate me that much. What motivates me is to do well in life, to be a respectable, valuable person, to have a future, to do the things I like, and achieve something on the field of self-fulfillment. It's fortunate when I can come up with ways of combining my interests and goals, e.g. language learning + reading about my interests.

I agree with you. I'd add that if medication doesn't seem to help, abandon it. I'm not convinced medication is the right way to go in many cases they prescribe it. Instead, try alternate methods, behavior therapy, counseling, sports, excursions, sharing interests with peers in an organized way, etc.

For me, it's creating a better world, free of oppression and death. A world where people like us can feel comfortable and loved for who we are instead of being fake.

Thanks to everyone who has replied to this thread. It's always helpful to hear about experiences and opinions from people who have the same background as my son, rather than having me "guess" all of the time as to what would be the best next step.

I agree about the meds situation -- it's obvious that they help in one or two areas, but in other areas, I can't see the benefit. I may feel differently when school starts...but for now, it sure seems like there are discrepancies between the benefits of the meds and the disadvantages...

I don't really know where my motivation comes from. I think it's usually because I want to be good at something. My parents always motivated me to get good grades on school by rewarding me if I did, and I think that helped a lot. I still have motivational issues, but not as much as my best friend, who has an AS diagnosis and who is the laziest, unmotivated guy I know. It's a shame too, because he's an absolute genius. He just never had any reason to do anything because he was so smart.

I'm a student in science and I'm starting a master degree soon. Even people with Asperger can get good education. I can also tell you that I also always had attention problem in school. I just couldn't listen at all in class, I would always zone out and think about my own little thoughts. I always had to study a lot outside of class because I never retained anything from the classes and then I always ended up with not so good results.

The thing that made me go to university and survive university is simply my mind-set. My mother always repeated to me that school was extremely important and that I had to go the furthest as possible in school to end up with a job I like. She would tell me that a job is something that you have for 2/3 of your life, you don't want to hate it or become dependent of your employer because of your lack of degree. With an advanced and useful degree you will be free and will have the choice of where you want to work and if somebody disrespect you, you can then just give them "the finger"(f**k you) and go elsewhere. She would always repeat me these things to make sure that it sticked into my head and it did work. I never stopped, never! University was really hard for me at first and I wasn't as good as others but I sticked and to it and after 3 years of studying and can honestly tell you that I'm one of 1/3 best students in my field at my level. Keep in my mind that I finished my last exam of high school math with 60%! Just encourage your child and even if he lack motivation and has difficulty, always remind him that he shouldn't stop, even if he's doing worse than others. Also, always put him in the classes with the good students so that he as to work hard to get up to their level.

I never received any medication or diagnosis at that time so I can't say anything about if medication is useful or not. I can just tell you I'm taking antidepressant now and I should have taken some MUCH earlier. It helps me cope with change and anxiety. The boost of dopamine from the meds might be useful though. Dopamine boosting drugs makes you a lot more productive and driven. It might increase the aspie obsessive behavior though. Being aspie is a good and bad things. You lose a lot of time obsessing of other stuff than school but when you're really motivated you start obsessing on school and study really well. But this won't happen until you study something that you like, not in high school.

Well said.

I'm not sure. Dad had got me to see learning as a fun game before I went to school, and he taught me a lot of the basics before I went. After that head start, I enjoyed years as the best pupil in the school, with all the praise and approval that went with it. Eventually I sank back as the work became more challenging......the teaching wasn't so clear as it had been, and the teachers began to see me in a more jaundiced light as my grades fell and I became distracted. I managed to pull through and pass all the relevent exams. I don't think it was really a motivation problem, I wanted to stay on top of the game, and was deeply afraid of failing, but it was all I could do to fathom what they wanted of me, and I was too scared to ask. If I'd been able to dash off a piece of homework by just getting on with it, I'd have been fine, but I just couldn't understand the remit, or didn't know how to do it. I would have gratefully done hard labour instead.

One thing that probably helped was that I lost my first girlfriend while there was still time before my 'O' levels for me to get on with the nerdy task of teaching myself the material I'd been unable to learn at school. Like I say, I was deeply afraid of failing, and of what the Big People would think of me if I did. So the studies became a useful temporary diversion for my heartache, and my academic confidence returned when I passed most of the exams.

