As a counter to the post putting it rudely, I’m going to try to say what’s helped me more nicely. Arguably could be summarized similarly.
If you can, get medicated. It’s not a fix-all, and it may take time to find the medicine and dosage that works for you, but I have a lot more success in “adulting” when my brain chemistry is functioning closer to “normal”.
Beyond that, try to start accepting any headway as headway. If you can, force yourself to do one thing that will take less than five minutes, and do it right now. Even if it’s as small as putting one piece of dirty laundry in the dirty clothes hamper, it’s something. Do your best to stop the internal negative self talk that it’s not enough. If the alternative was you paralyzed doing nothing, then doing even a small thing is a positive step. Whenever you start spiraling about everything in between where you are and where you feel you should be, try to stop yourself and do one thing that you can do in five minutes or less. No one just leaps to the finish line.
Any progress is progress. If you’ve ever seen Gurren Lagann, to be cheesy, every small turn pulls the drill forward just a little further.
It’s not easy, but if you keep trying you will eventually build habits. They will be far harder won, and far easier to lose, but you can. Most importantly, even if you don’t, you will still be in a better spot for trying. Any progress is progress.
And if you mess up, you just messed up. It’s not some grand failure in a chain of failures that somehow defines you. That’s just negative self talk. There’s plenty of people out there managing life worse with far less exacerbating circumstances, I guarantee it. Just keep trying.
Again, far far easier said than done. But just start with any small movement forward you can muster. Then do the next tiny movement forward that you can. And the next. When I’m in a bad state I really really try to focus on the smallest things.
I ate within an hour of when I should, even if it was junk food. I put one glass in the dishwasher, so that’s one less dirty one lying around. Etc.
Anecdotally, something I’ve identified in myself and numerous others I’ve known with ADHD is the terrible trap of comparing yourself to an idealized concept of yourself.
“If I could just get my shit together, I’d be like this. So I need to work to be like this. But I’m not like this because reasons reasons reasons spiral spiral spiral”
“I know, tomorrow I’ll start fresh and tackle all of this as the idealized version of myself that doesn’t have motivation/focus/executive processing issues”
If you lost an arm, you wouldn’t make plans to take care of things tomorrow with both hands. So don’t assume you’ll be worthless, but also don’t assume you’ll magically be motivated to do everything all at once tomorrow. I fall into this trap all the fucking time.
Stop. Take a deep breath. You aren’t competing against yourself in perfect conditions, with all your shit together. You aren’t competing against your peers and the idea of how they work through a filter of your own eyes where you can’t possibly know everything about their situation and internal thoughts.
You’re competing against yourself as you are right now. As you were five minutes ago. As you were yesterday. Try to take time and figure out how you specifically work. Identify your limitations and struggles, doing your best to self reflect honestly, without the added failings from depression speaking, and without the added ideas of how good you “could” do. You. As you are. Now.
Then try to structure things in ways that work for you. Not the rest of the world, not how your parents thought things should work, for you and the way you operate right now.
Accept your flaws and personal quirks instead of fighting a constant head on push against them. Work with them, around them.
Then eventually you can start working as often as you can (once a week, once a day) to scoot back the edges of those limitations inch by inch. A lot, maybe most, you’ll be stuck with and have to find ways to live with and around over time. Some you can overcome.
But the most important thing is to just try to do something small you can do right now, and accept that any progress is progress.
Having worked with some impressive leaders, they always make a point of celebrating every step forward. I’ve seen them correct people who say “it wasn’t a big deal, it was this one small thing I did”. No - every step matters, because the full achievement is brought about by all these small steps. This is also part of what drives systems like Kanban - measuring and acknowledging each of the small bites required to eat an elephant.
So it’s not just neuro-atypical ADHD folks who need this, which I think is a great point to make.
obviously i haven’t read more than like 5 sentences of this because what did you expect posting this to an adhd space, but here’s my take:
Make things easy for yourself, and do however much you can whenever you can.
I don’t load the entire dishwasher at once, i put in 2-5 dishes at a time whenever i’m in the kitchen.
I keep a trashcan next to my computer so i don’t leave trash laying around, it’s actively easier to toss it in the bin than it is to put it anywhere else.
I wash or put away dishes as i cook, when they’re freshly used you can often just rinse them off, and putting it in the washer now means i don’t have to think about it later.
It’s something i think you have to experiment with yourself to figure out what works, but i think those 3 things should be quite universal and helpful.
How’s your appetite. I take 36mg Methylphenidate XL and although I can adult a bit better but man I can’t eat for shit. I’ll be starving but can’t bear chewing.
Brilliantly described. Just one more thing : be kind to yourself.
You are always listening to your own negative self talk and, if you find yourself in a big hole it can become overwhelming as you oscillate between absolutely abusing yourself, trying not to think about it, and giving up.
You wouldn’t put up with anyone else treating someone you love that way, don’t allow yourself to self-harm that way either.
Thank you very much, y’all! I don’t have ADHD, I “only” suffer from depression… I sometimes have a look in ADHD-posts though, as I read some symptoms can be similar and I actually can see myself in many posts. This is very helpful for me. First, because I can see there are others who understand the struggle but also getting hints how to reframe the situation or how to challenge a certain kind of mindset. The last days were hard for me, couldn’t get anything done and didn’t know why… So, once again, this helps to understand myself and have some self compassion.
As a counter to the post putting it rudely, I’m going to try to say what’s helped me more nicely. Arguably could be summarized similarly.
