To people struggling with ADHD, anxiety/depression, chronic procrastination: you’re trying hard to solve the wrong part of the problem.
Self-help methods are “Step 2” of the solution. They won’t ever stick—you’ll forever be stuck in a "one-step forward, two-steps back” rut—if you don’t start with “Step 1”.
Hey.. couple quick plugs before I get to my new article ;).
If you’re looking to join a small group to keep you accountable on your journey to get disciplined and get stuff done, then, then you should register for the free Group Accountability Program (HRMxGAP) on Discord. We start March 25 and it goes for 30 days.
I just started an Instagram account where I’ll be posting bite size videos on beating tech-addiction. Following me here.
So I did a quick search of posts on this sub with “ADHD” as a keyword, and gathered some snippets expressing perfectly what the struggle can be like.
I failed university, even though I did really well when I handed stuff in, because I barely handed anything in. I want to train myself to be able to work hard and actually try in life, but the more I try, the more my brain shuts down. This problem has caused me so much pain.
Basically my biggest problem in my day to day life is a lack of discipline… I need the strategy on how to approach it when my foundation is so thoroughly cracked and crumbled … I don’t even know what to prioritize or all the skills I’m missing that must be built. I’m seeking advice on what I need to do for myself when I’ve literally never had any discipline in my life before.
I'm so lazy and can't be motivated or disciplined to save my life… I'm getting sick and tired of this: I've been watching productivity videos on staying motivated/disciplined, following the advice, yet eventually I just fall out of it each and every time due to boredom, laziness, tiredness, and a need for constant, easy pleasure.
I Procrastinate on literally everything, even the things I like… I just feel like I’m fucking my entire life up because I achieve little to nothing every day. Every time I go to bed I feel like I wasted this day once again.
Why am I like this? I know for sure I could go places and be a lot better person if I just do stuff, but I don't.
Every semester I've been like "I'm gonna take 4-5 classes! I'll be able to handle the course load! I'm gonna get good grades!" But then… I get overwhelmed and end up withdrawing from the classes… I feel like I'm trying so hard but at the same time feel like I'm not trying hard enough… How do I fix this endless loop and become a normal student? I feel like a failure. How do I whip myself into shape? 1
It's like we all have in our imagination this perfect, idealized version of ourselves. It’s where we’ve finally “fixed” ourselves; where we’ve become able to practice monk-like levels self-discipline and self-control.
In desperation, we keep turning over every rock of self-help and productivity advice, expecting that one day we will come across the perfect method that will “fix” us permanently.
Sometimes you find something promising: a shiny new book recommended on Reddit. It’s great and works… for a short while anyway, until you slip or deviate a little, then a lot, then everything comes crashing down in a fiery blaze of self-contempt.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself, but you need to understand that self-help methods and techniques are “Step 2” of the solution. They won’t ever stick—you’ll forever be stuck in a "one-step forward, two-steps back” rut—if you don’t start with “Step 1”.
Whether you can one day become the idealized version of yourself is a big unknown—I’m closer today yet nowhere near perfect—but one thing is categorically certain: there will be a transition period.
During this transition period you will slip, falter, and come-up-short on your commitments. It's inevitable. Step 1 is about learning to better react and respond to the consequences of not being perfect.
Why is Step 1 this not just important, but altogether essential?
Because much of your “bad” behaviour—your distractibility, your compulsions to grab at your vices always with a neat and rational excuse—stems from a feedback loop that is triggered by the slightest imperfection:
You indulge in a vice with a rational excuse (lemme go on Tik Tok for 5 mins, get it out of my system so I can focus)
↓
you feel a tinge of a bad feeling for breaking your promise to focus on your work without exception
↓
you get an impulse for more of the vice since your brain knows it can relieve that bad feeling
↓
more of the bad feeling
↓
more vice
↓
more bad feeling and so on2.
So what’s the solution?
We’ve all heard the expression of “sweeping things under the rug.” It’s where one focuses on the result or consequences of a problem without addressing the core cause to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Well, there’s no expression for the reverse of that, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re adamantly obsessed with finding a core cause and cure for all your problems; you’re seeking prevention… while you’re neglecting to take care of all the mess on the floor.
