Hypothyroidism is a tough condition to have.

You might have a lot more days than not when you just feel like crap. You don’t feel like yourself. You feel stuck and frustrated.

And yep, I’m speaking from experience.

On days like this, it’s so hard to get motivated to take the steps to make our thyroids healthy and happy. 

So, I wanted to share a few tips that I use to motivate myself when I’m feeling extra lousy. These are the same steps that I work with my clients on, too. 



1. Set realistic health goals

This is the most important step on this list for two reasons. 

One, it’s impossible to find motivation if you don’t know what you’re working towards. You want to figure out your “why”. Why do you want to have more energy? Why do you want to have less brain fog? What is the driving force behind your journey to a healthy thyroid? Writing down your goals will help you visualize that future you!

Two, if the goals you’re setting are unattainable or unrealistic, that can really quickly squash that motivation. If your goal is “lose 50 pounds in 3 months”... that’s not healthy, that’s not realistic, and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

So, think about smaller, realistic, action-oriented goals that you can for sure accomplish when you put your mind to it.

It can help if you answer these questions:

1. What kind of person will you be when you accomplish your goals?

2. Why is it important to you to be that person?

3. What skills and knowledge do you already have to achieve your goals?

Again, this helps you visualize the person you want to be at the end of this journey, and then from there you can plan out the realistic steps you will take to get there. 

2. Make a daily task list

After you know what you’re working towards, the next way to find that motivation, even when you’re feeling lousy, is to make a task list every morning right after you wake up.

Start incorporating this into your morning routine! Think of it as a little bit of meditation that will also help you get organized and energized. 

And this isn’t going to be your average chore or to-do list. This task list is focused on your health and the steps you need to take to reach your goals.

These could be tasks such as:

• I’m going to meditate for 10 minutes this morning

• I’m going to take short mental health breaks every 1-2 hours at work today

• I’m going to eat a healthy breakfast this morning

• I’m going to go for a 30-minute walk this afternoon

• I’m going to write in my food diary after each meal today

At the end of the day, come back to this list and see what you accomplished. If you checked off everything you wanted to do, that’s amazing and incredible! If you only checked off one thing, still be proud that you took steps towards managing your health. If you weren’t able to find your motivation to check off anything, don’t get down. Tomorrow’s another day.

3. Plan for tomorrow

If you’re really struggling with finding motivation, something that really helped me was planning the night before. At the end of the day, before I went to bed, I would write that daily task list for what I wanted to accomplish tomorrow. This was especially helpful when I was also dealing with crazy brain fog, because I didn’t have to make any decisions in the morning!

Getting your health back on track is a really daunting task, especially when you’re dealing with something as complicated as hypothyroidism. Setting goals, writing things down, thinking ahead, and visualizing yourself completing these tasks that ladder up to your larger health goals, can all be really motivating and help you as you work towards that optimal version of yourself.