How to be successful with ADHD or extreme lack of motivation.

living with adhd or being chronically unmotivated can be tough but i'm going to show you some of my top tips for turning this into your superpower even if you don't have a formal adhd diagnosis if you struggle with things like impulsivity or forgetfulness or just distractibility i have some incredible tips that are going to help you let's start by talking about impulse control i am the person who sees something i want it i buy it i see something i like it i eat it i really struggle with impulse control it got me into a ton of trouble as a teenager and young adult and to this day if i'm being honest but i've learned ways to combat this here's my favorites i have to make good choices easy and bad choices harder if something takes work and effort i'm way less likely to do it so in my fridge i moved all the healthy foods the fruits vegetables and healthy snacks to eye level and that way when i open the fridge the first thing i see is all the good stuff it's easy to grab all the hard stuff i've put down low were in containers with lids if i gotta open a lid to find something i probably won't do it hiding the unhealthy snacks and making the healthy snacks visual is a small thing that i can do for impulse control the biggest thing that i can do is elimination knowing this about myself having the self-awareness that i have impulse control issues means that i avoid putting myself into situations where i just can't stop myself i don't drink alcohol at all one drink two shots next thing you know i'm naked on the table dancing and shaking my booty like i know this about myself so i just i have this all or nothing mentality i also know that i can't go into costco or walmart or another place that sells things other than groceries to buy groceries because i'll come home with clothes and scented candles and everything else i have to know myself and make doing those impulsive things a lot harder now for the good part of struggling with impulse control it also makes us really spontaneous and creative and we think outside the box and when we can really look at all the good stuff that comes with this we can see it as a superpower we can adapt our behavior so we ignore or sort of eliminate the bad part of being impulsive and really embrace all the good the second struggle is distractibility otherwise known as squirrel syndrome we get bored really easily also if there's something shiny we're like look at this look at this look at here tick tock oh interesting interesting i can't even watch a full youtube video anymore i am so easily distractible i just need like constant stimulation all the time i'm bored making this video right now maybe you're bored watching it i feel you i understand and i'm not judging we need stimulation all the time if there's something we're not excited about or something boring like our jobs we have a real hard time paying attention and staying focused which is obviously a huge issue which is why medication can help did you know that adhd medication is actually a stimulant it's stimulating your brain so that you stop looking for outer stimulation all over the place it's keeping you focused because your brain in the background is doing like cool things with the medication coffee is also a stimulant which is why we feel more focused and alert when we're drinking coffee you can get the same effect without medication or drinking gallons of coffee by stimulating your body through movement exercises that's why fidget toys or sitting on a bouncy ball or tapping your toes moving all of those things drastically improves your focus and your motivation with adhd or just generally in life so don't be afraid to grab a pen and doodle while you're listening in a boring meeting that's actually helping your brain to focus on what people are saying and body doubling is another technique that really works for adhd and that's just having somebody else in the room with you not to distract you but somebody to sit quietly while you study or you work which is why a lot of people go to starbucks to do homework or in the library because body doubling helps your brain to focus this leads me to the amazing part of having adhd the thing that i'm so happy about and that is hyper focus if you have a passion something you love doing you can work on that all day long i could organize something for 12 hours straight and be like not eat not drink just be in the zone i could do something i love for hours and hours which means i'm getting so much more done that is definitely the superpower of adhd but how do you know what you're passionate about how do you find that you shut off the screens you turn off the tv and the internet and your phone and what do you do when you're bored what do you do in the quiet where there is nothing else do you write do you do art do you go hiking do you play with your cat i don't know what you do but that is the thing that you really love doing and we can only find that passion and that love when we turn off all of that outside noise the next thing we have to talk about is forgetfulness my memory is bad bad bad not like 50 first dates bad but definitely brain damage bad i forget everything if i'm reading a book i can love it i won't be able to tell you the name of the book the author or any of the characters the movie i'm watching the television show eight years i could be watching a show a series and still not know the names of the main characters not to mention day-to-day tasks meetings appointments all of these things i really really struggle to remember this is why i use technology as my crutch google alerts google calendar my alexa's constantly reminding me i put everything into my notifications so that i don't forget these important things they run my life but i also have to have notepads so when i have a thought i can write it down so i keep a notepad in my office in the kitchen and beside my bed to write down all of those important things and then send myself an email and schedule notifications to remind me to remember the thing i don't want to forget this might seem like overkill but now this is a habit for me i do this without even a second thought and it runs my business and my life i no longer forget all of these things well i do forget them but my electronics remind me the plus side about being chronically forgetful is i forget to be sad or mad i forget to be resentful somebody could do something pretty awful to me one week later no recollection of it i don't really hold grudges because i honestly forget things i forget to be upset or angry about things really really quickly so that is a real plus as long as i'm being mindful and focusing on positive things i generally can stay in a positive