ADHD, Motivation, & Strengths-Based Learning

ADHD and motivation often don’t go that well together so using strengths-based learning to tackle my motivational issues was a no-brainer for me. Anyone with ADHD will know what I mean by this. I’ve always described ADHD as always looking for something but never finding what you need. It feels like searching to either find something that stimulates or something that reduces stimulation but never really being comfortable.

Focusing on what I really need & want

So after years of searching and trying things like medication, after getting chronically ill with Coeliac Disease, I decided medication wasn’t right for me and that I needed to work with my strengths. I started to look at what I had within me, rather than searching for something outside of me. Now, this strategy was right for me, but it might not be for you. Always seek professional advice for your own health and well-being. A little disclaimer: I’m no doctor and am just doing what is right for me and me only. But if my stuff resonates with you, feel free to give something a go but seek professional help where needed.

Strategies that helped me:

Read the blog post HERE – How to Manage ADHD without Medication

working with strengths enhancing the things you’re good at

I always knew I had strengths but I really didn’t know how to handle them, use them for good, or even where to start. For me, finding out more about myself was a process of going out on my own and identifying what my strengths and weaknesses were. This meant spending time on my own with no one to rely on but me. It was daunting and I was well and truly out of my comfort zone but it was the best thing I could have done. Once I really got to know myself, I was better able to figure out where my deficits were and where I could enhance what I was already good at.

Ways to get out of our comfort zone:

Read the blog post here – Ways to get out of our comfort zone

living a life by design instead of by default

I’ve always tried to work out how I could live my life by designing it rather than just letting it happen to me by default. It’s taken many years and it’s still an ongoing process, but designing a life that I want is so much easier than letting it happen to me and feeling like crap (or an imposter) all the time. It continues to take a lot of work but it is so much easier than staying stuck in a place I don’t want to be. Change is hard but it’s so worth it, and I would rather die trying than not try at all!

Get to know yourself – confront, challenge, explore your strengths and weaknesses

Getting to know ourselves can be extremely challenging and confronting. It’s certainly not easy going out and spending time on your own but it is so worth it. Once we identify our strengths and then our weak points, we can start to plan around the identified strengths to enhance them. If we don’t spend time on our own to get to know ourselves, we leave our life up to chance which is not really any benefit at all. Being alone for periods of time enables us time to grow by giving us the opportunity to truly think about what we want out of life. It’s the perfect time to start being honest with ourselves and our behaviour 😉

Getting rid of anything toxic in our lives and reducing stress to increase motivation

Toxic things including people, work situations, and even food and drink, impact our well-being dramatically. When we can identify these toxic things in our current environment, we can make a plan to eliminate them. Just by eliminating these things out of our lives, can have a massive and dramatic impact on how we feel.

Have you ever left a job and felt so relieved just to be free of it? Have you left a relationship that was toxic and the moment you left you felt amazing? If any of this resonates with you, have a look around your current environment and identify anything that might be toxic of nature. Ask yourself, is this enhancing or improving my life, or is it making me feel worse? We are the only ones who can answer these questions because we are the ones living our lives. But when I started eliminating toxic things one by one from my environment, my whole life changed for the better. Monitor how good you feel when those things have gone!

When we reduce the stress in our lives, our motivation to do things increases. Reduce stress by trying simple ways to improve daily well-being. They actually work if we keep at them.

After the toxic shakedown

 After eliminating as much toxicity as you possibly can from your environment, start working on what you’re good at. For me, this was a matter of continuing on with what I love which was making video infographics. This form of creativity provided and still provides an outlet for frustration or trapped emotions, but also helps me enhance my skills in this area while helping others as well. It’s like a multifaceted win-win combo! By being consistent at this, it’s helped lead me to develop my brand and business around it. Just doing one thing each day towards a goal of what we want to really do with our lives, makes an enormous amount of difference in the long run.

The trick here is to also not care about what other people think. There are always going to be toxic people out there not because of what you’ve achieved, but because they couldn’t motivate themselves to do what they wanted to achieve. And that’s ok. We only need to look after ourselves first and then those around us. Focus on us! If we constantly worry about what other people think, we won’t get anything achieved.

Everybody’s got unique talents. I’ve always believed that. We all have talents and skills we just need to find them and give ourselves the time to find them! That’s why taking the time to be on our own, is one of the best things we can do to help identify our unique skills and talents. So take a chance on yourself and give it a go.

Motivation and consistency

Motivation is not always going to be there. That’s where consistency comes into play. If we can build on our habits, we’ve got a better chance of reaching our goals, or at least working towards them, than we have if we were to rely solely on motivation. Being consistent just requires us to have some sort of daily routine where we follow a set of simple principles based on our strengths.

Here are some ideas on simple ways to improve our well-being for adults with ADHD. Work on building up a series of strategies that can be relied upon each day. Over time, when our well-being improves, we start to feel better and therefore make better lifestyle choices.

If we know we’re not great at getting up in the morning and spending 1 to 2 hours on our phones, then remove the phone from the room. Invest in an alarm clock or similar. If we know we’re not great at exercising in the evening or we gonna run out of time, make a plan to do it first thing in the morning and get it out of the way. If you have a sweet tooth like me, don’t allow sweet things in the house. Swap them for something healthy and keep that on hand. It’s all about knowing ourselves and where our weak points are. And then swapping these weak points for something positive.

It’s not always going to work in our favour, but if we are consistent and try each day, we’ll start to build up habits that become ingrained. Be aware that it’s very easy to slip out of habits as well. And if we do slip out of things or fall off that wagon, just get back on it as soon as physically or mentally possible.

Keep going and keep trying

I’ve managed to draft this blog while out walking. I thought I’d love writing and love writing copious amounts, but when it came down to it, I really just liked the creating part of it – making graphics. So I’m making it a goal of mine, to draft up a blog post while out walking. I love walking and do it every day so I’ll make an effort to work with my strengths here and kill two birds with one stone.

Bottom line

So I challenge you, if you’re reading this and struggling with motivation, work out where your strengths lie, work out what your weaknesses are, and plan around those. Don’t worry if you don’t think you have that many strengths right now. We have to start somewhere.

And if you’re in need of a little bit of extra help, you can check out some of my e-books and planners on Etsy where I break down living with ADHD, into bite-size manageable chunks. These simple guides are perfect for the newly diagnosed.

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