ADHD: Why Am I Like This? Part 12: Dopamine & Motivation

By this point in my investigation, I had uncovered another contradiction.

It wasn't just that I struggled to start some things.

It wasn't just that I could hyperfocus on others.

There seemed to be an invisible force deciding what my brain considered worth doing.

That became another clue.

My Grandfather's Business

My grandfather was one of the most entrepreneurial people I've ever known.

He started a business in his late thirties that eventually employed much of our family and many of our friends.

He took tremendous pride in building it.

As a child, I admired him.

As an adult, I realized I had inherited something from him.

Just... not exactly the same thing.

I've started more businesses than I can easily count.

Not because the others failed.

Not because they lacked potential.

Many of them could have grown into something much larger.

The strange part was this.

I loved building businesses.

The idea.

The strategy.

Finding an unsolved problem.

Imagining the most elegant solution I could.

Researching the market.

Designing the systems.

Selling the vision.

Then, somewhere after the systems were working...

I'd lose interest.

I wasn't chasing successful businesses.

I was chasing the process of creating them.

That became another clue.

The Puzzle Was the Reward

For years, I thought I lacked follow-through.

That seemed like the obvious explanation.

Then I noticed something.

I didn't lose interest because the business became difficult.

I often lost interest because the difficult part was over.

The puzzle had been solved.

The systems were built.

The process was repeatable.

The challenge had quietly transformed into maintenance.

And maintenance rarely gave me the same excitement that creation did.

That pattern showed up everywhere else in my life.

My Hobbies Tell the Same Story

I've often described myself as a jack of all trades and a master of none.

For years, I heard that as a criticism.

Now I hear it differently.

I've learned to play multiple instruments.

Not professionally.

Just well enough to understand how they worked.

Then I stopped practicing.

Not because I stopped loving music.

Because the mystery had largely been solved.

I took flying lessons until I was nearly ready to solo.

For most aspiring pilots, that's where the real journey begins.

For me...

It was where the puzzle ended.

I chose to spend the money somewhere else.

Looking back, I don't think I've spent my life collecting businesses or hobbies.

I've spent my life collecting understanding.

Maybe that makes me a jack of all trades.

I like to think it makes me something closer to a Renaissance man.

Not because I've mastered everything.

Because I've remained endlessly curious about almost everything.

That became another clue.

What the Research Says

As I dug deeper, I discovered that dopamine is one of the most misunderstood chemicals in the brain.

Most people think of dopamine as the brain's "pleasure chemical."

Researchers describe something much more interesting.

Dopamine is heavily involved in motivation, anticipation, novelty, learning, and reward prediction.

In other words, dopamine doesn't simply reward us for achieving something.

It motivates us to pursue something in the first place.

Research suggests that people with ADHD often process dopamine differently.

Novel experiences.

Interesting questions.

Unsolved problems.

Unexpected discoveries.

Challenge.

Uncertainty.

These tend to generate far more motivation than repetition, routine, or maintenance.

That immediately resonated with me.

Not because I disliked hard work.

I've never been afraid of working hard.

I simply seemed to come alive whenever there was something new to understand.

A Different Kind of Motivation

One realization changed almost everything.

For years, I assumed motivation came from importance.

If something mattered enough, surely I should feel motivated to do it.

My life didn't support that theory.

Some of the most important responsibilities in my life were also the hardest to begin.

Meanwhile, I would enthusiastically spend an afternoon researching a question nobody had asked me to answer.

The problem wasn't importance.

The problem was that my brain wasn't asking,

"Is this important?"

It was asking,

"Is there something interesting to discover here?"

Those are very different questions.

When Dopamine Becomes Dangerous

Understanding dopamine also forced me to confront a more uncomfortable reality.

If my brain was naturally drawn toward novelty, challenge, and immediate reward...

It wasn't hard to see how that same wiring could become dangerous.

Researchers have found that people with ADHD are at significantly greater risk for substance use disorders than the general population.

Looking back, that didn't surprise me.

Alcohol.

Drugs.

Gambling.

Impulse purchases.

Even endless scrolling.

They're all capable of delivering immediate rewards.

An ADHD brain isn't destined to become addicted.

Far from it.

But understanding how strongly my brain responds to immediate rewards helped me better understand some of the choices I've made throughout my life.

It also made me realize something encouraging.

The same brain that can become captivated by unhealthy rewards can also become captivated by healthy ones.

Curiosity.

Learning.

Building.

Creating.

Understanding.

The goal was never to eliminate my dopamine.

The goal was to become more intentional about where I looked for it.

What I've Learned

For years, I believed I was a slacker.

Now I think I misunderstood what motivated me.

I wasn't addicted to starting businesses.

I was addicted to solving problems.

I wasn't collecting hobbies.

I was collecting understanding.

Once I understood that, something else became clear.

My grandfather loved building a business and watching it grow for decades.

I seem to love building systems that can eventually grow without me.

Neither approach is inherently better.

They're simply different.

For years, I judged myself by someone else's definition of success.

Now I wonder if success is less about becoming the person you admire...

...and more about understanding the person you've always been.

That realization changed more than the way I think about dopamine.

It changed the way I think about myself.

The Next Clue

Understanding dopamine answered one question.

It raised another.

If my brain is so strongly motivated by novelty...

Why do impossible deadlines suddenly make ordinary tasks feel urgent enough to begin?

Why do I sometimes produce my best work only after procrastinating for days?

That became another clue.

Next

Part 13: Why Do I Wait Until the Last Minute? Procrastination, Urgency, and the ADHD Brain

References

Barkley, R. A. (2015). Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment (4th ed.). Guilford Press.

Brown, T. E. (2013). A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults: Executive Function Impairments.Routledge.

Faraone, S. V., Banaschewski, T., Coghill, D., et al. (2021). The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 Evidence-Based Conclusions About the Disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 128, 789-818.

Volkow, N. D., Wang, G. J., Kollins, S. H., et al. (2009). Evaluating Dopamine Reward Pathway in ADHD. JAMA, 302(10), 1084-1091.

Tripp, G., & Wickens, J. R. (2009). Neurobiology of ADHD. Neuropharmacology, 57, 579-589.

Salamone, J. D., & Correa, M. (2012). The Mysterious Motivational Functions of Mesolimbic Dopamine. Neuron, 76(3), 470-485.