Many of us with ADHD and wandering minds have been told our motivation problems are mainly about dopamine dependence. This has led to numerous activities and products built to "gamify" motivation and productivity.

But trying to “game” oneself with reward apps, points, quests, races, or even caffeine often works only briefly because it goes against what is true for ourselves.

What makes video games engaging is not flashy stimuli, but a flowing progression of challenges calibrated to be neither too hard nor too boring, where enjoyment comes from the activity itself.

Motivation can come from pausing with existing frustration and tension, asking what feels boring or irritating, then simplifying, shrinking, or slowing tasks to gently reduce tension and “titrate” challenge. Then, dopamine becomes an afterthought.

We end with one of my oldest and ever-evolving compositions, “Aging,” written in C minor.

Transcript:

Maybe if I trick myself. Maybe if I reward myself. Maybe if I use that app that gives me points, sparkles, and a lot of fanfare, I'll get my chores done.

The idea of dopamine dependence, or maybe dopamine starvation, is often a suspect in the world of ADHD and wandering minds.

If I only had more dopamine I'd get things done.

The phrase is supported by this idea of an "Interest-based" nervous system - this idea that has somehow been interpreted to mean that we can only do things that we have some a priori interest in, effectively arguing for a lack of free will.

And so, some of us look for ways that we can "game" ourselves. Maybe we consider ways to set up a points system for which chores are worth something. Maybe we turn our to-do list into a set of quests with levels, loot, and the like.

Or how about "how fast can I clear this Inbox?" reminding me of trying to get a kid to tie their shoes in the morning by asking them to race out the door.

Maybe we even use a chemical like coffee after the work report is done, quite literally trying to get a flush of dopamine after doing something that we'd otherwise avoid.

Look, if any of these work for you, great. But I believe, more often than not, it'll work once or a few times, and then some part of us, starts to say "no."

Why? Because we have been dishonest with ourselves.

Any Worthwhile System Requires Honesty

Any system of work worth its salt, requires honesty with ourselves.

Part of the problem is in how we interpret the word "game" itself.

We look at video games, for instance, as this poster child of dopamine dependence. Things flash and make noises on a screen, beaming photons into our eyes, jiggling air molecules at our eardreams, sending signals into some secret lairs in our brain, a mesolimbic pathway of the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, working its way into the dorsal striatum.

Whatever the terminology, the more seemingly scientific, the more it becomes a metaphor for whatever lies beyond our control. We may as well imagine some evil villain with a smirk and a lab suit, standing in our brains, laughing as they pull the levers for the things that make us do wrong.

What is "gaming"?

"Gaming" in this context is a word that seems to be interpreted as, maybe I can trick that guy into pulling the levers at the times that I want, by attaching something that already makes the dopamine flow with the thing that doesn't.

But gaming, video gaming, is very much not about this process at all.

Things that go blip and bloop do not excite us. Or maybe they do briefly, but then that fades off all easily, its novelty spent.

What excites us is not the reward

What excites us is a flow of moving from one challenge to the next. At first we see something that somehow fits some window of not too difficult, not too boring, and maybe even completable.

We nudge forward, stomping on that one bad guy. And then we see some next window of challenge, maybe bringing some of what we've just accomplished with us.

One at a time, and then blending into each other, like picture frames across old-school film, we get into it, stomping, swinging, dashing, grooving, ready to take on more.

What began as a trickle became a river.

Whatever it is, we are enjoying the thing for the thing itself. We haven't skirted meaning. We haven't cheated ourselves.

Beyond games, we can do this with any type of play or work, enjoyed or not.

The Path is Through

The path in is through the frustration, the tension, the emotion that already exists, not by avoiding it.

If we can pause with that sensation, not force ourselves through or hide from it, we can then ask, "what is boring, frustrating, irritating about this?"

And then, simplify, or maybe shrink things down, or slow down and try to render some of that tension into ease. Gently, - as we do.

And then with doing so, we then start finding the real levers that can adjust the challenge within ourselves - tuning into where we are. We can adjust those levers for ourselves.

Once we learn how to titrate a challenge for ourselves, dopamine is an afterthought. The word itself experienced distant as it always has been.

Sometimes we can even transform an experience from frustrating to enjoyed, even bridging the “why can’t I just start because I know I’ll be ok once I’m there?”

We bridge that into beginning with an honoring of the emotions that make up who we are now, rather than treating ourselves as if we don't know better.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #ADHDandMotivation #Neurodivergent

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