Maintaining motivation ...

I downloaded my pump data tonight for the first time in ages. I was thinking earlier about how well I've been doing for the past week, and how even with work I'm not feeling burned out at all. I was thinking that I needed to identify what was going well so that I could avoid whatever it was that caused me to burn out.

Well, I already know what causes me burnout, it's frustration. And I can tell you what causes me frustration. It's feeling like I've been having a really good week and am going to download my readings and see if I can't spot some patterns, and doing so to see this:

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and noting that most of my readings are high. And then seeing this:

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and noting that in fact exactly 64% of them are high (and that's not showing several lows I've had, because I don't put them in my pump since they don't require insulin). And then seeing this:

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and noting that I cannot spot any pattern to that whatsoever. It looks nearly random.

And this is a good week, when I've been measuring everything, haven't eaten any crap, am not sick, am not stressed, and I was motivated and actively trying.

And this is the "reward" I get??

I know it's just one week, but this is usually what it's like, week after week. How can I overcome that kind of negative reinforcement? No wonder I get burned out. I've just broken a strong if months of quite literally not caring and not paying attention to anything. It will be interesting what my A1c is (I'll find out in the next few weeks). I cannot fall that badly again ... but I really have to find a way to stay motivated even when my very best efforts produce about half of my readings in range.

I am still going to call up and ask about a continuous glucose monitor this week, see if I can't get one to try, and then I'll look into insurance and see if my insurance will cover one (I can hope). I cannot just keep getting more flashy tools in order to motivate me, though. I've got to find some way of running on my own steam.