Photo by Ian Schneider from Unsplash

I instead define motivation is knowing your ‘why’. Most people don’t enjoy studying for years on end, or every exercise sessions, or visiting the dentist for a procedure. Yet we do this, because our ‘why’ is strong. You may know your health is important or want a stable career.

If you’re surrounded by people who subscribe to a particular set of beliefs about how you should think, feeling and behave, it can be very hard to even know what your authentic self is. This sets of beliefs imposed on you may be shaped by culture, religion, age, education systems and gender beliefs.

Underneath a lot of inner criticism and anxiety disorders is often an underlying lack of trust in yourself, your decision making and your ability to cope if things go wrong. Trust your ability to cope when things go wrong. This is something that gets easier the more you go through in life. Of course, we all hope we will go through as minimal hardship as possible in life, but no one avoids difficult situations completely. You have coped with so much in life, and will cope with whatever is thrown at you.

With most people staying in the workforce for around 45 years, it’s really normal (and understandable!) that you may reach a point where you are unsure what you want to do in your life. In fact, research shows people tend to go through 3-7 career changes over the lifespan! Keep a diary for two weeks. Write down sparks joy and what snuffs out your joy. Think about books, topics, events, people, jobs, conversations, times of day and activities.

A key component of ADHD is suffering from executive functioning difficulties. This involves your ability to initiate tasks, plan, organise and time manage. People with ADHD often compensate for their executive functioning difficulties by overusing their limbic system (which controls emotions and memory). Example: Using anxious thoughts on a task as motivation. It’s like gasoline on a flame where you use a wicked wave of fear and anxiety to push yourself to act.

Think about all the things you do in your bed. Do you eat, read, work, go online, speak on the phone to people, read in bed, worry or lie there awake at night not being able to sleep? What that means is when you go to bed your brain associates your bed with a lot of daytime activities or difficulty sleeping. This dilutes the response between ‘seen my bed, sleep’.

You may be wondering why you can’t find a list of the best psychologists in Sydney, or things like testimonies or reviews, ads in magazines or even someone saying they are expert in a particular presentation, like you would with other professions.

A clinical psychologist is an allied health professional who has completed 6 years of training, including a Master of Clinical Psychology, and then completed two years as a clinical registrar (post graduate supervised practice). They are registered through Australian Health Practitioner Agency (AHPRA).

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is more than being neat or loving things being clean. It can be a debilitating disorder where you fear things like contamination, fear that you may hurt someone or fear you’re a bad person.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is when a person has chronic obsessions (thoughts, images, fears) and engages in compulsions (mental or behavioural) to reduce the anxiety these obsessions cause.

A lot of traditional advice for procrastination online is based on the assumption that people are completely unable to do work and need strategies to get started on their projects.