341 BITESIZE | Unlocking Motivation: The ADHD Perspective

This episode is sponsored by Talkietri. Something that breaks my heart about the ADHD community is how often we feel like we have to prove that we're struggling enough to deserve help. We tell ourselves, other people have it worse. I should be able to handle this. Maybe I just need to try harder. And sometimes we spend years, even decades, believing that. But you don't have to reach a breaking point to deserve support. That's why I want you to know about Talkietri. Talkietri is a 100% online psychiatry practice providing evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. You'll work with a licensed psychiatrist who creates a personalized treatment plan and supports you over time. Talkietri accepts major insurers, and you can schedule your first appointment in days, not months. Head to talkietri.com/I have ADHD to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's t-a-l-k-i-a-t-r-y.com/I have ADHD to get matched in minutes. Talkietri.com/I have ADHD. After working with thousands of adults with ADHD, I know that our relationships are one of the most painful areas for us. We want to feel connected. We want healthy relationships, but ADHD can make that so much harder for us than it seems like it is for other people. That's why I wrote, "You're not in trouble." The ADHD guide to building healthy connected relationships, and it's available for pre-order now. Listen, if you know you're going to read it eventually, do your future self a favor and pre-order it. Don't tell yourself, "Oh, I'll remember to buy it when it comes out." We both know how that can go, my friend, so set yourself up for what you actually want. Make the decision, get it handled, and let future UB pleasantly surprised when the book shows up at your doorstep, or on your Kindle, or on Audible. "You're not in trouble is available for pre-order wherever you buy your books, and you can use this podcast as a body double. You can multitask and go pre-order it right this second. Go get your copy today. I can't wait for you to read it." This episode is sponsored by Quince. Can we talk about how overwhelming holiday shopping can be when you have ADHD? I put a lot of pressure on myself to find the perfect gift, something thoughtful, something meaningful, something that shows the person how much I care. And suddenly, something that's supposed to be joyful becomes another thing that I'm overthinking, and this is why I appreciate Quince. They make beautiful, high quality essentials that people can actually enjoy every day. Think cozy, mongolian, cashmere sweaters, starting at $50, cashmere scarves, and gloves, beautiful, 14-carat gold jewelry, and even hotel quality bedding. And truly, I do love Quince. I use Quince. I have a white Quince purse that I use every single day, and when I went out to dinner with my friend Sheila the other night, she showed up with a black Quince purse, and I was like, "Girl, did you get that from Quince? We were twins. It was so fun." And because Quince works directly with ethical factories, everything is priced 50-80% less than similar brands. I love giving something that feels special without making the whole process complicated. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was here on the I Have 8 HD podcast. It's a great way to support the show. Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carter, and you are listening to a bite-size episode of the I Have 8 HD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated, and ready to roll. This little episode is one of my favorite clips from the podcast. It's perfect if you're not in the mood for a full hour long listen. Because let's be real, some of us 8 HDers just don't have the patience for all of that. But if you are a die-hard listener, think of this as your mid-week pick me up. It's Thursday y'all. Friday is right around the corner. If you love this clip, check out the show notes for a link to the full episode. And remember my friend, drink your water, take your meds, grab a snack. Now let's get rolling. And that part of it is then you need to kind of generate the motivation to do it. Which kind of brings me to this idea, which is, I've had plenty of clients give me some version of, yeah, alarms don't really work for me. You know, like I said the alarm, but then I just turn it off and I don't do the thing. And it took me a while to catch onto this, but then I sort of realized I'm like, you know what? Actually the alarm worked perfectly. The job of the alarm is to tell you, hey, it's that time. That's it. The alarm makes you aware, right? Increases awareness. It doesn't increase motivation, right? The alarm doesn't sort of, I don't know, it doesn't pull out a gun and it doesn't give you a cookie, right? It's not about now that the alarm went off, boy, my psych to look up summer camps, right? All it is meant to do is to generate awareness, the generating motivation, that's still on you in that moment, right? Love. So again, medications helpful, not being exhausted is helpful, not being completely overwhelmed by every single thing in your life is helpful. But, you know, so that kind of again sets the foundation, but then in that moment, being able somehow to connect to the future benefit of it, you know, like right now I don't feel like doing this, but also I'm never going to feel like doing this. So let's be honest there. So if the question is, do I want to do this? The answer is always no, wrong question, right? The better question is, how will I feel about this later? Like after I have done this, how will I feel about it, right? And, you know, if it's March, let's say when you're looking this up, right, it's really not until June that this is an issue, but come June, how am I going to feel about it? Do I want to have a really good summer? Do I want to be miserable with the kids making me crazy all summer, right? Because of course, the problem with summer camp is, if you wait till summer, there's no camps available, right? So if you wait till summer, you better hope your kids get arrested because the only place with openings is Juvie, right? Like that's the ADHD tax of summer camp, right? Yes. So yeah, or you hope you get arrested. So you can go somewhere. Either one is a much better alternative, but you know, the problem is in March, you're like, doesn't feel urgent, doesn't feel necessary. There's so many things that I feel like the pressure to get done today for tomorrow. