Your Attention Please

In the first article of the series I introduced the option to inject interest in anything you want to complete to help increase your motivation. The second article of the series introduced the possibility of using momentum to overcome your motivation issues when you have ADHD. This third article is sure to really rock your world.

Some people call the Maximum Productivity Makeover for ADHD Adults the ultimate time management program for ADHDers. Actually, this self-management system will teach you how to manage your time, energy and life. You learn amazingly powerful strategies proven effective by ADHDers just like you, who struggled just like you, but who’ve transformed their lives completely using these very strategies. You can use it to make your dreams come true too.

The Maximum Productivity Makeover is hard work though. I’m a firm believer in working smarter rather than harder, but it’s still hard work to learn how to work smarter (Annoying conundrum there, isn’t it? Seems there’s going to be hard work either way… so I highly recommend the approach with less work… learn to work smart!) Ok, so there’s work involved. But if it’s worth it, hard work doesn’t scare you, right? Especially when you can see the payoff. That payoff, what we call your “fuel,” is actually your key to success.

You’ll do the work, in fact, you won’t even notice that there’s hard work involved, if the reason driving you to do the work truly motivates you. All you need is a good reason. And there’s only one good reason for you to tackle any program, including The Maximum Productivity Makeover. What’s that reason? You’re the only one who knows what it is. But you may have buried it long ago.

You want to transform your life because the way you’re living now doesn’t match the amazing future you imagined for yourself before “life” started to beat you down. Before you struggled to sit still in school. Before all those report cards suggested you could do much better, if only you tried harder. Before your career so drastically failed to measure up to your aspirations. Before your spouse despaired of ever having help around the house instead of what seems like just another kid.

If you want a complete transformation so you can have a “normal” life, you need to keep digging. No child ever dreamed of having a “normal life,” unless a normal life includes slaying dragons! If you want an amazingly creative mind focused like a laser with the power to realize any dream you imagine just to impress your… wife, boss, mom, dad… you’re not there yet. Keep digging.

Keep digging until you find that old, buried, hidden and mistreated dream. Keep digging until you feel the passion you felt when you were younger and not as “realistic” as you’ve become.

You’ll know you’ve found that passion again, because your life will change… dramatically, drastically, amazingly! While programs like the Maximum Productivity Makeover for ADHD Adults provide the tools, it is YOU, your dreams, that provide the fuel! And the fuel determines the miles you travel, and the speed you move.

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Did any of you catch the Canadian show, ADD and Loving It, that featured Patrick McKenna and Rick Green, both formerly of The Red Green Show. It aired in September on Global.

If you’ve never seen the show, it’s worth you purchasing it when it’s available. Using humour, both McKenna and Green, “come out” with their own battles with ADHD and discuss the myths, the challenges, the truths and everything in between about Adult ADHD.

Why am I talking about this now? They, along with Dr. Umesh Jain, an ADHD specialist, and Ava Green (Rick’s very talented wife), have launched an exciting new Web site called TotallyADD at http://www.TotallyADD.com.  Provided in entertaining video format that includes a touch of humour, this Adult ADHD-specific site offers expert information on ADHD.

Don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about ADHD and to help others around you understand it better.  If you want a few good laughs, and at the same time a dose of common sense, watch Rick’s Rants. They are a riot.

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The title probably gave it away, but this is the second part in a series of articles. In the first article of the series , we talked about injecting interest, novelty, challenge and sometimes urgency to make a boring task more enticing.

Today, we’ll look at a way to motivate you to do a task you find boring or difficult (and not in a fun, challenging way) and which you just can’t make interesting.

First, let’s stay away from guilt. You are not the problem, the task is. It’s boring, or worse. Guilt doesn’t work, and the negative feelings guilt leads to can throw you into a whirlpool of negativity.

You can recognize the dangerous slope to guilt when you start asking yourself, “Why?” Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I just focus? “Why” is not a productive question, and even if you had the answer, you’d be no closer to getting your task done.

There is, however, a guilt-free way of getting that challenging task done. In fact, this approach is so powerful I often refer to as an ADHDer’s “secret weapon.” There are two different ways of using momentum to tackle any task; we’ll look at one in this article, and the second in Part 3 of this series.

A physics law states, “An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rests tends to stay at rest.” If you can’t get started on a task, it’s very likely that situation is not going to change. If you can get moving, however, it’s much easier for you to keep moving.

Adults with ADHD often struggle with motivation because, unlike neurotypicals, when a task is boring, your brain doesn’t activate at all. While neurotypicals may find the task equally boring, they’ll still be able to activate their brains enough to focus and get it done.

ADHDers facing a boring task struggle to get their brains energized, and without that energy, you are unable to block out distractions so you can focus and get it done. Instead, you notice every stimulus and if anything is more enticing, before you know you’re doing anything but the boring task.

You can use momentum like a booster cable in a car. You can jumpstart your brain using a short, interesting or energizing task or activity. Do something you enjoy, like playing a musical instrument, drawing or taking a brisk walk outside. Once your brain is “in motion,” you can stop the activity you enjoy and move quickly to work on the boring task for as long as your brain can take it.

If you find yourself struggling again, move back to the short energizing task, a bit like putting your foot on the gas to keep a sputtering motor from dying.

Try it. I’m sure you’ll find it very effective. I’ll see you back here soon for part 3 of this series, where we’ll look at another way you can use momentum to get more done.

In the meantime, please share your ideas for short, energizing or interesting activities you use to jumpstart your brain and activate your secret weapon, momentum.

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