Planning to workout often feels like an accomplishment all on its own. You get the dopamine rush of imagining your new, better self: waking up at 6 a.m., drinking green smoothies, finally fitting into clothes you swore you’d wear one day. It feels real in the moment like you can do anything. But when it’s time to actually move your body? Suddenly, it’s like trying to convince a horse to pull a cart… when the horse has decided it’s dead.
You’re not lazy. You’re not broken. If you have ADHD, you may also experience executive dysfunction, which affects your ability to plan, organize, and manage tasks. (Yang et al, 2024) Executive dysfunction can be a significant challenge for individuals with ADHD, impacting their daily life, learning, and social development. There’s a real, biological reason why planning to workout feels better than doing it. And understanding that reason can help you outsmart it.
The Neuroscience Behind Why Planning Feels Good
Planning activates your brain’s reward system, specifically releasing dopamine. This is the same neurotransmitter that lights up when you eat chocolate, receive an anticipated text message, or imagine a tropical vacation. The brain loves anticipating rewards. In ADHD brains, dopamine signaling is often dysregulated. This means that the act of thinking about exercising provides a disproportionate hit of satisfaction compared to the reality of getting up and doing it. When it’s time to actually act, the brain no longer perceives an immediate reward. It only sees effort. This shift from anticipated pleasure to required effort triggers avoidance, procrastination, or total shutdown.
Why Following Through Feels Impossible (Especially with ADHD)
Several brain regions gang up on you during this moment:
- Prefrontal cortex (responsible for decision-making and focus) struggles to maintain the goal when immediate gratification isn’t available.
- Amygdala (your brain’s emotion center) flares up at the thought of discomfort, even minor discomfort like sweating or sore muscles.
- Basal ganglia (which help initiate movement and habits) may not fire smoothly if routines aren’t well-established.
If you have ADHD, these regions may already have underpowered communication. So instead of flowing into action, you get stuck in a thought loop of “I should… but I can’t… but I want to… but maybe later.”
How to Trick Your Brain Into Action
Instead of “planning to workout for an hour,” set the goal as absurdly small: “Put on my workout clothes.” This creates a micro-win that gives your brain a fresh dopamine hit. It makes it easier to keep going. This action taps into the Zeigarnik Effect. The Zeigarnik Effect is a psychological phenomenon where the brain remembers unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
First described by Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the 1920s, it explains why waiters could easily recall unpaid orders but quickly forgot those they had served. When you leave a task incomplete it’s like putting on workout clothes without starting your workout. Your brain experiences a subtle tension that motivates you to finish. By simply initiating a small action, you create internal pressure to follow through, making it easier to keep moving once you’ve already started.
Attach It to an Existing Habit
Pair the first step of planning to workout with something you already do, like brushing your teeth or pouring your morning coffee. This technique, called habit stacking, was popularized by behavioral scientist BJ Fogg and author of Tiny Habits. Habit stacking works by linking a new behavior to an established habit, using the old routine as a built-in trigger for the new one. For example, “After I brush my teeth, I’ll do five squats.” This method reduces the mental load of remembering new tasks, builds consistency, and is especially helpful for ADHD brains that thrive with structure and clear cues.
Change the Reward Timing
If you’re planning to workout and want the habit to stick, timing your rewards matters more than you think. The brain’s reward system uses dopamine to learn which actions are worth repeating. When you get a reward immediately after working out, your brain releases a quick burst of dopamine. It’s what scientists call a phasic dopamine spike. This tells your brain: “That worked. Let’s do it again.” It’s like earning a gold star sticker the moment you finish a task.
For neurotypical brains, even delayed rewards (like long-term fitness gains) can reinforce a habit. But if you have ADHD or struggle with executive function, the brain doesn’t respond as well to future payoffs. So when you’re planning to workout, make sure the reward happens right after. Watch a favorite show, text a friend, eat something you love. Do anything that feels good and immediate. This fast feedback strengthens the neural pathways tied to motivation and habit formation, making the act of working out feel more automatic over time.
Externalize the Motivation
Here’s the brutal truth: future you is a liar. Future you swears they’ll wake up early, go running, and eat a virtuous pile of kale. But when the time comes, future you is just as tired, overwhelmed, and distracted as today you. That’s why planning to workout can’t rely on raw willpower alone especially if you have ADHD. Instead, you need to externalize motivation.
In neuroscience, this means offloading decisions and impulses from your brain onto the environment. Why? Because the the prefrontal cortex, a part of your brain responsible for planning, impulse control, and decision-making, is already overworked. When you build systems outside your head (like alarms, clothes laid out, scheduled texts), you reduce the cognitive load. Planning to workout becomes something your brain can follow, not just imagine.
To beat this, outsource the burden:
- Book a workout class that charges you a fee if you skip. (Ooh, this is enough to get me into every Pilates class. I won’t ever miss a session!)
- Arrange a 5-minute Zoom check-in with a friend. No excuses, no ghosting.
- Set an alarm so loud and annoying it basically screams “MOVE YOUR ASS“.
By creating external pressure like a class you paid for, a friend waiting, an alarm blaring, you shift motivation outside your tired brain circuits. You trick your system into following through, even when internal motivation fails.
New terms to flex at dinner: “I had no executive function left today, so I set a ‘MOVE YOUR ASS’ alarm. Classic externalized motivation hack.”
Why this works:
- You introduced executive function but immediately made it memorable (brain manager that calls in sick).
- You explained why externalized motivation works without needing dense academic language.
- You kept it funny and relatable (the “future you is a liar” line will stick in people’s heads).
- You taught a real neuroscience concept while keeping it sticky and shareable.
Planning to Workout Isn’t Bad! But Action Feels Better
Planning to workout scratches the itch we feel for change. That’s your sign that you want better for yourself and you deserve it. Let’s be real. But understanding your brain’s reward system helps you close the gap between imagining a better life and living it. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to love it. You just have to start smaller, sooner, and be smarter than your dopamine-hijacked brain expects you to be. Today’s goal? Just put on the shoes. Movement will follow. Tell me if this helped you! Leave a comment below or contact us.
References
- Yang G, Liu Q, Wang W, Liu W and Li J (2024) Effect of aerobic exercise on the improvement of executive function in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front. Psychol. 15:1376354. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1376354.
- Savitsky, K., Medvec, V. H., & Gilovich, T. (1997). Remembering and Regretting: The Zeigarnik Effect and the Cognitive Availability of Regrettable Actions and Inactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(3), 248-257. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297233004 (Original work published 1997).
- Buabang EK, Donegan KR, Rafei P, Gillan CM. Leveraging cognitive neuroscience for making and breaking real-world habits. Trends Cogn Sci. 2025;29(1):41-59. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.006.
