ADHD

Ok guys, I’ve been working on this episode for a while now. I was asked to put something together that would benefit anyone who has ADHD, and it’s definitely been a challenge but I think I was able to do some good research here. While I definitely relate to some of the symptoms of this disorder, I don’t have it personally. Because of this I had to approach the content a little bit differently, so I’m mostly relying on research done by the experts. I know quite a few people who struggle with ADHD and that it’s a pretty common disorder, so if I can provide some value to all of you, I would love to do so. Even if you don’t have ADHD, you probably know someone who does, so hopefully I can also help to spread a little bit of awareness.

This shouldn’t be confused for medical advice. I’m not a doctor and I can’t prescribe treatment. What I can do though is research, and I have done a lot of that. I’ve definitely put more work into the preparation for this episode than for any other. In the cases where I have any personal experience with something I’ll lean into that as much as possible, but the majority of this content is coming from professionals who have devoted their lives to studying this, and the word of individuals I know who have found ways to cope with it. This still feels a little disorganized and there’s a lot of information in here, but I’m just going to throw it all at you and hope for the best. If you have ADHD, that randomness shouldn’t be a problem!

So let’s get into it!

What exactly is ADHD? It stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It can manifest in quite a few different ways, but in general it causes individuals to have a difficult time focusing, regulating their impulses, and keeping track of routine things like time management and scheduling. Again, there’s much more to it than we could possibly have time for, but I want to give you a basic overview and outline some strategies for managing the symptoms.

It’s common for those who have the disorder to be thought of as lazy and unmotivated, but it’s just as common for them to be seen as excessively hyper and uncontrollable. Not everyone completely agrees on what exactly is going on in the brain to cause these issues, but, all the experts do seem to agree that there are real physical explanations for the symptoms. (So it’s not a behavior problem.) In the past it was believed that it wasn’t so much a disorder as a personality issue. Everyone blamed the the person, or said their parents failed to discipline them, that they were overstimulated by television and video games, or that they ate too much sugar. These excuses are still used, but it’s also extremely common for everyone to think that the person is just lazy, dumb or defiant.

None of the real research we have actually supports any of this whatsoever. You can verify on the CDC’s website, they explicitly state that none of these assumptions are anything more than myths. They say that while environmental factors may contribute, there’s just not enough scientific evidence to support it. As far as we can tell, there’s a wiring issue somewhere in the brain that is creating tangible problems.

This implies a couple of things that we should stop to consider.

First, let’s get rid of the idea that ADHD is anybody’s fault. If someone is born with lung issues, no one is going to call that person lazy for not being a top athlete. If someone is born with an autoimmune disease, they’re not going to be criticized for their health struggles. When the issue is physical health we get to work trying to heal the body, but too often we treat mental illness like it’s a choice. You’re not lazy if you struggle to fit into a society who is wired differently.

Second, since there is a physical component, that means that there are certain things you can do to overcome it. It may be a challenge, but with some lifestyle changes you can turn things around for yourself.

Attention Deficit is a bit of a misleading term though. What happens is that when you have ADHD, you have a difficult time focusing on any one thing. This isn’t because you don’t have the ability to focus, it’s because your brain has a tough time choosing what to focus on. For most people, it’s not too terribly difficult to prioritize the things in our environment. We may notice the fly buzzing around the room, but we’re able to push that aside and focus on the conversation with our friend. The ceiling fan may be annoying but it doesn’t take up more of our attention than the semester final exam in front of us. Our socks might be a little tight but they don’t necessarily overwhelm our attention while we’re driving.

With ADHD however, it’s different. The ADHD brain has a really difficult time prioritizing what’s happening to us. The Reticular Activating System (or RAS) is responsible for filtering out all the information coming in, to make sure we focus on what’s most important. The sheer amount of data bombarding our brains every second would be completely overwhelming if we didn’t have this filter in place, and that’s basically what the ADHD person is up against. They’re dealing with everything happening all at once, and it’s difficult to focus on anything when you’re equally focused on everything.

