Ever felt motivated, yet going nowhere?
I have.
Especially in times of ongoing change and disruption. Building something new, looking for direction, and balancing work that’s starting to stretch in every direction.
Lately, I’ve caught myself doing more but achieving less. Jumping between ideas. Starting, stopping, switching. Busy on the outside, scattered on the inside.
Busy being busy.
Initially, I thought it was my ADHD on its usual back flips and somersaults, but it appears not so.
We’ve been told for years it’s about dopamine, and it may be so for some of us.
For me, dopamine feels good for a split second and then, what’s next?
What new research is showing is that what actually drives motivation is alignment in our brain:
🧠 Clarity (direction)
🧠 Safety (emotional state)
🧠 Energy (nervous system)
When one of those is off, motivation is blocked.
You don’t rebuild motivation by pushing harder, you rebuild it by getting clearer, calmer and more focused.
For me, that means:
✅ Picking one direction, not ten
✅ Taking one small step, not overhauling everything
✅ Creating space and time to reset, not forcing progress
Slowly, over the next few hours, the momentum returns.
If you’re feeling stuck, flat, or scattered right now, welcome to the club!
You’re not lacking discipline, you’re not broken, your brain is just asking for something different.
I’m curious to know, when your motivation drops, what helps you get it back that’s different?
We know that exercise, socialisation, and starting something new are all good motivators. What else is there?
Share below, I would genuinely love to learn from you.
Let’s talk!
Why Is Everything Getting To Me?
Why is everything getting to me?
Lately, I’ve been feeling it.
A build-up of things not quite landing the way I thought they would.
So, as I always do, I went back to the neuroscience research, and the answer surprised me.
Disappointment isn’t a flaw, it’s a signal.
Our brain is constantly trying to predict the future. How things will go, how people will respond, how life should unfold.
When reality doesn’t match that prediction, it fires what’s known as a prediction error.
A measurable neural signal driven by dopamine that says: “That’s not what we expected.”
That ugly hollow feeling? Well, that’s disappointment.
Recent research shows it’s not just outcomes we mispredict, it’s how we expect to feel!
When that also misses our prediction, the brain registers an emotional prediction error.
Now it makes sense.
Maybe it’s not just us; maybe it’s that the world has become harder to predict.
More change, more uncertainty, more gaps between expectation and reality. Therefore, we feel it more. Here’s how I now reframe it – my brain isn’t trying to stop me, it’s trying to adjust me for the new world.
After any disappointment, it recalibrates, learns, and builds motivation to go again.
So now, when disappointment hits, I ask:
👉 What did I expect?
👉 What actually happened?
👉 What do I change next time?
If you’ve been feeling it too, that sense of things not quite landing how you hoped, know that there’s nothing “wrong” with you.
Your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do - adjust, learn, and survive.
At the core of everything we’ve ever been through as humans, it’s adaptation that’s kept us here.
Keep feeling the feeling and change one thing next time to rationalise the outcome and feeling.
Let’s talk!
The Rise In Anger!
Have you noticed the continued increase in anger and aggression in our communities?
It’s something that started a few years ago when we were all under pressure.
Across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, validated research from high-pressure environments like universities has been clear:
👉 Distress increased sharply during lockdowns
👉 Tolerance for frustration dropped
👉 Boundaries between roles blurred
👉 Conflict began showing up not as rare violence, but as frequent aggression
As restrictions lifted, those pressures didn’t disappear; they returned to everyday life in our workplaces, public services, retail, transport and neighbourhoods.
This is what communities are now experiencing:
🚫 More verbal abuse and intimidation
🚫 Faster escalation in everyday interactions
🚫 Lower thresholds for anger and confrontation
🚫 Higher psychological impact on frontline workers and volunteers
🚫 A normalisation of behaviour that would once have been unacceptable
This is about systems under long-term strain and people carrying unresolved stress into shared spaces.
As all studies have shown, and as ongoing reviews will show, these trends were predictable.
At WARN International, we use this kind of cross-sector evidence to inform our programmes.
We track early indicators, post-restriction patterns, and validated trends, and then develop programmes to mitigate the negative effects.
Our programmes are built to help people recognise escalation early, to respond safely, and to protect their own wellbeing before harm becomes routine.
If we all look to research to support foresight, foresight might just help more people to stay safe and well.
Let’s talk!
