A Cheat Sheet of Common ADHD Pitfalls to Watch For
What feels like a green flag may actually be a red flag.
You may be seeking out “Hell Yes!” feelings to guide your decisions in life. ADHD’ers tend to rely on this feeling more than neurotypicals because in ADHD, motivation is dependent on an intense, excited feeling.
Over time, you may find that chasing the “Hell Yes!” vibes can create a lot of problems in your life–affairs, over spending, sudden job loss, loss of friendships over a heated moment, or other endeavors that ultimately become dead-end situations. To be fair, it’s often not simply a dead-end situation but rather that you’ve lost the excited feeling and thus the motivation to see a project through to completion.
Green flag feelings benefit from a bit of scrutiny and analysis. Fleshing out a plan and what the decision may bring in the future with a trusted friend or therapist can prevent a lot of pain and suffering. I encourage ADHD'ers to consider a green flag feeling as a red flag instead, signaling a need for careful deliberation with another thoughtful person.
It’s not that you can’t trust your feelings but rather you learn that the green flag feeling isn’t the main criteria for making a decision.
Agreeing to one-off tasks that don’t hold your attention enough to complete.
You may agree to a task your partner asks of you only to completely forget about it because it’s too much of an outlier in your day to day life. Your partner ends up feeling like you just don’t care or think about them. This feels awful for both of you.
You want to be helpful so you agree to a request to call the insurance company, grab something from storage, or pick up a package at the post office. It seems reasonable in the moment that you can do it but these out of the ordinary tasks are far more likely to fall off your radar than a repetitive weekly or daily task.
You can show helpfulness and care for your partner by taking on regular tasks that you can incorporate into your daily functioning. This sets you up to be successful and not disappoint your partner.
Alternatively, there are general strategies to address outliers like this such as setting alarms or doing the task immediately when asked.
Ultimately, I recommend safeguarding against novel task demands and sticking to routines as much as possible.
This list is still in progress, more to come....
What feels like a green flag may actually be a red flag.
You may be seeking out “Hell Yes!” feelings to guide your decisions in life. ADHD’ers tend to rely on this feeling more than neurotypicals because in ADHD, motivation is dependent on an intense, excited feeling.
Over time, you may find that chasing the “Hell Yes!” vibes can create a lot of problems in your life–affairs, over spending, sudden job loss, loss of friendships over a heated moment, or other endeavors that ultimately become dead-end situations. To be fair, it’s often not simply a dead-end situation but rather that you’ve lost the excited feeling and thus the motivation to see a project through to completion.
Green flag feelings benefit from a bit of scrutiny and analysis. Fleshing out a plan and what the decision may bring in the future with a trusted friend or therapist can prevent a lot of pain and suffering. I encourage ADHD'ers to consider a green flag feeling as a red flag instead, signaling a need for careful deliberation with another thoughtful person.
It’s not that you can’t trust your feelings but rather you learn that the green flag feeling isn’t the main criteria for making a decision.
Agreeing to one-off tasks that don’t hold your attention enough to complete.
You may agree to a task your partner asks of you only to completely forget about it because it’s too much of an outlier in your day to day life. Your partner ends up feeling like you just don’t care or think about them. This feels awful for both of you.
You want to be helpful so you agree to a request to call the insurance company, grab something from storage, or pick up a package at the post office. It seems reasonable in the moment that you can do it but these out of the ordinary tasks are far more likely to fall off your radar than a repetitive weekly or daily task.
You can show helpfulness and care for your partner by taking on regular tasks that you can incorporate into your daily functioning. This sets you up to be successful and not disappoint your partner.
Alternatively, there are general strategies to address outliers like this such as setting alarms or doing the task immediately when asked.
Ultimately, I recommend safeguarding against novel task demands and sticking to routines as much as possible.
This list is still in progress, more to come....