They tend to get distracted very easily, and to run with any random thought that pops into their head without even realizing that they’re drifting off. Like I said that can look differently for different people though. For some it’s the crazy, off the wall energy that we think of in disruptive children. For others, it’s more subtle and looks like spaciness, lack of attention, and an inability to keep up with ones life in order.

So often, those with diagnosed with ADHD have spent their whole lives being told that they’re lazy, dumb, or bad. It’s difficult to behave in school when your mind is moving 10x faster than everyone else’s, but you don’t have the tools to focus it. Usually, people with ADHD can seem to have an almost superhuman ability to focus on particular things, but they have a hard time choosing when to apply that ability. If it’s something they’re interested in, they’ll get so wrapped up in it that they’ll accomplish more in two hours than most people could do in a day. So it’s not as simple as an inability to focus, it’s more that their brains are not wired to focus on things they don’t find interesting.

That’s not really too crazy of a thing when you think about it though. We’re all wired to pay attention to what’s interesting and stimulating. The difference between the average person and those with ADHD is that in the average brain, we can make ourselves lock in on something we consider boring. We can can motivate ourselves to stay on track. The neurotransmitter dopamine is responsible for the feeling of seeking after reward. It give us that desire to go after something. In people with ADHD their dopamine levels are low. For any living human being anywhere in the universe; if you have a shortage of any of the important chemicals that your brain needs to function properly, you’re going to have a difficult time. So the ADHD mind is running differently. We have to accept this and develop strategies for life that lean into our strengths, and shore up our weaknesses.

Now this barely even begins to scratch the surface of ADHD. There’s so much research out there to dive into, but at the same time there’s a shortage of answers. Society spent so long believing that ADHD wasn’t a disorder but just a bad kid or lazy adult who needed more discipline. We even still make that same mistake now just because there’s not enough awareness about how to recognize mental health issues. Hopefully this episode can play some small part in changing that, but I also want to talk about some things you can do to make your life easier and more fulfilling if you have it. This will also help if there’s someone in your life struggling with the disorder as well.

First of all, let’s get something really clear. Before we even start talking about strategies, we need to talk about mindset. Specifically, we need to adopt a growth mindset. If you believe you’re stuck the way you are then that’s the first obstacle you need to overcome. While it’s true that you have certain challenges to face, you’re not doomed to stay the way you are. History is chocked full of giants who suffered from all kinds of mental health disorders. They had mountains in their path just like you do, but they found ways to conquer them. Society is structured for people to live and act in a certain way. Those of us with different wiring in our heads aren’t going to fit perfectly into that mold. We’re just not built for it. That’s tough to learn to cope with, but it’s really a blessing in disguise. Because we think differently we can get different results. We’re not stuck in the same ways of thinking as everyone else, and we can see things they can’t. And while simple everyday tasks may give us more trouble than everyone else, we’re also equipped to handle other things that most people can’t even get their heads around.

So before we go any further, let’s remember to look at our mental health struggles for what they really are. They’re not a death sentence. They’re not a failure. They’re not a guarantee of mediocrity. They are an opportunity. They are a chance for us to learn. They give us a chance to become stronger and more self-aware than the average person will ever dream of. Stop beating yourself just because you struggle with something. You’re not weak because you struggle with simple daily things that come easily to everyone else. The simple fact that you get through them when they are so difficult makes you much stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Overcoming mental health disorders leaves you with a self-awareness and strength that most people don’t have.

Now like I said, I’ve done a good bit of research and think that there is some value here. That being said, everyone is a little different. Some things will work better for some people, and other things will work better for the rest. I advise you to to adopt the spirit of the mad scientist who’s always looking for the next big discovery. If one technique doesn’t work well for you, or getting your life together proves harder than you thought, just keep at it. If you stick with it long enough you’ll eventually stumble onto something that clicks for you.