The next hurdlle was the 'A' levels. It was the same problem as before, only worse. Then we started looking at university courses......I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living - I'd only chosen science 'A' levels because I seemed good at science and because everybody said it was a safe option. And I felt I'd probably go way out of my depth at university, in a strange town with no friends, with even more difficult work to do, and no doubt being expected to understand unclear information.

I got through my 'A' levels by the skin of my teeth, went for a job, and never looked back. It was so much easier than the huge demands of school. No homework. Practical tasks to do. Even with a lousy boss, life was at long last worth living again.

They sent me off on a course, which I grudgingly passed - that wasn't very hard - but then they sent me on another course, which was the wooliest thing I ever saw. The syllabus was huge, and at the end it said that it wasn't complete! They didn't really teach it....they just invited bigwigs from the field to lecture on whatever they wanted to lecture on. If you want to destroy my motivation, give me a task that is very large and without clear boundaries. So I flunked it and refused to do a re-sit. I'd had enough stess, boredom and frustration for one lifetime.

My motivation seems a lot more internal than external. I mastered certain aspects of electronics purely so that I could make tape recorders and music gadgets. I mastered many aspects of computing purely to further my music ambitions. While studying those subjects, I never once felt so horribly confused as I routinely felt while at school or college.

This may be of some use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation

There's a tantalising sentence in there:
The self-control of motivation is increasingly understood as a subset of emotional intelligence; a person may be highly intelligent according to a more conservative definition (as measured by many intelligence tests), yet unmotivated to dedicate this intelligence to certain tasks.
They don't seem to clarify that, but it's interesting....Aspies are usually said to lack emotional intelligence, so how would that pan out for our motivation?

I can be plenty motivated at times, what I can't do is control my own level of motivation. I wrote a blog entry about this awhile back, where I said that I figured willpower was an executive function and telling a person with executive dysfunction that 'if you tried harder you wouldn't have so much trouble' was like telling a blind person 'if you saw better you wouldn't have so much trouble'.

What I've found to work is to work with my motivational patterns instead of against them. Whenever I'm given an assignment, I try to find some way to relate it to my area of interest. For example, one assignment I found hard in my research methods class was to read a research paper, summarize it and then design a study following up on it. The paper was on cultural cues and attributions about language and etiquette errors in e-mail communication, and I found it just interesting enough to read and summarize, but not enough for me to want to follow up on it. But then I thought of a follow-up study involving World of Warcraft (my favorite video game), measuring attributions about a player whose game has lagged during a multiplayer activity.

I've gotten better at doing this sort of thing as I got older. When I was younger it never occurred to me to do this, so instead I'd bang my head against the invisible wall trying to force myself to feel motivated. By really pushing myself when unmotivated I could slap together a poor quality assignment, but I absolutely hated it and would avoid it as much as possible. Gradually I started noticing that when I made sure I was inspired before trying to write something it would actually turn out good, and starting trying to figure out ways to make myself inspired.

Another thought - I heard some people say that on too high of doses of stimulants they find their mind gets 'stuck' doing something and they can't stop it even when they want to. Perhaps you should talk to your son's doctor about lowering his dosage somewhat. Even if it's a normal dosage for a kid his age/weight, he might be more sensitive to it than most kids.

Tbh, for ADD you're better asking on addforums because all of them on there pretty much have ADD.

For me(I have ADD) there are multiple things. Motivation to prove people wrong who have horrible opinions of me is one.

Practical things were stuff i could keep focus on - computers, ps3, electronic making etc.

You just need to find something he really enjoys and try to apply it. As computers interested me for example, i've chosen it as my degree . Having ADD means i have an awesome imagination which is great for problem solving and creating new programs =)...The problem is i get so many ideas and try to implement them all at once! So my projects never get finished haha.

I have lack of motivation, and it's very severe. I think it's knowing where to start what's more difficult for me than actually doing it. Once I get doing it, I feel fine and I would carry on. But it's making a start on things that are so difficult for me.