mindset all the time let's talk about procrastination this is the thing i'm best at everybody procrastinates it's human nature but if you have adhd you procrastinate like it's your life's mission this is by far my biggest struggle i procrastinate everything obviously the boring things and i procrastinate the stuff i don't want to do or that's hard work but even the things i want to do or i'm excited to do i tend to procrastinate because i have time blindness or time distortion and this means i cannot estimate how long something's going to take i either overestimate or underestimate if i have to go to the doctors and it's a 30 minute drive and it takes me a half an hour to get ready and i have to be there at one a normal brain will be like you should start getting ready yet anyways whatever that time is i don't know what it is so i'm always chronically late for everything and i also overestimate how long a chore is going to take like emptying the dishwasher or making my bed so i'm like i better wait till i have hours to dedicate to this task that takes 30 seconds which is why we need to time ourselves and the best thing that we can do as someone who has adhd is to write down the task that we want to do estimate how long we think it's going to take and then time ourselves actually doing it because this teaches our brain to estimate how long something takes now i know it's under two minutes to empty the dishwasher so i can kind of estimate how long it would take to load it or clean the kitchen based on that let's be honest we can't time ourselves doing everything though because we're gonna have bigger goals and if we have these big goals or projects or something that we have to prioritize and do time management for it is virtually impossible for us because anytime we have a big task that we can't possibly visualize the ending it's impossible for us to know what steps to take which is why we don't get started in the first place so we have to break big goals into smaller chunks and i'm talking like 15 to 20 minute intervals that's because our brain that's as far in the future as most of us can see so taking a big task like writing a book we can break that down into creating an outline for the first chapter or just creating the ten chapter names we can break this down into manageable chunks that we can see and project how long it's going to take an estimation and we can see the result and the end of that goal that's how we achieve amazing things when we have adhd we have to break big goals down into small goals and time ourselves doing them time distortion can also be a good thing too it can be a super power because our brains are so dumb we don't know how long things take we can trick ourselves into just getting started by saying that something's only gonna take five minutes my mantra is five minutes matters i can do anything for just five minutes i just have to get up set a timer for five minutes and start doing something and what usually happens is i forget to stop at five minutes i don't actually know how long i've been doing something and then hours gone by and i have moved mountains i have crushed goals i have done amazing things just because i got started by tricking myself into saying i only had to do it for five minutes i hope you found some of these quick tips really helpful but more than anything i hope you're seeing your adhd or your adhd symptoms if you don't have adhd in a new light i hope you're seeing that it doesn't have to be negative that we can turn these into a positive and a superpower we might not have neurotypical brains but we have amazing brains i really see this as a strength my impulsivity my time distortion my procrastination even all of those things have added up to a really incredible life and i just had to stop focusing on the negative stuff and start seeing all the positive and also if you have adhd please know that you are not alone i've created a little adhd workbook for you to help you with all of these different tips and steps that we talked about it's free i'm gonna put a link in the description below i hope you check that out thank you so much for watching and i'm gonna see you guys next time thank you guys so much for those of you who have stayed to the end my entire life has been like calamity hour i grew up in a household with a mom who obviously also has adhd my grandmother has adhd so they were always doing like insane things like driving away from the gas pump with the gas thing still in it still filling it up with gas and like ripping it out of the multiple times okay my mother did this my grandmother did this driving around with her purse on top of the the car and losing their person having to replace all their id my mom has done this dozens of time as have i i have lost my wallet purse phone i've i just we're forgetful we're impulsive we do insane things which is why i had so many hilarious end stories for you because i've locked myself out of my apartment naked and had to climb over a balcony i'd forgotten to wear underwear and rip my pants while on a bicycle and the whole world saw my cooch like i have had so many horrible embarrassing things all of which looking back were directly the result of adhd i mean it made for hilarious stories but now that i take medication it's boring up in here i'm like a real grown-up now i wear underwear almost every day i don't lose things because i have like electronics that tag me and beep and i just am more focused i'm so boring you guys and and it's great because i can actually function and not embarrass myself on a daily basis and get things done but also i miss that a little bit of crazy that used to be my life sometimes i do miss it so i'm going to um on vacation i'm actually on vacation right now but i'm filming this before and i'm not bringing my meds it's going to be full cass in all her glory i feel like i'm going to go up to that you know those guys with the big hat that came in and i'm gonna be like my london london london and i'm gonna be just bringing full spaz muffin to london this is your warning europe here i come in all my unmedicated glory thanks so much for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: Clutterbug

Views: 91,214

Keywords: simplify life, clutter free, adhd, adhd home organization, adhd home hacks, secret to success, strategies for adhd, impulse control, distractability, forgetfulness, procrastination, motivation disorder, life hacks, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, executive function, adult adhd, attention deficit disorder, mental health, tips for adhd, living with adhd, coping with adhd, adhd tips, motivation tips, how to get motivated, how to adhd

Id: HrLHXHEIRW0

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022