According to Tamara Roiser, PhD, ADHD causes problems with your memory, focus, emotional sensitivity, and one of the classic symptoms is issues with organization and time management. In her book she goes into great detail about how the biggest challenge people with ADHD face is finding the strategies that work best for them. It’s not an issue of willpower. Actually, functioning in society with ADHD takes much more willpower than it does for the average person. If you struggle with this, just remember that you’re up against a lot more than most people realize. Your brain is wired to pay too much attention to everything going on all at once. Everything jumps out screaming for you to become distracted every second. You might as well be in a war zone 24/7. One of the things a lot of people with ADHD learn is they perform much better when there’s a strong sense of anxiety pushing them forward. That emotion gives them just enough of a boost to actually focus. When they’re stressed out enough, that fear provides the stimulation they need to actually fixate on one thing at a time. Because of this and the fact that people with ADHD feel that everyday tasks are much more challenging and mind numbing than most people, it leads to a lot of procrastination, anxiety and last minute cramming sessions.

Now, relying on stress and anxiety to get things done has negative long term consequences. Living in constant anxiety does so much harm to the body, and that’s something that I’m going to be getting into a lot over the next few weeks. For now though, just understand that stress plays havoc on your system and can cause lots of issues. So relying on stress is not a good long term strategy. Learning stress management and to rely on practical systems is going to be your best bet. Those with this disorder rely on emotions to think and remember. They use the emotional centers in the brain to remember things. They rely less on the pre-frontal cortex

So let’s talk about strategies for just a second. There’s a problem that I’ve run into over and over again in my own life, and with people I’ve coached in the past. When you make a habit of doing things a certain way, it’s difficult to change. Any new strategies that you introduce feel forced and unnatural. They feel mechanical, and most of the time you forget to do them at all. I’ve noticed that even if I know something could probably help me out in the long run, it’s difficult to get myself to stick with them. Then I’m working with other people I notice that whenever I tell them to do something new and uncomfortable, I get resistance and reasons why it won’t work. But here’s the deal; if you want new results, you have to do new things. You can’t try these things for day then throw your hands in the air and say they don’t work. You can’t give 2% effort for a week then decide that it just isn’t it. Changing your life takes time and effort. You have to undo years of habits and programming, and develop new neural pathways in your brain. That’s going to take you out of your comfort zone. Now at the end of the day maybe what I share isn’t what clicks for you. It may not. But that doesn’t mean you stop. I’ve struggled with OCD since I was 6, and It wasn’t until I was 25 that I found a strategy that actually worked. That’s why I do this show. Because dealing with mental health issues is so frustrating. Dealing with your own psychology or with other people is frustrating. There’s not an owners manual for our brain out there. If we want to improve we have to really push ourselves past the known, and into the realm of potential. Our lives feel safe here because it’s familiar, and outside our line of sight is darkness, chaos and uncertainty. But chaos equals potential. We have to be willing to venture out into those uncharted waters to explore new possibilities if we want to bring back real and lasting change. You can do this in baby steps if you need to, but you have to do it. So give these strategies an honest effort. If they don’t work, see them as stepping stones to something else, not as failure. There’s lots of things you can try, and I can’t possibly cover them all today. But if you need to keep exploring on your own, do so. Don’t confine yourself to what I say, you need to become a scientist conducting experiments on your brain. Try everything that may work, and see each setback and failure as a teachable moment.

So let’s start with the basics. Before we talk about strategies let me remind you how important your mindset is. if you want to grow you need to develop a growth mindset. Forget what you’ve been told about your limitations and potential. If you’ve spent your whole life hearing that you’re lazy, undisciplined or destined to fail, it’s time to prove all of those idiots wrong. You need to get your head right and remember that you, like all human beings, have the potential to learn. Level 20 may look like it’s too far ahead for you to reach if you’re starting at level 1, but level 2 isn’t so far away. You don’t have to understand how you’ll eventually get to your long term goals, you just have to focus on what’s right in front of you. You may have a crippling disorder, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try one new thing at a time. Before you know it you’ll look back and realize that all those little steps added up to miles and miles of progress. So even if it seems overwhelming, just remember that if you can commit to improving yourself by 1% everyday, that’s all you need. Just take each tiny step as they come, and celebrate that continual progress. Keeping this growth mindset can help stop us from avoiding the unknown. When we accept that the chaos of potential is something we need to embrace, that keeps us from getting stuck in the same old rut we’ve been living in all this time. Adding new experiences breaks the vicious cycle that’s kept us prisoner.

