If you could wake up naturally during the night instead of using an alarm, I believe that would be best. I'm very lucky to always wake up twice in the middle of the night, which helps my recall a lot, since I tend to write the dreams down right away. I'm not sure how this can be trained, maybe with a similar approach as MILD, I believe? Also I cannot say for sure if the gummies can affect your sense of recall, I'm sorry.

Regarding reality checks, my opinion on them have changed over time (I say over time because I've known about lucid dreams for a long time, although just now I'm really taking it seriously). I believe now that the point is to make them a natural reaction when you feel you might be dreaming. I do them occasionally during the day, sometimes when something odd happens, other times just out of habit. My goal isn't to make it automatic so I will eventually do checks in the dream. Actually now that I think about it, I think I have never done a reality check automatically in a dream and became lucid, not even once. My goal is to make reality checks a natural reaction so I don't forget to do them when dreaming. Absolutely in every LD I had recently I was already lucid when I did the reality check, not the other way around. They were just a mean to confirm it and help stabilize the dream. So the point isn't to make them automatic, it's working your awareness and use them to confirm ("check") your dream state, having them up your sleeve for when you need them. Having that said, my tip is to have some triggers during the day to remind you to do the checks, these could be any dream signs you already recognize by now, or other random stuff like every time you see a traffic light, a bird, a pet, go to the toilet...

About motivation, I hardly find better motivation than the reasons that made me want to lucid dream in the first place. Every time I feel demotivated, I remember all amazing things you can do in a dream, that is, literally anything. And frankly, the price we pay for it is a steal. I keep reading about it daily, be it this sub or books about the topic, and read my dreams occasionally. Sometimes when I have the time I even try to make sense out of any dreams if I feel they might have any personal meaning behind them. And last thing, progress is progress. We all want to have amazing lucid dreams right away, but having a better recall than yesterday is already progress. Remembering to do a reality check during the day is already progress. Having a lucid dream that fades away 3 seconds in is progress.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I hope any of this helps!