Do you feel like you’ve tried everything to improve your fertility? From logging your period to using an ovulation predictor kit to charting your temperature. And the way you’ve changed your diet from cutting down on caffeine to eating like a fertility goddess.

It’s so frustrating when you feel like you’re ticking all the boxes and doing all the things, but it’s still not happening.

It’s hard to stay motivated when you’ve been trying for months or years. And it’s impossible to stay on track after you’ve had a miscarriage or unsuccessful IVF. There are some days you feel like throwing your thermometer out of the window and eating a tub of Ben and Jerry’s in front of Netflix.

I know how hard it is to keep waiting and wondering if it’ll ever happen. Here are four ways that you can motivate yourself to keep going.

1. Acknowledge

When you’re struggling and it feels hard, then it makes sense to bury your emotions, stay busy and focus on what is good in your life. The truth is if you don’t acknowledge your emotions, then they have a way of coming out sideways and ambushing you when you least expect it. Like when your friend tells you she’s pregnant and you fall apart.

When you’re carrying around heavy emotions, then they weigh you down, kill your motivation and stop you from moving forward with fertility habits.

It’s hard to acknowledge sadness, frustration and worry, but when you do it in a skilful way, you can process these challenging emotions quickly and move to the other side.

You’ll feel lighter and more like yourself again. It’s like clearing out a cupboard. It gets a little messier to start with and then much clearer. You’ll be glad you took the time to do it and you’ll have more energy and motivation to keep going.

Right now, take a deep breath and check in with yourself. How are you really doing? Acknowledge whatever comes up and allow yourself to sit with it for a few minutes. Keep breathing, feeling and showing yourself kindness.

2. Self Talk

When you have a goal, you tick off milestones along the way and know that you’re moving towards it. But when you’re trying to conceive you can get lost and wonder if you’ll ever succeed.

When it’s taking a long time to get pregnant, then it’s easy for negative self-talk to start.

Negative self-talk sucks away motivation and zaps energy.

If you catch yourself thinking: “I feel like I’m doing all the right things. Why is it so easy for her to get pregnant and hard for me - it’s not fair. Maybe I don’t deserve to be pregnant.”Then stop.

You can’t control the first unhelpful thought, but as soon as you notice it, then you can choose to think of something kinder.

Try using a friendly tone of voice when you speak to yourself. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend. Change it up to something like this: “I’m doing so many things to improve my fertility. There’s no point in comparing myself to others because we are all different. I’m doing my best and I trust I’ll meet my baby soon.”Right now, close your eyes and say something kind to yourself. It feels totally different and it’s way more motivating than criticising yourself.

3. Community

It’s hard when you feel like you’re the only one struggling to get pregnant. Your friends are all announcing their pregnancies, comparing their bumps and going on playdates together.

When you talk about your fertility struggles they do their best and try to be supportive, but they don’t get it. You also get the unhelpful and insensitive comments to “just relax and it’ll happen” or stories of how their neighbour who had been trying for ages, went on holiday and came back pregnant. It’s hard to stay motivated when you feel alone.

Whenever you’re doing something new or making a big life change, then it’s important to do it with other people also on the same path. We need a community to share experiences, give us inspiration and motivate us to keep moving forward.

Find a community that understands what it is like. It’s so much easier to make changes, install new habits and stay motivated when you do it with friends.

Right now, if you haven’t done so already then join the Fertility Heroes Private Facebook Group. Private means that only other members will see your posts and comments. They don’t show up on your friend’s pages. Introduce yourself and make a connection. If you’re already part of the group, then invite a friend or make a new friend in the community. Inspire and motivate someone else and you’ll get that back tenfold.

4. Support

If you feel like you’ve tried everything to get pregnant and you’re losing motivation, then I can promise you that there is hope. There are steps you haven’t taken yet.

It might feel like you’ve had all the tests and gone as far as you can with the standard medical system. But there are still tests you haven’t had, advanced tests that your doctor hasn’t offered you. In the Fertility Club, we use advanced tests to get to the root of fertility challenges. When we have the right information, then it becomes easy to pinpoint what is stopping someone from getting pregnant and fix the imbalances.

There is nothing more motivating than having a personal plan with the exact steps that you need to take to fix your fertility challenges. A clearly laid-out path towards pregnancy means that you don’t waste time on things that may or may not help. Having your own customised plan takes all the doubt, worry and guesswork away. You get to focus all your energy on taking action in the right direction.

4 Ways To Stay Motivated When You’re TTC

So there you have it, four ways to stay motivated when you’re trying to conceive. Firstly, acknowledge how you’re feeling and process your emotions. Next, notice your self-talk and focus on speaking to yourself as you would to your bestie. Find a community of like-minded women on the same path as you. And get expert support to get to the root of your fertility challenges so that you can follow a customised plan to optimise your fertility. Try combining all of them and you’ll be unstoppable!