We can have a different life. Our anxiety will try to make us believe that we need to be anxious all time. It will try to trick us into thinking that bad things will happen as soon as we let our guard down. But as we start relying on systems, and venture out into those uncharted waters, we slowly develop our self-esteem and confidence in our ability to change and solve problems as they come up.

Those with ADHD often have issues with perfectionism. Let’s remember that something may not be perfect, but it’s the best we can do at our current level. If it’s the best you can do right now, it’s perfect. Practice doing your best and then letting it go so you can move on to other things. Accepting where you currently are is the best way to help yourself level up. Realizing that you have certain limitations allows you to develop a plan for upgrading yourself. If you expect level 30 perfection when you’re still a level 3, you’re going to get stuck trying to accomplish something you can’t at the moment. Level 3 perfection is still perfection.

There’s a fantastic book called “Perfectly Imperfect” that I read a few years ago. The quote goes “When you realize that you fallen out of integrity with yourself and your commitment to practice well done you’ve seen through the cloud of the unconsciousness to clarity and opened the portal of your awareness to step on the mat again and begin with intentionality.” If you realize that you’ve gotten off track, messed up, spaced out and lost sight of the goal, that’s a good thing because you’ve gained an awareness that you didn’t have before. Don’t worry about what you’ve missed. Shift your attention to what you’re now creating in this present moment, and the next and the next.

Those with ADHD have a hard time focusing on things that aren’t interesting to them because there’s so many distractions. That’s an obstacle to overcome, but the other side of the coin is that they can hyperfocus on things that do grab their attention. Maybe you can’t stay on track in math class but you’ll spend hours playing music without realizing that it’s four in the morning. There’s things you can do to help you focus on doing the boring things, but try to shift as much of your life as possible to the things that inspire you. You’re going to have the focused attention of a high grade laser for a couple of things, so lean into that. Leverage that ability to hyper-focus and become really good at the things you’re actually interested in. Our society is fixated on creating worker drones to carry out the same boring tasks over and over again like robots. There’s nothing wrong with you for not fitting into that mould. You’re designed to be a cog in the machine. You have a higher calling so make the most of it. Find what excites you and start building your life around it. Master that skill and make yourself into someone who can provide a value that no one else can. If you need some inspiration, just do a google search for all the revolutionary scientists, artists, entrepreneurs and visionaries that had ADHD or another mental disorder. We think differently than other people. That seems like a disadvantage when we’re kids because we don’t fit into this cookie cutter society, but as adults we have the ability to do the things nobody else can. Our brains work differently, so instead of feeling bad we’re not normal, let’s start accomplishing the things that normal people can only dream of!

They have the ability to hyperfocus because of the emotional involvement.

There’s a hypersensitivity when it comes to certain feelings. Small things may trigger large feelings of insecurity in adequacy and self-esteem issues. Also rejection. This reminds me of how with OCD I sometimes struggle with feeling like the most minor body language is an indication that I extremely upset somebody over something stupid.

Since people with ADHD have challenges with their short-term memory, what a lot of them do is use emotions to help them remember. They associate things like losing their car keys with very negative emotions. This way the thought of their car keys is tied to that emotional pathway. This is a brain hack that they use to overcome the challenge of a improperly working short term memory. Well this can be extremely helpful, it can also cause a lot of unnecessary emotion over seemingly minor things.

Since they feel emotions more strongly that means that it’s much harder for them to control them. So lashing out is not because they don’t have control, it’s because they’re struggling to get something more. I think that most people who do experience that level of emotion have a difficult time dealing with it, it’s just that the intensity of those emotions is out of place.

