Living with a disability brings extra challenges to daily living. Someone recently commented to me, “Imagine the daily choices I make, knowing that on some days it takes upwards of three hours just to get up and out of the door in the morning?”

He is not unique; he’s paralyzed at cervical level and he’s finding the vital resilience to live a fun and full life.

So when we have a disability, what are the extra factors that help us stay motivated? What gets us out of bed and gives us the strength and resilience to make the most of each day? I recently interviewed a number of people with disabilities, seeking to discover what it is that gives us the inner drive, the motivation to get up and get on.

Here are some of the motivating factors that came out of the interviews:

A Desire to Make the Most of Circumstances
Having a disability often gives you a higher appreciation of what you can do, and the function you do have. This can act as a motivator to want to make the most of life and use whatever parts of your body you can!

One interviewee had experienced a serious accident in the mountains that led to the loss of both his arms and legs due to frostbite. He commented, “Having come to the edge of the abyss and had this second chance, you do suddenly appreciate much more the opportunities that we have in life, and you do want to grasp the nettle a lot more.”

To Improve Self-Esteem
Living with a disability can—certainly at first—damage your self-esteem. The desire to feel good about themselves drives some people with disabilities to want to make more of their life than before and to avoid being sucked into a low self-esteem abyss. A number of interviewees commented that they do what they can to avoid feeling diminished by their disability. 

“Close to my heart, I wonder if I continue to compete (wheelchair racing) and achieve as a way to ‘hide’ my disability and prove to myself that on an emotional and spiritual level, I’m not really DISabled, I’m SUPERabled.”

“It’s not enough to be average. Because then I would have been worse than I was before the accident somehow. And I want to be better.”

Because There is No Choice
Many things we do in life can feel like a challenge, but at the end of the day, what choice do we have? We can choose to feel sorry for ourselves, think that we have it hard, worse than others, and generally throw ourselves a pity party. Most of the people interviewed agreed there had been difficult times, but if we sustain an attitude of self-pity by feeding those feelings with too much negativity, life would be pretty miserable. 

A professional wheelchair racer commented, “Everything can seem a challenge. But you just get on with it. What choice do you have? You just do it. And once you’ve done it a few times, you just do it again, and again, until it becomes easy.”

Positive Attitude
Having a positive attitude and the support of friends and family or social networks all came out as key elements in maintaining motivation. If we do what we can to enjoy life and feel good about ourselves, then motivation should begin to flow naturally.

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Looking for a way to amp up your workouts?  Learn how you can train like an Olympic athlete, in Faster, Better, Stronger: An Elite Athlete’s Training Manual For the Rest of Us.

Want more exercise tips for disabilities? See Choosing a Workout That's Right for You and Your Disability.