A false belief most of us has is that the only way to consider a "win" in life is completing something big or significant. But I believe we are doing more harm than good to ourselves by confining the definition so narrowly.
You would have to agree that an essential path to being successful would involve a need to stack "wins" together again and again. But you would also have to agree that stacking "big wins" is very difficult. After all, when was the last time you felt like you had one?
The elusive nature of what we call a win is exactly where this problem begins.
And it all starts with the unrealistic standard we set for ourselves when setting goals or expectations - especially those of us with ADHD.
We set the bar way to high and put getting that "win" way out of reach. But why do we do this? Can't we set the bar lower and still call it a win?
But I Just Want To Get It Done!
When you are faced with a task you need to finish it's very difficult to not focus on wanting to get it behind you. In fact this is usually your main focus.
Without realizing what you are doing, this causes you to immediately start setting unrealistic goals.
It's just like when you are really hungry and put too much food on your plate.
"your eyes are bigger than your stomach."
Sometimes this is simply just from being excited about starting a new project and underestimating the time and effort it's going to take to accomplish your goals. But mostly it's just something you don't want to do.
So you come up with a game plan to get the shitty thing done and in your overzealous need to finish as quickly as possible, you take huge bites you can't swallow.
A great example of this is when I was helping my daughter with her homework. She had several lessons to complete over a 10-day period—14 assignments in total—and wanted my help. We sat down to create a schedule, and she optimistically suggested doing 3 or 4 assignments each day.
While I admired her enthusiasm, I recognized that, at 13 years old, she had already fallen into the same trap it took me almost 50 years to figure out. Like me, she has ADD, and I knew from the moment she shared her plan that she wouldn't stick to it.
She made her tasks far too difficult to achieve.
What was going to happen is she would dread the mountain of work she had to do every day and she would end up procrastinating until she was up past midnight trying to finish.
This self-induced dread and torture is the unseen doom loop we ADHDers put ourselves through every time we try to get something done.
The reason why we focus on finishing as soon as possible is to cut the "time" of the pain, but the trade off is that you increase the "intensity" of the pain.
It is unsustainable and the exact wrong way to do things.
The Solution Is To Do The Opposite.
I told her we need to cut that back to a daily goal that is just challenging enough to move the needle, but easy enough to feel "doable".
We ended up settling on 2 lessons per day and had the whole thing knocked out in just 7 days - 3 full days ahead of the due date.
The best part about it was we didn't have to dread the work or kill ourselves with hours upon hours of time. We created a way to stack daily "wins" by lowering the bar to a realistic level. This changed the way we looked at the task from something dreadful to something livable.
Breaking Tasks Down Isn't About Productivity
Uhgggggg!
I hate how everyone spews this tip out in every article and video on procrastination or ADHD like it's some miracle cure, but I have to admit...
This does work...if you know how to do it right.
First you have to realize that the productivity aspect of this strategy isn't what makes it work. It's the emotional side effect it creates that's the real magic.
If you want to start getting things done, you have to catch yourself when you are wrongly focusing on finishing. And instead, focus on what you can do to change the way you "feel" while you're doing it.
Stop Looking At The Big Picture
The best way this was illustrated to me was listening to a podcast about a Navy Seal telling the story of how he mentally got through hell week in his training.
Although there were bigger and seemingly tougher candidates in his class, most of them couldn't make it through. It wasn't because they weren't physically able to, it was because they couldn't do it mentally.
The problem, he realized, was that in the midst of being cold, exhausted, and sleep deprived most peoples minds can't help but think about how much more they must endure.
He understood that by looking at the whole week you've just made whatever your trying to do go from just difficult to absolutely impossible.
Imagine you are on day 1 and by the end of it you are experiencing the worst physical and mental pain of your life. Your brain, while screaming at you to make it stop, keeps reminding you that you still have 5 more days of this.
Your mind simply won't let you do it.
Knowing this, he tricked his mind into focusing on smaller chunks of time. He knew that every 4 hours "they had to stop whatever they were doing and feed us." Surviving these 4 hour windows became his new goal.
Every hour that passed he would tell himself, "only 3 hours more", "only 2 hours more", etc.
These hours were still painful, but he could easier convince himself to deal with it. This also helped him enjoy the reward of food and a break even more when it finally came. And then when it was over, he knew: "okay, only four more hours til the next one."
Can you see now how breaking things down isn't about getting to the finish line?
Its about getting your mind to cooperate.
That is the key: The goal here isn't to actually fool yourself into believing the job is any easier or less actual work. But motivation is conquered with positive emotions, so make "how you feel" about the work a priority over the work itself.
Think about trying to just focus on one tiny thing that isn’t going to kill you to finish. Put the rest of the work out of your mind. Pretend that this one thing is the "entire" task you have to complete right now. Worry about the next step later.
Think about it like this: If you just got done doing your taxes, you wouldn't immediately start worrying about how you were going to get them done next year.
You would put it out of your mind until it comes time again.
Just start doing this same thing with tasks in your immediate future too. Think about what's next After you finish what is right in front of you.
Steps To Defeat A Shitty Task
So, let’s say you need to do some really shitty task like pull weeds in the front yard. You’ve let it go too long and now they are everywhere. Your yard looks like crap, and every time you see it you’re reminded of the monster of a chore it’s going to be.
This sends you spiraling down into an emotional pit. And focusing on how much time and effort it will take does nothing to help you want to get the job started.
But, as we've established, there is no rule forcing you to look at this as one big job.
It doesn’t have to be just one item on a checklist. Why can’t it be 20 or even 100 small tasks?
You have the power here. You make up the rules.
So, Make it easy: Lets start with just 3 simple things to do. Your new goal is not to get all of the weeds gone, but just to finish these 3 things.
Here’s how I would tackle this job on day 1.
This entire session probably would take less than 20 minutes of my day. Then I would just do the same thing for day 2 and every other day until I was done.
(And keep reminding yourself to stop thinking about the big picture. Notice that we haven't determined a completion time...it gets done when it gets done because it doesn't matter.)
...so to simply recap...
1. Game plan
2. Three simple tasks
3. Execute...and done for the day.
Each day after you finish your list give yourself a pat on the back; don’t badmouth yourself because you think you didn’t do enough.
By the third day, you will be surprised how big of a dent you made and the feeling of satisfaction will be genuine.
Who knows? The closer you get to the end, the more pride you may feel in yourself seeing what you’ve accomplished; you might even start to enjoy it.
Stacking these smaller "wins" builds a momentum of positivity that finally allows you to see things in a way to feel good about.
It manufactures a way to focus on what you've completed - which feels good, instead of our default state of focusing on what still needs to be done - which feels like crap.
Conclusion
The biggest take away I want for you here is to understand that you will never find a way to get your mind to enjoy tasks it thinks will be painful – emotionally or otherwise. But that forced feeling becomes doable when the goals are much smaller and you solely focus on completing them instead of the whole thing.
Honestly, there really is no better way to attack your life for getting things done. Your motivation is autonomous. Meaning; you can’t train it to do what you want. The only way to win is to simply outsmart it.
