Finding and maintaining motivation can be tough, especially when you’re not seeing results. What kept me going in the early days was a love for my regular dreams. If you’re interested in those then there’s always something to be excited about on a night and to write about each morning. Lucidity then becomes the icing on the cake. You’ll have a massive motivation boost when you have one and then it’s just about riding that wave of enthusiasm and maintaining it as long as you can. I also find re-reading my old journal entries, visiting this forum regularly and watching/ reading dream related content as often as I can helps keep my motivation strong and consistently in my thoughts.

Putting too much effort and focus into your nightly methods is going to keep you awake. Whenever I tried to strictly follow “the steps” in technique guides I failed. I always found myself wide awake, trying too hard and getting frustrated whenever I believed I messed up one of the steps. This lead to long spells of insomnia and a generally negative mood that never brought lucidity. Techniques are really only a set of guide lines you can follow to point you in the right direction. You then need to adapt them to work in what ever way best suits you. Most nights when I succeed I simply wake up after 5-6 hours of sleep, spend 5 minutes recalling my dreams, then use the loo, do an RC and return to bed and think about my intention to become lucid until I fall asleep. It doesn’t always work but my chances of success are way higher then when I try too hard because I’m remaining calm, sleepy and stress-free. I’m not saying this simple routine will work for you but I think it’s best not to force yourself to do the techniques like a list of tasks to complete or it will just keep you awake.

Getting distracted is normal, when it happens you just need to accept it and bring your attention back to your intention. Your mind wandering can actually be a good thing and will likely lead to sleep which is better for getting lucid then staying awake! If you practice mnemonic techniques and regular RCs your mind will slowly start remembering to go back to your intention even if your mind does wander and you find yourself asleep without realising.