- ADHD is a very misunderstood disorder.
Many thinking it's a learning disability
or that it means that they're lazy or stupid.
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I've heard from many members of our community
that they have even been told these things by teachers
or parents while they were growing up.
It's just terrible.
But the truth is that ADHD isn't any of those things
but it can cause motivation issues for us.
Which is why today I wanna talk about
Procrastination and ADHD.
And if you're new here, welcome.
My name is Kati Morton
and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I talk about depression, anxiety, eating disorders
and really anything mental health related.
So if you'd like to subscribe, we would love to have you.
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with some helpful information for you,
or for someone you love.
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Okay, let's jump into today's topic.
First it's important to understand what procrastination is.
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And procrastination itself is an avoidance behavior.
We're putting something off, we're procrastinating on it
probably because we either don't wanna do it,
it seems overwhelming, or we just don't feel motivated.
Those of us with ADHD can have issues with motivation.
And it can even be painful to break through that
to actually do the thing we need to.
And so it's not necessarily
that those of us with ADHD are procrastinating,
it's the fact that we're lacking the motivation
because the thing that we're putting off
is something that we find to be tedious or uninteresting.
And if it was interesting to us
we wouldn't have issues with that motivation at all.
And I've talked about this in the past
but those of us with ADHD
are like heat-seeking missiles for dopamine.
Because our brains,
if you don't know, not to get too nerdy with it,
but our brains don't have enough dopamine transporters
to carry our dopamine to its final destination
where we feel rewarded.
Because if you don't know
dopamine is like that feel good chemical in our brain
that feeds that reward system
which is why when we get accolades at work
or maybe purchase something exciting, we feel rewarded.
We get excited.
That's dopamine doing all that feel good work.
Those of us with ADHD have dopamine.
We just don't have enough of these transporters
to get it to where it needs to go.
So we're not getting that heat.
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You might be wondering, well, Kati,
why am I able to focus on certain things and not on others?
Well, there are natural ways to drive our motivation.
And in ADHD treatment,
they focus on these four factors that help drive this.
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So then the first is novelty,
something new and interesting.
The second is interest.
Like I said at the beginning
if we find something engaging, we want to do it.
There's no issue with motivation there.
The third is urgency.
A lot of my friends with ADHD will say
I work really well under pressure.
And if I have a deadline, I will meet that deadline.
That urgency pushes us to be motivated.
And the fourth is degree of challenge.
If we feel that something is pushing us
to do something a little bit better
or learn a little bit more
it's just a little bit more difficult.
We can rise to the occasion
and feel motivated enough to start the project
or do the thing that maybe we didn't know if we could do.
And this could be to blame in a good way
for why we're able to get
certain things accomplished.
Like, why we can study for that test
the day before we have it,
or why we can finish that project right before it's due.
But procrastination, right?
This procrastination versus ADHD.
So procrastination on the other hand
is more of a defense mechanism
for when a task feels overwhelming,
difficult, or unpleasant.
If we don't have any other ways to address this task
we can just avoid it.
But that avoidance
can lead to higher levels of stress or anxiety.
So we can wonder why do I keep putting things off
when it's bad for me?
It just only makes me feel worse.
Well, it's because stress and anxiety
aren't motivating factors.
We need to break down the task into smaller
more manageable tasks
and then reward ourselves for completing them.
Mean there's a lot of reasons
why people find themselves procrastinating.
A huge one is anxiety, right?
If even engaging with that thing
makes me feel overcome with worry,
I'm not gonna wanna do it.
Or there can be fear of failure.
I'm so concerned about how people are gonna perceive me
or that it's not gonna go well.
If I already have almost like a negative self talk
and negative belief about myself,
I'm gonna think or assume everything's gonna go wrong.
And so if everything's gonna go wrong, why even start?
Why would I wanna try to do that thing?
I might put it off and put it off and put it off,
procrastinate so that I can in my mind put off that failure.
Another is that the reward is just too far out.
If we can't see the reward again,
because remember, those of us with ADHD have dopamine
but we don't have enough of those transmitters.
So we're not feeling that heat, that reward.
So if the reward is too far out for us
we really just don't see the benefit
and it can be really hard
for us to motivate, to do anything.