There’s nothing wrong with being passionate and excited and energetic. It’s more about managing those emotions and keeping them at a acceptable level.

If you struggle with ADHD, understand that typical memorization and rote learning is probably just not going to be your wheelhouse. You’ll need to find ways to engage with the information that are going to seem unusual to everyone else. The more you can play and experiment with the information the better. You may also find that because of your divergent thinking, you’re able to see creative ways of connecting information and solving problems that others can’t.

If you can, try to find a career that allows you to lean into this out-of-the-box type of thinking. If that’s not an option however, at least look for ways within your current job that you can exercise your natural talents. (Problem solving, managing, people watching etc.)

That being said, remember that that the devil is in the details. You don’t have to become a convergent thinker, but it would pay for you to train yourself to start paying attention to the details even just a little bit. Not all of life is stimulating and exciting. While you should lean into your strengths as much as possible, still practice doing the things that challenge you like organization and daily planning.

Paying attention to people is a vital skill. Once you realize how dynamic and confusing people are, watching them and trying to peel back their layers can turn even the most monotonous conversations into a goldmine observations. One thing you should especially pay attention to as a divergent thinker is how people react to you when the rabbit holes get especially deep and unpredictable. For some of us it’s fun to live in those ways of thinking, but it’s important to learn when to pull back to keep everyone else from getting stressed out.

Remember that if you struggle with this disorder, just because you are struggling it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. You have different wiring, and you’re living in a world that’s not necessarily suited to you. There’s gonna be challenges it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you so don’t get frustrated and beat yourself up when things don’t go right

Learning to think in a different way is a skill, and something you get better as you practice. So what can you start with? Well start with a little things that you’re overlooking right now. If you look around, you can probably see there are things that’s stressing you out because you take the long difficult road to complete them. Bills, chores and mundane responsibilities you’re procrastinating. Because doing anything uninteresting takes a lot more focus for you than than for most people, those boring tasks feel like they’re going to be exhausting. Paying the bills is going to be a huge undertaking because paying attention on something so normal for that long is going to use up all your energy and wear you out. Cleaning the bedroom isn’t that simple; it involves resisting countless urges to get sidetracked and carried away with whatever happens to pop into your head.

These things are what you should lean into in order to practice your everyday skills. Break those things down into the smallest possible components, and celebrate every step completed as an accomplishment. So “clean the bedroom” becomes;

• Make the bed

• Organize the nightstand

• Put laundry away

• Vacuum

Making the bed is much more concrete and less intimidating than something as vague as “clean the room.” And to be fair, I don’t know many people my age who actually put away their laundry. But, if you can break down these boring tasks into smaller parts that makes them seem less intimidating. If you write them down and cross them off one by one, even better. Every time you complete something that’s reason to celebrate. You’ve probably spent most of your life criticizing yourself for struggling with these things. You may be surprised to see what happens when you start using positive reinforcement instead!

Try doing these things when you have the most energy. For me, early mornings, and shortly after dinner are when I have the most energy. If I wait until 1130am - 330pm to do something, I know it won’t get done. I fall into a slump during that time. It’s going to be different for everyone, but use your body’s natural rhythms to your advantage. Do the hard stuff when you’re most able to.

Because you have a hard time prioritizing emotions, remember that minor events can seem more stressful than they need to be. Overcoming your emotional responses is going to be a big challenge for you. Learning to recognize stress as nothing more than a feeling, detaching, and evaluating the source of that stress objectively can become a superpower with practice. When something starts to upset you, it’s easy to get locked into an emotional response. The more you bring awareness to those episodes and practice asking yourself; “is this really such a big deal? Is this upsetting others as much as me” the better you’ll get at recognizing when something is actually a problem, and when it’s just an emotional response. This is a good practice for anyone, because we all do this. I know it seems like huge hurdle to get over, but your brain will learn if you stay persistent.

