If you don’t manage “priority” it will manage you.
A life of meaning and purpose can be easily sidelined by losing focus of your priorities. As daunting as that statement may feel, the process by which us people, especially us ADHD’ers, can succeed is not as complex as you may think. I built rewarding days into my life by avoiding fixing my favorite pair of headphones for four months using these same three strategies…..
Why Prioritizing is Important for People with ADHD:
One of the hardest things about having ADHD is the ability to prioritize what you are going to do. This gets even more difficult when you have commitments to others and needs like income, food, friends, etc. The ability to prioritize often jumps out the window when we are REALLY excited about something. And let’s be clear here, we aren’t talking about a normal level of excitement. We’re talking about,
“I gotta do this right now! I’m locked on, I can’t stop thinking about this! It’s going to be so amazing and feel so good if I do this and I even have reasons why I SHOULD do this!”
Sound familiar to anyone?
How an Inability to Prioritize Impacts ADHD Relationships
The part most people don’t talk about is what happens when you try to stop us. The “you” in this framing could be a partner, friend, ally or even your own inner monologue. Regardless of where it comes from it’s most likely looking out for your broader interests vs the pinhole of reality your distraction has you focused on. And what we are focused on feels really good and all that reality you’re throwing at us does not! So we protect that feeling….one way or another.
On one end of the spectrum (pun intended) you have lashing out, over reasoning, or manipulating the other person verbally, which if unsuccessful, can still lead to, “I’m going to do it anyway!” On the other side you have wilting to capitulate to others, lack of self worth, and feeling like your loved ones are “crushing your dreams” or “standing in the way of your happiness.” Either one of these directions will breed resentment in you or the other person. Even in yourself.
LACK OF AWARENESS ALLOWS IMABALANCE IN YOUR LIFE TO TAKE HOLD.
Yeah, welcome to relationships with ADHD. I used to be that guy. (And I still have to keep him in check.)
I cannot begin to fathom the amount of money I have spent on “projects that bring me joy.” My wife would say to me, “How can I deny you things that bring you joy?” This is how partners or people who care about your well being get sidelined from helping you. And man do I have some sadness around this. It’s not just the money that I spent but the emotional toll my behavior took on my wife and our relationship. It takes lots of repair work to come back from this but it can be done.
Unfortunately those who care for us can end up enabling behavior that often isn’t conducive to the larger picture of life, relationship, work, family…..all those bigger, better feeling things we forget about when we’re over-interested in something. That propensity for “over-interest” hid my own inability to manage priorities in my life. And so, my priorities became “whatever brings me joy.”
This lack of AWARENESS and consequent inability to manage myself slowly drove a rift between my wife and I. Resentment is a slow burn that loves to live in shadow until it’s too late. If you don’t manage priorities they will manage you…..ESPECIALLY when you have ADHD.
Why it took 4 months to fix a pair of headphones and how that’s a good thing!
I have this really great pair of wireless headphones with fancy blue leather ear cuffs that just sound great! I wear them all the time, especially when I go grocery shopping where they help me focus.
Then they broke.
Now most people would feel dismay over this. Not my ADHD brain! Let’s look at all the juicy things that my brain is about to SQUEE over.
And we’re off!
I don’t want to afford a new pair so I must be creative to solve this problem!
I will get to take this thing apart!
I may need to buy some new tools! (Stupid, tiny, weird, screws I can’t budge!)
I will have to teach myself how to solder!
I get to buy a soldering kit!
When I figure this out I’m so going to get that dopamine hit!
Now you’re probably saying, “Tyler, there’s no way this took four months to fix. Surely you could get the goods from amazon in a day? And that’s where my brain was focused! Follow the sweet candy of dopamine!
The reality is, as a man working towards his goals and being a husband and father, I had bigger priorities in my life. This is how I maintained those priorities in the face of distraction……
ONE: HAVE GOALS THAT ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR DISTRACTIONS
I’m going to speed through this part as generating and maintaining goals is it’s own topic. The jist here is:
IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT MORE THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, THAT TAKES MORE TIME THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, AND FEELS BETTER THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, IT WON’T HAVE THE VALUE TO KEEP YOU FROM YOUR DISTRACTION.
Let’s look at this in practice. In this moment I actually needed to be putting dinner together. Here’s how I avoided the distraction by growing my AWARENESS of “right now” to encompass my more meaningful goals. All of this is done in my head in a few seconds:
I have made commitments to my family to be in charge of food. (I would still rather fix the headphones.)