The next is perfectionism.
I've struggled with this in my life.
If I can't do something a hundred percent
I don't wanna do it at all.
But spoilers, a lot of things in our life
can't be done a hundred percent.
And so that concern over it,
being perfect and having to have all the time
to do it just right.
It can prevent us from ever engaging with something, again,
because it's gonna immediately feel overwhelming.
Another reason we can procrastinate
is we have a difficulty seeing ourselves in the future.
And when I was reading about this
my therapist brain automatically jumped to depression.
If we're struggling with a positive outlook on life
and all we see is just everything going wrong,
or we have no hope for the future,
or we're so caught up in the moment,
it's hard for us to think about ourselves tomorrow.
It's gonna be really difficult to motivate
for something or motivate towards something
that takes a little time to put together.
Another reason we can procrastinate is lack of energy.
If we aren't taking care of our basic needs
if we're not getting good sleep, eating enough,
drinking enough water,
we're not gonna feel the energy needed to start a new task.
I think we all would agree
that that first ugh, effort
that we have to put out to get something new going
it takes a little extra oop, and if we don't have that oop,
we're not gonna wanna start it.
And there's a lot of other reasons we can procrastinate
but that's just a few to get you thinking about
where it may be coming from for you.
It's gonna be incredibly helpful to figure out
what feeds your procrastination.
Like of the things I mentioned
where there are a few that you're like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me.
For me, it used to be perfectionism.
Now I'd say sometimes it's lack of energy.
As I've been honest about
I struggle with were work life balance sometimes,
and so the thought of, ugh,
starting something new can just feel exhausting already.
But just being honest with yourself
about what you think feeds it for you?
What is preventing you from starting these new projects?
Or why is it that you're putting something off?
And there's gonna gonna be other reasons
I just named a couple of them, but just think about it.
Where is it coming from?
Because if we don't know what's causing it
we're not gonna be able to overcome it.
So let's say it is lack of energy.
Like I'm speaking to myself,
then something I could do is I could take some action
do some behaviors like,
focusing on making sure I'm getting enough sleep,
making sure that I'm eating properly
every three to four hours,
drinking enough water, like taking the weekends off.
There can be these specific actions
that I can slowly put into place.
Don't put them all in place at once,
because then I'll feel overwhelmed.
But there are some small changes we can make
to help us work toward a more productive
and less procrastinating type of person.
And it's slow and steady.
It's a process.
It's not perfection.
Because we don't wanna get ourselves caught
where we put all of these new behaviors on ourselves,
oh I need to change this, and this, and this,
and this, and this, and this.
Then again, we're gonna run into that same problem
where we wanna procrastinate the self-care.
So make it small and manageable.
There's a ton of psychological research
to support the fact that our to-do list
shouldn't be longer than seven things.
That's why phone numbers
without the area code are seven digits long,
it's what we're able to hold in our brain at one time.
So, that's just little tip for me to you
to help you kind of minimize
how many things you're expecting out of yourself each day,
because that overwhelm, again,
could be leading to that procrastination.
And also make sure those seven things
aren't things that need days and days and days to complete.
We need these seven small to-dos
to be things we can accomplish in one day.
And that's really helped me stay motivated
and jump into that like, oh, I need to do that thing.
It's helped me get moving.
Because it's often that first hump
that's the hardest to get over.
It's the starting that's the hardest.
And once we get that ball rolling
we can usually move forward and keep being productive
at the level that we need to be.
So take some time to consider
where it's coming from for you,
because ADHD does not mean
that we are lazy or that we procrastinate.
It means we struggle with motivation
because we don't have those dopamine transmitters.
And so we might need to trick ourselves
into using those four factors.
Remember, like novelty and urgency.
We might need to set some timers for ourselves
or set some deadlines to keep us going forward.
We might need to take breaks to do something
that's a little bit interesting.
We have to figure out where it's coming from for us
and what behaviors we can change
to help get us out of this cycle of procrastination.
'Cause I think it's something we all struggle with
from time to time.
But I would love to hear from you.
Are there certain tips and tricks
and things that you do to help yourself get started
and stop procrastinating.
Leave those in the comments down below.
Have a wonderful week and I will see you next time.
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Bye.
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