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that is part of the challenge of productivity. And it's especially the challenge of ADHD, right? It's that you don't feel the future as strongly, right? So it's sort of like that's somebody else's problem, but that somebody else is me in the future, right? It's not someone, it's not your neighbor's problem, right? It's it's going to be your problem, but you know, it's sort of this thing that like any all people we don't connect as much to our future self, which is why let's say people suck at saving for retirement, you know, but especially with ADHD, you don't feel that future self version of yourself as much. So when you're sitting there on a dreary March day and you're like, summer camp, the thing to do is to imagine yourself in that moment. Here I am last day of school. How am I feeling about it? If I know I got the kids set up with some good camps, they're going to have a good summer. I'm going to have a good summer. You know, how is how does that moment feel versus how do I feel if I, you know, third week of July, I still don't know what they're doing. I found that some camps, but they're going to kind of complain. Also, by the way, they're only half day camps. Also, by the way, they're like 45 minutes away. So I think I've got 20 minutes. If I were to drive home and drive back, I'll have 20 minutes at home. So like how many targets can I find, you know, like how much dish detergent do we need? Like imagining that moment and kind of comparing contrast, how do those two future me's feel? And like that's going to be the motivation. And again, calling back to where we started, it shouldn't only be, I want to avoid the terrible outcome. That is not a good motivator. Rather, I want the good outcome. I want a good summer. I want my kids to have a good summer. I want to feel effective in my life. I want, when I'm talking to my friends about like, Hey, what are you guys doing? I want to feel proud of like, yeah, hey, we've got a plan. Right. As it was like, worst parent ever, yet again, failed my children. I hope my friends don't ask too many detailed questions about this camp I found for my kids, right? So like, you know, totally it's the good stuff. Again, it is the good stuff. That is what will motivate you more than just constantly kind of pulling your chestnuts out of the fire. It will motivate us if we believe that we deserve the good. Yeah. And I think that that can often be this like deeper underlying self sabotagey thing that comes up is like, I don't actually believe that I deserve to have peace. I don't actually believe that I deserve to, you know, accomplish things step by step and then not have anything to worry about. Yeah. And I think that's probably the deeper work that you do with your clients. And like, if, if, let's, let's say, you know, you're a little bit more than you're doing. listener, you are resonating with that. That's a great place to start in therapy. I'm realizing that I self sabotage because maybe I don't, when I envision future me, I don't believe that he or she deserves like good things. Yeah. Or even if somehow as a human in the world I deserve it, I don't think I can pull it off. So like, yeah, I'm not even a bother for other people. Yeah. Like, why bother? It's not going to happen anyway. You know how it always falls apart in three days. Yeah. So why get my hopes up only to be disappointed again? You know, that sort of acceptance of chaos kind of, you know, acceptance of the status quo. Yeah. Um, you know, that does keep people stuck in these kind of situations I like, it doesn't have to be like this. I really love the concept of like your future self. I think that is a really, really helpful concept and one of the things that I did a couple years ago when I was really working on my time management was in my alarms, set the reminder as like how I would want to feel, how I would feel after. So it's kind of like in the alarm that alarm title is like, get this done, get it done now. Don't put it off. You're going to feel so much better. Like a very direct, um, which, you know, it takes some executive function to like set that up, but there are things and even now there's like silly things that I avoid because I just hate it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, but I like, it's connected to the business moving forward or the pocket, whatever. And it's like, just do it. And in my alarm, it's like, just please, could you please get it done so we don't have to do it next week? Yeah. You know, like that plea from self to self, let me just get it done. And I think that works. It reminds me like, Oh, yeah, I really don't want to have to do this later. You know, I'll just do fine. I'll just do it now. There is something to that of not just the sort of tangible benefit of I did this thing and now this thing happens. But I think there's also something for the sort of intangible of like, I just did this thing. And maybe the benefit hasn't even occurred yet. But like, I feel good about the fact that I did it. I'm going to give myself a bit of credit. I'm getting knowledge of the fact that it was hard. And I'm going to feel good that like, this is the little stuff that big things are built from in that it, you know, it's easy. It's easy to miss the things you do well, right? We're all programmed to notice the negatives of like, well, screwed that up, right? So you got a counterbalance by intentionally noticing some of the positives, not in this like, you know, sort of overly sappy kind, but like in a legit kind of a way and did not discount it as like, Oh, well, everyone else just does it without thinking, why am I throwing myself a parade? Right? So like, not that either. But just like, yeah, that was, that was a good thing. Like, there it is. That's me doing a better job on this kind of stuff. You know, so to really sort of be intentional about not just the doing, but the noticing and the appreciating a little bit of a pad on the back. I mean, do you feel like that's easy for people with ADHD? Because I can hear all of them screaming. Yeah. They're all like, what are you talking about? Yeah. I'm not going to let myself feel accomplished for something that is so easy for someone else. Yeah. You know, like, how do we, how do we, like, give permission for people to feel good? I just, I feel like that is such a big part of working of what's working against someone with ADHD being productive. Is this like exactly what you're saying? Like, hey, you should feel actually accomplished about getting the thing done. Yeah. And in 80s, she was like, no, right. I'm not going to, what are you talking about? I think some of it is, it's just that thing of like, especially if you're scrambling, right? If you're rushing head to the next thing, you don't even pause long enough to consider it. So somebody's just like, it's just gone. So I think a piece of it is that. Um, I think, but there is that other thing of exactly like you said, because for other people, it's easy. Therefore, I can't give myself credit for doing it. But the thing of it is, we all have things that are easy, right? So it doesn't feel like a big deal to have done it. But and then when someone else is like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. You're like, whatever. That's true. Right. So we automatically kind of dismiss the things that are easy for us. But to recognize that not everything is easier or hard for ever. It's not universal, right? Like, some things are very easy and some things are much harder. So it doesn't matter if it's easy to someone else. It only matters if it's easier or hard to you. Can you say that again? It doesn't matter if it's easier or hard for other people. They're not the one who did it. You're the one who did it. If it was hard, if it took intentional effort, if it took kind of good will to do it and good intentions and, you know, some good effort, note it, right? Give yourself a little bit of credit for it. Thanks for listening to this bite-size episode of the I Have ADHD podcast. If you enjoyed this clip, you'll find a link to the full episode in the show notes. And don't forget to visit I Have ADHD.com for tons of adult ADHD support. All right, my friends, I had a great time with you today and I cannot wait to talk to you again next week. Bye-bye.