To Improve Your Life When You Have ADHD, Take It Slow and Easy

by Cynthia Hammer, MSW

People with ADHD are prone to over-indulge. 

We don’t know our limits.  It’s not until we are exhausted that we suddenly realize, “I’ve reached my limit. I attempted too much” 

I know about over–indulging.

I love information and find new learning exciting, but I overdo. I do a google search, study information at many websites, download numerous articles, read some of them, print out others, and save urls for future learning.  I feel productive, happy, alive---and then I overwhelmed and exhausted. I learned too much, too quickly. My mass of information became a tidal wide that swamped me.

I do better when I remember--take it slow and easy.

After getting our ADHD diagnosis, we are eager to make up for lost time, to become all we can be as quickly as possible. We rush to change everything, immediately!. We read books, watch webinars, become addicted to ADHD influencers on Tik Tok, and absorb offerings on YouTube. We learn so much and wonder, “Why am I still the same?” 

We despair, posting to ADHD Facebook or Reddit groups, “I forgot my laundry in the washing machine this past week. lol”  When I read lol comments, I don’t believe the writer is laughing out loud. She, more likely, is plastering a smiley face on her discouragement. If you want to make progress improving your life, you need a different approach.

Becoming all you can be with ADHD involves a deliberate process of acquiring one new skill at a time.

Visualize a circular staircase.  Take one step up the staircase, make sure your foot is firmly planted, before attempting the second step.  Each step up is one more acquired skill.

Think of your most troublesome ADHD behavior. If that is too big a chunk, can you break it into smaller chunks and start there?  Or think of an ADHD–related behavior that seems possible to change. What strategies you will employ? What reminders will you put in place?  Then, focus (heck, why not hyper–focus?) on changing that one behavior.

I focused on was staying in a room until I made it tidy.

No matter what I thought to do in another part of the house, I stayed in that room until finished. A small thing but you don’t know how often, at the end of the day, there still was no presentable room in the house. Where had the time gone? What did I do all day? I had an F in housekeeping and it was my full-time job.

Learning to tidy a room before leaving it made me feel capable and in control. Only then did I move on to create a second new habit, staying in the kitchen while making dinner. If the smoke alarm or the smell of something burning has ever called you back to the kitchen, you understand the importance of my second habit. 

Don’t over–indulge. Take it one-step at a time, slow and easy.

Start climbing your circular staircase. Soon you'll be happily singing, "I'll build a stairway to Paradise with a new step every [day] month. I'm going to get there at any price. Let me start. I'm on my way!"