Even if you find the most spectacular “Step 2” solution, some mess will still fall as you transition. You won’t be perfect, not right away, not for a long while, maybe not ever. And it’s the mess that’s triggering much of your problem. The mess is what sets you off on these feedback loops of vice that end in wasted days, binges and what always feels like you returning to where you started, but worst.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
We’re lucky. Us humans have access to a giant rug that can contain a thousand lifetimes of messy spills, fuck-ups, embarrassments, irrational behaviors, bad habits and binges.
It’s called self-compassion.
With self-compassion, you can sweep away your past failings. You can come to understand yourself and see how all your past “failings” were done as an understandable coping mechanisms for the pain, stress or worry you’re constantly feeling.
You deserve to forgive yourself. You deserve to accept and love yourself as you are now, today. If I can’t convince you of this, I promise you that any therapist worth their salt will.
More importantly though, with self-compassion you can sweep away your present slip-ups, as they happen in real-time and shortly after. You can come to accept and anticipate being imperfect, so when it happens you can shrug and move on fast. You don't have to 'start-over' each time.
…
You, like me, will act in frenetic and impulsive ways. It is what it is. The brain (aka the Asshat3) does what it does.
This doesn’t mean that you are morally flawed, broken, sickly or have a bad character. We’re just wired differently, and that’s OK.
We might excel in ways that the kid you see memorizing textbooks for hours doesn’t. He can be focused and still; yet he’s about as creative, expressive and interesting as a microwave-oven. He can memorize ideas… but ask him to come up with new and clever ones and he’ll fail.
But not you. You have ideas running through you like busy tadpoles in a stream. They’re slippy and hard to catch, but they’re there. They’re bountiful.
You’re not better, just different. It just so happens that our society—with its report cards and entrance exams and performance reviews—tends to favor the focused kid. But that’s not a hard rule; the exceptions are the ones that actually create beautiful things and drive change in our world.4
If you get out of your own way with your self-criticism and learn to accept, anticipate, forgive and shrug-off your inevitable failures, you too can become amazingly productive and creative.
You’ll manage to stay on whatever “Step 2” path you choose (see 2 for the one I’m on), because when you inevitably deviate, you can find your way back.
…
I see you. Like you’re in a mirror that projects myself 5 years or so in the past, I see you clearly.
From my side, I can see you scrambling to fix what’s causing the mess of your life. I can see you berating yourself for getting side-tracked from your work 15 minutes ago.
I can also feel what you feel: the pain and regret for being so behind as an adult; the stress of a million obligations and pressures and worries; the frustration from also being incomprehensibly juvenile and impulsive when it comes to vices.
I see you telling yourself, I just gotta fix this! I gotta fix me.
But there’s a mess on the floor. It’s causing a lot of your pain and an uncontrollable compulsion to pacify this pain with your reliable vices... which leads to more of a mess and more vice.
You can sweep all that under the giant rug of self-compassion.
Just when you finish, be sure to keep that broom handy. You’re going to need it.
- Simon ㋛
*** I also posted this to Reddit. If you found it useful and would like others to check it out, take a second to upvote it or drop a comment here.
- The thing that stood out to me was the inner conflicts. The paradoxes. Like somehow we’re simultaneously careless, lazy and coasting through life, yet deep-down we care to the point of anxiety and it agonizes us that our lives and aspirations are slipping by.
- As isolated events, this feedback loop causes your work-sessions to derail and your days to be wasted. Repeated over and over, this blunts your brain’s pleasure center, such that you stop enjoying what you’re “addicted” to. It also saps away your motivation and energy, leading to crushing apathy.
In the Habit Reframe Method, I went in deep on this feedback loop, along with a solution. Here’s a link to the PDF.
- A term being endearingly popularised by Youtuber Jocelyn Brady. Check out her latest YT vid; it’s a banger on finding motivation through “dopamine mindfulness”.
- I don't mean to imply that ADHD or any "neurodivergence" is a sort of blessing or net benefit. It is a medical condition that causes difficulties and must be regarded and treated as such. I agree with well articulated the stance of r/ADHD on the neurodivergence positivity movement: ADHD is neither a blessing nor a curse, it simply is, and we must find ways to alleviate any distress or suffering it may cause.
My thesis here is that a lot of the suffering (but not all) comes from falling short on our expectations we put on ourselves. In my personal experience, the treatments that work on me were focused on mindfulness, self-compassion and acceptance.