Springboard Clinic

Now is the time of year that many people - with or without ADHD - make New Years resolutions. These are promises we make to ourselves to change some aspect of our lifestyle. While it's still early in the year, we thought now would be a good time to think about potential setbacks. Sometime soon, your motivation may wane. The 'newness' of your resolution will wear thin. So, what are some ideas in anticipation of that?

If you've seen the sitcom Seinfeld, you might be aware of the December 23rd holiday Festivus: "A Festivus for the rest of us!" According to Wikipedia, this parody holiday was created by the father of one of the show's writer Dan O'Keefe, as a non-commercial alternative to the more traditional celebrations. While we don't necessarily recommend all of the traditions of Festivus for your family - particularly the "airing of grievances" where you tell people all the ways they've disappointed you in the past year - the idea of creating your own unique holiday is a great one.

For those of you with ADHD, do you find it difficult to balance your competing responsibilities? Do you tend to 'hyper-focus' on tasks that aren't necessarily the priority? Do you find yourself getting pulled in too many different directions and have too much on your plate? Does the idea of "self-care" seem like a foreign idea that sounds nice, but just isn't a part of your life? If so, you're on the same page as many other adults with ADHD!

If you have adult ADHD, the holidays can often feel like an anti-vacation. We've talked before about ADHD and vacation planning, but aside from that it's just so easy to get wrapped up in the pressure of planning the 'right' kind of holiday for you and your family, without really stopping to consider what we want that to look like.

This year, take the time to pause, talk with your loved ones, and really assess what would be the best use of your hard-earned holiday time.

Recently, we stumbled across an article posted on the PsychCentral website called Surefire strategies that don't work for ADHD - and some that do.

The author notes that "knowing what works for [ADHD] is just as important as knowing what doesn't," and this is such an important message to share. We talk about this idea often in coaching - part of the journey in figuring out what does work for you and an ADHD-style brain is sifting through what doesn't work. A couple highlights from the article: Sometimes 'trying harder' is not the right move. Same with conforming - just because other people seem to do things a 'certain way' does not mean that will work for you. In fact, sometimes the outside-the-box ideas are the ones that work best with an ADHD-brain! Check it out

"I have time, I can do this later." "I don't feel like it, I'll do it tomorrow."

These are classic procrastination tactics - we negotiate and rationalize with our 'present selves' so we can justify putting off a dreaded task and leaving it for our 'future selves.' It's future self's problem now.