If you can, get medicated. It’s not a fix-all, and it may take time to find the medicine and dosage that works for you, but I have a lot more success in “adulting” when my brain chemistry is functioning closer to “normal”.
Beyond that, try to start accepting any headway as headway. If you can, force yourself to do one thing that will take less than five minutes, and do it right now. Even if it’s as small as putting one piece of dirty laundry in the dirty clothes hamper, it’s something. Do your best to stop the internal negative self talk that it’s not enough. If the alternative was you paralyzed doing nothing, then doing even a small thing is a positive step. Whenever you start spiraling about everything in between where you are and where you feel you should be, try to stop yourself and do one thing that you can do in five minutes or less. No one just leaps to the finish line.
Any progress is progress. If you’ve ever seen Gurren Lagann, to be cheesy, every small turn pulls the drill forward just a little further.
It’s not easy, but if you keep trying you will eventually build habits. They will be far harder won, and far easier to lose, but you can. Most importantly, even if you don’t, you will still be in a better spot for trying. Any progress is progress.
And if you mess up, you just messed up. It’s not some grand failure in a chain of failures that somehow defines you. That’s just negative self talk. There’s plenty of people out there managing life worse with far less exacerbating circumstances, I guarantee it. Just keep trying.
Again, far far easier said than done. But just start with any small movement forward you can muster. Then do the next tiny movement forward that you can. And the next. When I’m in a bad state I really really try to focus on the smallest things.
I ate within an hour of when I should, even if it was junk food. I put one glass in the dishwasher, so that’s one less dirty one lying around. Etc.
Anecdotally, something I’ve identified in myself and numerous others I’ve known with ADHD is the terrible trap of comparing yourself to an idealized concept of yourself.
“If I could just get my shit together, I’d be like this. So I need to work to be like this. But I’m not like this because reasons reasons reasons spiral spiral spiral”
“I know, tomorrow I’ll start fresh and tackle all of this as the idealized version of myself that doesn’t have motivation/focus/executive processing issues”
If you lost an arm, you wouldn’t make plans to take care of things tomorrow with both hands. So don’t assume you’ll be worthless, but also don’t assume you’ll magically be motivated to do everything all at once tomorrow. I fall into this trap all the fucking time.
Stop. Take a deep breath. You aren’t competing against yourself in perfect conditions, with all your shit together. You aren’t competing against your peers and the idea of how they work through a filter of your own eyes where you can’t possibly know everything about their situation and internal thoughts.
You’re competing against yourself as you are right now. As you were five minutes ago. As you were yesterday. Try to take time and figure out how you specifically work. Identify your limitations and struggles, doing your best to self reflect honestly, without the added failings from depression speaking, and without the added ideas of how good you “could” do. You. As you are. Now.
Then try to structure things in ways that work for you. Not the rest of the world, not how your parents thought things should work, for you and the way you operate right now.
Accept your flaws and personal quirks instead of fighting a constant head on push against them. Work with them, around them.
Then eventually you can start working as often as you can (once a week, once a day) to scoot back the edges of those limitations inch by inch. A lot, maybe most, you’ll be stuck with and have to find ways to live with and around over time. Some you can overcome.
But the most important thing is to just try to do something small you can do right now, and accept that any progress is progress.
The importance of momentum cannot be overstated. Overcoming inertia is so hard, if you find yourself in motion make sure you are making use of it.
Having worked with some impressive leaders, they always make a point of celebrating every step forward. I’ve seen them correct people who say “it wasn’t a big deal, it was this one small thing I did”. No - every step matters, because the full achievement is brought about by all these small steps. This is also part of what drives systems like Kanban - measuring and acknowledging each of the small bites required to eat an elephant.
So it’s not just neuro-atypical ADHD folks who need this, which I think is a great point to make.
obviously i haven’t read more than like 5 sentences of this because what did you expect posting this to an adhd space, but here’s my take:
Make things easy for yourself, and do however much you can whenever you can.
I don’t load the entire dishwasher at once, i put in 2-5 dishes at a time whenever i’m in the kitchen.
I keep a trashcan next to my computer so i don’t leave trash laying around, it’s actively easier to toss it in the bin than it is to put it anywhere else.
I wash or put away dishes as i cook, when they’re freshly used you can often just rinse them off, and putting it in the washer now means i don’t have to think about it later.
It’s something i think you have to experiment with yourself to figure out what works, but i think those 3 things should be quite universal and helpful.
The pomodoro technique helped me get stuff done at work when I had to, although I don’t always use it it’s a good way to be focused in short bursts
How’s your appetite. I take 36mg Methylphenidate XL and although I can adult a bit better but man I can’t eat for shit. I’ll be starving but can’t bear chewing.
Brilliantly described. Just one more thing : be kind to yourself.
You are always listening to your own negative self talk and, if you find yourself in a big hole it can become overwhelming as you oscillate between absolutely abusing yourself, trying not to think about it, and giving up.
You wouldn’t put up with anyone else treating someone you love that way, don’t allow yourself to self-harm that way either.
Thank you very much, y’all! I don’t have ADHD, I “only” suffer from depression… I sometimes have a look in ADHD-posts though, as I read some symptoms can be similar and I actually can see myself in many posts. This is very helpful for me. First, because I can see there are others who understand the struggle but also getting hints how to reframe the situation or how to challenge a certain kind of mindset. The last days were hard for me, couldn’t get anything done and didn’t know why… So, once again, this helps to understand myself and have some self compassion.