For me it was depression. I would ask myself “is this really so bad or so hopeless?” The answer was always an obvious no, but but it would still feel just as bad. What I had to do was start finding even the smallest good in those situations. It may take practice to see it, but there’s always something to be grateful for. If you can’t find it ask. Ask the question and your unconscious will answer. After some time learning to always look for and focus on the positive, the positive got bigger and I actually started to feel it instead of just see it. The objective reality was the same, but it wasn’t as bad as my emotions made me think. This applies to everything. When you get overwhelmed it’s ok to take a break and catch your breath. But the odds are that if you start asking for evidence to prove that “this isn’t so bad” you’ll start to find it. Relying on negative emotions to motivate you is part of the reason why you get overwhelmed so easily. The ADHD mind focuses based off of interest, so scary things seem more interesting.

Part of this is learning to do things before they become urgent emotionally. Find ways to make it easier on yourself. I had an English teacher that told me it’s much easier to tell yourself that you’re going to sit down and write for 20 minutes, then to say I’m going to write X number of paragraphs. This was actually one of the most repeated strategies that I found. Using a timer to do those things you don’t want to can really help break things down, and take some of the stress out. When you know that you won’t have to do something difficult for more than fifteen minutes, it really helps to make it seem more manageable. You don’t have to do it all at once. It’s ok to take small steps.

When you struggle with anxiety remember to train yourself to pay attention to your body. You automatically start changing your body language when you’re stressed; breathing more shallow, tensing up etc. Change that and it helps.

In the book Your Brain is not Broken she talks about a great strategy for dealing with procrastination, perfectionism and stuff like that. She talks about having conversations with your past and future self. Thinking what can I do to help my future self. Instead of thinking of that person as separate from you. This ties into what I talk about how you were community. You don’t exist in isolation you have to always deal with the consequences of your past mistakes. Future you has to do with the consequences of your mistakes that you make today.

Dealing with mental health issues can be difficult, but the way we look at it makes all the difference in the world. If you can learn to see it as an interesting challenge to figured out and overcome, you start acting like you’re playing a game and things get much more interesting. The best advice I received before going to bootcamp was to always remember that “it’s all a game.” The more you can turn the difficult, repetitive things into mental games, the easier it gets. Breaking that 10 mile run into “I’ve just got to make it to that tree, then the next.” Or treating the super repetitive things as a challenge to see how fast I can do it this time.

When you approach life this way, it responds by being more fun and easier to deal with.

The more questions you ask yourself about yourself the better. Ask how do I think, how do I react to things, how do I motivate myself, when do I overreact, when I look back on things that I regret what was the beginning of that like, what strategies do I use most often and what is the outcome?

The more of your patterns that you can identify the better equipped you will be to change them. You have to know where you’re starting out in order to get somewhere different. You can’t plot a course and get directions without a starting point.

Not every strategy is gonna work the same for everyone, so you have to be willing to experiment and try to for things. Reach out to people that have been successful and overcoming these obstacles and see what they did, but understand that you might have a different journey

Practice gratitude, and thinking of what you’re proud of, what you’re excited about. Noticing these things are like the TikTok algorithm. The more you engage with these things the more of them you see.

Start with sleep, eating, lifestyle.

Identify what triggers you and establish boundaries to keep people from hitting them.

Practice getting out of the “right now” hamster wheel. Focus more on long term health than what’s right in front of you.

What story do you tell yourself? Are you telling yourself that you’re disabled or are you telling yourself that you’re working through something?

She talks about how the majority of adults with ADHD are not overtly hyper active, they are hyperactive internally. It’s a mental thing. Just like any other mental health disorder there’s not necessarily a cure, but there are a lot of ways to manage it. A lot of these comes down to lifestyle changes, mindset changes, and strategy changes.