Following up on my commitments creates stability in my life and is an action a responsible man does. I want to be a responsible man. I feel good being this man. (Okay, less interested now…..but maybe I could buy the….)
Being a responsible man is part of how I define a great husband and father. It feels really fucking good to be a great husband and father. That pays off in countless ways! (Now I can easily put the headphones down as the reward of doing so is now bigger than the reward of the distraction.)
A note about negative reinforcement and agency: I try to stay away from negative reinforcement in Coaching because it’s less affective, especially long term, and takes control away from you. If I didn’t complete dinner, my family would certainly be a bit upset and more importantly my wife could lose trust in my ability to be a responsible partner. Literally the opposite outcome of who I want to be. The problem here is if I change my actions based on these thoughts I’ve removed my agency by putting my wife in control of my actions and taken away my opportunity to grow. Again, this is where resentment can show up. “Past Tyler” would absolutely blame my wife for my decision to not work on the headphones.
I’m breaking all this down with this example so you understand this in practice vs a bullet point.
TWO: STOP, PAUSE, CEASE, SUSPEND - BUILD SPACE IN YOUR HEAD
I cannot stress this one more than any other thing you do in your life! This is a “being a people” thing and not just for us ADHD’ers. Just stop! Take a moment to find some space in the action or thought you are engaged in or about to engage in. Even if you’ve already bought the new rims for your car and are walking away from your computer…..try to stop and create space for your brain to consider what you are doing.
YOUR ABILITY TO GROW INTO WHO YOU WANT TO BE IS DEPENDENT UPON YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE SPACE TO DO SO.
There is no point of failure that can occur here because the one second of time you stop you’ve already begun building space in your head.
When we do this we create the POSSIBILITY to increase AWARENESS, reduce anxiety, and realign our actions with our intent. (Neat!) That only happens if you do something with this moment! This is when it pays to be curious….
THREE: BE CURIOUS! (Or executive function the shit out of it!)
Start by gathering information. Knowing yourself by paying attention to your thoughts, actions, and feelings gives you something concrete to work from. You can’t change the parts of you that you’re unaware of.
BE CURIOUS ABOUT YOURSELF. CURIOSITY IS THE PRECURSOR TO CHANGE.
Here’s the types of questions I run through my head when I’m able to PAUSE and evaluate myself:
Why am I doing this?
What do I hope to get out of this?
How long will this take knowing I tend to not see time clearly?
How do I feel now and is that affecting why I want to do the thing?
Am I avoiding something by doing this? If I did the thing I’m avoiding, will I feel better than if I follow this distraction?
Do I have the time, energy, or money for this knowing I may underestimate this?
Is this more important to me than my other goals and does it bring me closer to my goals?
These powerful questions can be the difference between a life chasing temporary fulfillment or building a life of meaning and purpose. That statement should scare you.
Summary - Keeping it Simple
It took me four months to fix my headphones because they were never a big priority in the grander scheme of my life. I had to employ the three aforementioned skills every time “fix headphones fun” threatened to pull me away from what really mattered in my life. Only when I had the free time and energy did I start tinkering with them.
Us ADHD’ers can be easily distracted. The strength of the distraction can be really sneaky when it feels really good. The way we behave in these moments can ruin relationships. Having big goals, being able to stop for a moment, and employing some curiosity in your life can make or break the life you want to have.
Start by finding one second in your day to put some attention on yourself. This powerful skill will support you in successfully tackling what life is bound to throw at you.
I can confidently say my life didn’t start moving forward in the directions I wanted until I started to simplify my perspective of how to do it. If the body of this article feels overwhelming or you sorta drifted a bit while you were reading, focus on the three concepts and their benefits:
HAVE GOALS THAT ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR DISTRACTIONS
IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT MORE THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, THAT TAKES MORE TIME THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, AND FEELS BETTER THAN YOUR DISTRACTION, IT WON’T HAVE THE VALUE TO KEEP YOU FROM YOUR DISTRACTION.ISTRACTION.
STOP, PAUSE, CEASE, SUSPEND - BUILD SPACE IN YOUR HEAD
YOUR ABILITY TO GROW INTO WHO YOU WANT TO BE IS DEPENDENT UPON YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE SPACE TO DO SO.
BE CURIOUS! (Or executive function the shit out of it!)
BE CURIOUS ABOUT YOURSELF. CURIOSITY IS THE PRECURSOR TO CHANGE.
Good luck out there! And remember, you don’t have to do this alone.