Sleep!
“If you’re wired at night, what actually helps?”
After sharing why so many people are experiencing bad dreams, early-morning waking, and feeling wired yet tired. The next question always comes - So what can I actually do at night?
Here are some things that genuinely help a busy nervous system calm down.
First, lower the bar; the fastest way to stay wired at night is trying too hard to sleep.
Sleep responds to safety. The goal at night isn’t to force sleep; it’s saying to yourself, “I’m allowed to rest, sleep will come later.”
This mental shift alone can help.
Start with a 10–20-minute buffer before bed that tells the body to stand down. Some examples include:
✅ A warm shower or bath
✅ Gentle stretching (not exercise)
✅ Sitting quietly with a drink (not alcohol) and low lighting
✅ Calm, familiar music
Consistency matters more than technique.
Next, just before bed, write down any worries, reminders, or thoughts you might have.
If you wake at night, stop arguing with your mind. If you start the chatter inside your head, it keeps the nervous system switched on.
Here’s what helps instead:
👉 Slow breathing (longer out breath)
👉 Gentle reassurance (“I’m safe right now”)
👉 Imagining something neutral and repetitive (walking a familiar path, waves, a train journey)
You’re not trying to sleep; you’re trying to stay out of threat mode.
Reeducate the nervous system during the day. What shows up at night is often what the nervous system didn’t process during the day.
Throughout the day, to reprogramme your brain, start:
⏸️ Having brief pauses during the day
😮💨 Take moments of slow breathing
🌳 Step outside
📋 Do one thing at a time.
Lastly, be kind about dreams. This one is close to my heart.
Bad dreams don’t mean you’re a bad person or regressing; they often mean the emotional system is processing things that finally feel allowed to surface.
If you wake from a disturbing dream:
✅ Remind yourself it’s memory + emotion, not a prediction
✅ Ground in the present
✅ Avoid analysing it at 3am
If you remember one thing, you don’t fix nighttime wiring with force. You calm it with permission, predictability and compassion.
You can access our sleep tips document here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ewwvA4vB
Let’s talk!
Should we blame our behaviour on our past or our brain?
When we behave out of character, most of us don’t look outward.
We turn inward; we feel regret and shame. “That’s not who I want to be.”
So should we blame our past, our trauma, our neurodiversity? Or, should we simply apologise and promise to do better next time?
Neuroscience gives us a more honest and uncomfortable answer.
Our past and our brain do influence our behaviour.
Decades of research show that past experiences, particularly trauma, leave measurable imprints on the brain.
Stress and adversity alter how the amygdala (threat detection), hippocampus (memory), and prefrontal cortex (self‑control) communicate with one another.
In simple terms, when the brain feels threatened, regulation drops before intention arrives.
The same applies to neurodivergence. ADHD, autism and related neurodevelopmental profiles involve differences in self‑regulation, emotional processing, and impulse control, particularly under stress.
Yes, our brain, traits and our past shape our reactions.
But there is a difference between a reason and an excuse.
Research from top universities consistently shows that while neurobiology constrains behavioural flexibility, it does not remove responsibility.
Trauma can reduce regulation in the moment, neurodivergence can make change harder, and stress narrows behavioural options.
However, none of these erase accountability.
What research does show is that behaviour change requires capacity, not just insight.
When the prefrontal cortex is offline, through overwhelm, fatigue, trauma activation, or sensory overload, the brain defaults to learned patterns, not values.
So what does responsibility look like?
✔️ Owning the behaviour
✔️ Naming context (without hiding behind it)
✔️ Apologising cleanly
✔️ Actively working on regulation, not just intention
This is supported across trauma‑informed neuroscience, behaviour change research, and neurodiversity‑affirming models.
Your past may explain why something was hard. Our brain may explain why it happened faster than our choice, but responsibility lies in what we do afterwards.
Blame doesn’t change behaviour, shame doesn’t either. Understanding paired with accountability does.
Let’s talk!
(Yale School of Medicine; Harvard/McLean Hospital – Trauma & Resilience Lab).
(Stanford Neurodiversity Project; Scientific Reports, Nature Group, 2025).
(Frontiers in Psychology, 2023; BJPsych Open, 2025).
(Psychology Today – Neurobiology of Trauma).
(Harvard & Yale trauma research; Stanford Neurodiversity Project).