What is that I’ve noticed about mental health struggles is that those who have them also have tremendous willpower. They’re so used to holding it together with sheer force of will. They’re trying to do the little things that other people do easily, but they’re up against more and therefore have to struggle a good bit. So when you take someone who spent their entire lives struggling in exerting that much will power, and give them a strategy, that person becomes extraordinary. They’ve been swimming against the current their whole lives and it’s made them strong, and now that they’re in alignment with the natural flow of things that strength propels them well ahead of everyone who’s never struggled.

“Many people who have ADD are very smart. It’s just that they’re smartness gets tangled up inside, and undoing that tangle takes patience and perseverance.”

After spending your whole life being told you’re lazy, unfocused, bad or whatever else, there’s a good chance you probably have some self-esteem issues to work through. That’s going to take some time but try to remember what Tony Robbins says about self-esteem. He says it’s not something that comes from anyone else. Instead, it’s the reputation you have with yourself. It’s called “self” esteem, because it’s how you see yourself. If it’s damaged, you heal it by building a better reputation with yourself. You do the hard thing when you don’t want to. You use positive reinforcement when you talk to yourself. You take steps in the right direction. You cut toxic people out of your life. You start building evidence to prove to yourself that you are smart, that you can focus, and you lock in on those good things until they become almost all you can see.

The more research you do the more you try to learn about this disorder, or any disorder, the better. The reason being that you’re now taking responsibility for it. You’re taking control over it. You may still feel overwhelmed, but you’re doing something. Even if you feel like the obstacles are insurmountable, learning is a tangible step that you can take. With the increased understanding, your confidence will grow as well. It also teaches you to be a little bit nicer to yourself because you start to understand that you’re really up against something big.

In the book Driven to Distraction they use the metaphor of being nearsighted quite a bit. If you’re struggling in school because you can’t see, that doesn’t make you dumb. It means you need glasses. Just like someone who needs glasses can’t focus on those reading assignments, someone with ADD/ADHD needs metaphorical glasses as well. Those glasses can come in the form of strategies or medication, but you shouldn’t feel bad for needing them.

With ADHD, you brain works a little bit differently than everyone else’s. Since your brain works differently that gives you a different perspective than everyone else and allows you to see the world differently. And that’s all creativity is at the end of the day; it’s the ability to connect the dots in a different way than everybody else. The gift of creativity is one that everyone seems to long for. What begins as a challenge to fit in to an outdated school system, eventually becomes the potential to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. You shouldn’t beat yourself up for not fitting into the copy/paste society we live in today. So many great artists, thinkers, inventors, scientists, and revolutionaries have struggled with some sort of mental health issue. What separates those great minds from the crackhead strapped to the bed on the fifth floor, is that they’ve learned to leverage what sets them apart to their advantage, and to transmute all those issues into a unique and powerful perspective.

What do all great creatives have in common? They break the rules! They always break the rules, but! Before they can break the rules, they have to learn the rules. The best artists have mastered their craft and learned all the ins and outs before they start going off in their own direction. A musician will spend years mastering the chords, scales, and classical works of other artists. They’ll have a deep understanding of music theory, and out of this expertise they begin to understand when something makes sense and when it doesn’t. Once they reach this level they can do whatever they want and it sounds amazing. However, when someone who doesn’t know a single scale tries to do whatever they want, it doesn’t sound great to anyone but them! You have to learn to confine yourself to certain structures in order to be successful. When you hear a virtuoso like Steve Vai play guitar, you can tell that he’s very creative and expressive. But that freedom comes from structure. It comes from staying within certain parameters. When you learn the structures then you can play within them freely, and it makes sense. If you start going outside of those boundaries, it all collapses and becomes a jumbled mess. The problem those with ADHD have is that those boundaries are really hard to learn. The structure and order feels unnatural. It’s difficult to pay attention to those boring old rules, and it feels like if you confine yourself like that, you’ll be stunting your creativity.

