There have been studies on motivation that have similarities to your descriptions. Basically, like you said, if we get a partial reward for a goal, we’re less likely to accomplish that goal.

The one I remember had ‘telling someone else your goal’ as the ‘partial reward’. At the end of a day, people who told someone their goal felt closer to accomplishing it, but less motivated to actually work on it. People who didn’t tell anyone worked on their goal longer, but also felt like ‘they still had a long way to go’.

I think the other part of it was what you said about not wanting to actually do X but prove to yourself that you COULD do X. Once I prove that I COULD… I’m done. The goal might not be what other people would consider ‘done’, but my ADHD brain doesn’t care. It got dopamine, and now we’re moving on to the next topic.

I totally feel this.

So many videogames I enjoyed just ended before last boss

Decent job with lots of down time, and I desperately want to want to learn more things and give myself potential for career advancement and some job flexibility. Like I really want to be able to do it, but I just can’t bring myself to start because I don’t need to, even though I like learning new things.

Even when I complete a home project, or accomplish a life goal, it’s just kind of… Meh? Well that’s done I guess?

There’s also a constant battle of feeling anxious in most social settings, but feeling guilty/lonely without them. Almost like juggling two things you don’t particularly like, trying to find the balance where you’re least mentally uncomfortable.

It’s great having videogames, but you can only do something so much before everything starts to feel formulaic and unfulfilling.

There is always a feeling or sensation that I should/could be doing something else unless I’m hyper fixated on something

I put together a shadowbox last year for a client and had fun making it. I wrote a calculator in Python to calculate where to make the cuts so I could just fold up the walls and documented every step so I don’t have to struggle next time I make something like that again. Now the clien has come back with the same exact project and I have zero interest in doing it despite making everything dead simple. It was an unusual project for the shop I work at, very custom, and I established my self as the guy that does the weird custom projects. Now I am the guy doing the weird custom projects. :(

My way to motivate myself: Track it in a spreadsheet.
Make graphs with Excel (or whatever) to visualize it.

I tracked my push ups and pull ups to track my activity after my bike-commute. Also keeps me from not doing it.

Pretty much. I got the minimum (IT) cert requirements for my job and… can’t bring myself to actually knuckle down and study more advanced things. I really want/need to learn powershell but I just… can’t. I know enough to dabble and poke at things but that’s it.