Potential

What to do with all of it

It is my belief that adults with ADHD are capable of amazing things.

We have an abundance of potential, and I would even wager to say that many of us already know that. Perhaps that’s a reason why we frequently let ourselves down? Because we know what we could be and yet we aren’t, so, you know, we suck?

I’m a big fan of desquandering…unsquandering(?)…our potential. The process of desquandification is fairly simple, but it requires the doing of stuff.

Doing stuff sounds pretty easy on paper. But what if that stuff never feels right in the moment? The stuff always feels wrong. Because of what we already know about ADHD - in the moment there’s no interest, no novelty, no urgency. So we “can’t”. How confusing is that, when something we can absolutely do, is something we can’t do? Try convincing a normie of that.

So we elect to purchase a new app to help us sort out the stuff into colorful piles, because maybe that’ll help me do the stuff. But we don’t use it.

We buy a book to help us motivate to do the stuff, but we didn’t end up reading it.

We listened to the ADHD Big Brother podcast and thought, “I’m gonna try doing stuff that way!” but then forgot all about it the second the true crime podcast came on.

We watched a Youtube video offering 5 ways to do stuff, and we got lost in the comment section before we got to the first one.

Turns out we have all kinds of ability to do stuff, and it’s a grind of a pain of a struggle.

Here’s one way to do it:

Admit that you can’t do it. Even though you can. Admit that you can’t. Even though, you know. Even though you’re capable of achieving it. In that moment, you can’t.

Get accountability from another human being. A good friend. A therapist. A coach. A spouse. ADHDBB. Anybody that can be nonjudgmental about the effort.

Make a plan with them. What are you going to do? When are you going to do it? How long are you going to do it for? Name that stuff!

Be specific about the stuff in the plan. Vague is your nemesis. I’m gonna do work is the vaguest damn thing I’ve ever heard. I’m gonna work on finances is so zoomed out! Zoom in. What is the specific action you are going to do during the time you set for your plan? You need to fall in love with specificity. Make sweet love to the specifics every single day. Stay in the honeymoon phase with specificity!

Stick to the plan. When that time comes, have an alarm go off, have some external way to alert yourself that this is what you are doing and when you are doing it.

Check in over and over and over again with your accountability partner. Check in when you did it. Check in when you didn’t do it. Check in when you love yourself. Check in when you hate yourself. Keep making the commitment. Keep talking about what went right and what went wrong. Keep talking about it when you’re tired of talking about it. Keep trying. Keep doing. Even though. Even though you are throwing an inner tantrum, keep trying.

The longer you keep your eye on the stuff you are committed to, the more you’ll have insights, the more ideas you’ll have, the more iterations you’ll make to improve upon your “system”.

If you read this far, you probably forgot the first part. No big deal. It’s normal. Answer this: Who is your accountability partner going to be. Share it in the comments. Text that person. Email them. Sign up. Call them. Whatever the first step is, take it! And let the desquanderfercation commence!