That’s not the case though. In order to really make the most of your natural gifts, you have to learn to develop structure in your life. Actually, in all of the research I’ve ever done on mental health, structure is one of the most prominent recurring themes. You may have a brain that can go a million miles a minute, but if you can’t steer that car, you’ll spend all day racing every which way, only to find that you eventually collapse, exhausted, exactly where you started. Bringing structure into your life is not going to your creativity or make you less of who you are. It’s going to be a tool that helps you become the best version of yourself. The difference between your parents and teachers trying to impose their structure and now, is that now you’re making the choice to do this. You get to see this as a challenge. You get to experiment and find what actually works for you instead of what society says you should conform to.

So how do we build structure in a chaotic life? Again, you need to experiment and make this a journey of personal growth and discovery, but, here are some things that I would recommend starting with. These are some things that either I heard multiple sources, or have personally seen success with.

First, you need to have a routine. Having a routine is incredibly powerful. Successful people always have a routine. Knowing what you’re going to do and when takes a lot of stress off of your brain. You can conserve a tremendous amount of energy when you let habit take over. It doesn’t have to be boring, but you also shouldn’t start off with anything too complicated. If everyday looks completely different, it overwhelms your brain. If you know that everyday between 10am and 1130am you’ll be doing all those things your ADHD brain hates (like paying bills, setting appointments, household chores, sending emails etc) it becomes much easier on you. Instead of those things being moving target flying all over the place, now they’re all right next to each other and you can knock them out one at a time. Anything you don’t finish today you’ll pick up tomorrow.

Second is reminders. With ADHD you likely find it extremely hard to keep track of time and remember to do things. Paying your bills and keeping doctors appointments becomes a monumental task because you just don’t remember it. To help yourself out, use the reminders/appointments apps on your phone religiously. There’s multiple apps specifically for those with ADHD, but you may be perfectly fine with whatever comes on your phone. I’ve made it a point to put everything I’ll need to remember to do into my reminders app, with a time and description and then I just forget about it. This honestly has made a huge difference in my life and I don’t even have ADHD. I don’t have to stress about all the things I’m juggling, because I know my phone will remind me. The main thing with this though is that you have to get into the habit of making those reminders as soon as you think of them. Don’t procrastinate. It may seem like a lot of work because it’s another one of those boring daily tasks to do, but you’ll really be setting yourself up for success in the long run. Just imagine you’re doing a big favor to your future self, because you are!

Some people like to write things down and make to-do-lists. That’s perfectly fine as well. I’ve heard a lot of people say that color coding their notes and reminders can help too, because it makes them a little more stimulating. There’s a trick I like to use that takes me into my next point; it’s really important to prioritize everything. If you have ADHD everything can seem equally important all the time. You’ve really got to stop yourself and ask, what needs to get done first. Let’s say your goal is to clean your room, but the biggest part of that is laundry needs to be put up. Do the laundry first. Make yourself do the laundry first. You don’t need to take breaks to make your bed, vacuum and stare out the window only to realize that you also need to wash your car and end up at the gas station buying snacks for your hiking trip next week. What I like to do is to put the most important things at the top of the list, and to do those first. Anything time sensitive goes on top, and after that, whatever I feel is the most important. So, just things I would think I’ll still feel good about doing, even if that’s the only thing I get done.

Try to get better the things that you suck at but understand that that’s not where are you going to shine. This doesn’t mean you avoid responsibilities, but don’t base your life around those things. Remember the example of Einstein’s fish. If you judge a fish on it’s ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend it’s whole life believing it’s stupid. Stop judging yourself based off of the same metrics as people without ADHD.

Last but definitely not least let’s talk about nutrition. I’m not going to be able to go in depth today, but I am working on an episode dedicated to eating for mental health. Always do your own research and double check with a doctor of course, but here’s a few things I recommend looking into specifically; Zinc vitamin D, Iron (Maybe) Omega-3 (fish oil), Ashwaganda, Lions mane, Magnesium, and B-12. Also, meditation and yoga have been shown to be of some help as well. Don’t forget that your lifestyle has an enormous impact on your mental health. Getting enough sleep, eating right, and living a healthy lifestyle can go a long way towards keeping your brain healthy, which in turn makes you healthy.

Thanks for reading. Good luck!