Well, life isn’t a balanced equation for anyone. The effects of that seem to be harder on us based on how we’re wired. Let me explain what I mean. There are some places in life where you get out what you put in in a very linear way. If you’re paid hourly and you work more hours, you make more money. Straightforward, simple, linear. On the other end of the spectrum are things that are almost speculative based on the inconsistency of how much result B comes out of effort A.
Let’s say you’re in real estate. I have always thought of real estate as the ultimate hustle. You have to be moving and grooving and putting a lot of effort into the “machine” to get anything out. But what you get out and when you get it and how consistent it is may have very little to do with how much effort you are putting in… sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, you have to put the effort in. But that effort may not pay off for five years. Some of the effort may never pay off. Other times, simple things might pay off big. Of course you have to assess what you’re putting in. Can you be more efficient? Can you be working smarter? Those are things worth assessing. But if you ever think you’re gonna work a 40 hour week in real estate and guarantee that you’re going to close the deal every six weeks like clockwork, good luck with that.
And now you were asking yourself how this relates to ADHD. Or maybe you’re really self-aware and you’re not asking. But thanks for reading this anyway. Well, he relates to ADHD because we are wired to be invested in the immediate. Neurobiologically we like instant gratification. Of course, especially as we mature, we get better at playing the long game. Whether it’s learning to get a paycheck every other Friday, or learning not to blow it all at once so we can do that thing we wanna do next week, we learn to manage that need for instant gratification.
and because our kryptonite is exists in the forms of boredom, tedium, and “busy work,” we need to be invested in what we’re doing in and in the moment sense. We are not particularly good at doing something that sucks even for an end result that we want. Of course those two things are always related. We all have to do stuff that sucks. If it doesn’t suck too bad and the reward is great enough, we’ll do it. But the “burden of proof” is a lot higher for us. Ideally, we at our best when we are engaging in tasks that “light our dopamine fire,” things that we find stimulating.
Lastly, we REALLY like tangible results. That’s one of the things that I love about (good) recipes. If you don’t know, I’m a classically trained former professional chef. So the cooking part comes pretty easy to me. But if I want to cook something I’ve never cooked before, especially if I want to bake something I haven’t baked before, I need a recipe. I often Frankenstein recipes from several different ones I find on the Internet based on my experience. But without exception, my favorite parts of the recipe are the prep time, cook time, and yield.
Since I’m faster than the average bear, I know that it won’t take me longer. I find it very comforting to know that, as long as the recipe is accurate and I follow the insturctions, I will spend x amount of time preparing and y amount of time cooking to end up with z amount of product. That predictibility warms my heart. Does that make me weird? But a lot of life isn’t like that.
I post a new blog entry on my website (mostly) every week. In theory this means my site contains constantly “new” content. That should help it stay higher in the google rankings. But it doesn’t mean that four posts a month will result in 3.1 inquires and that will result in 1.7 new clients. (Frankly, I don’t know if it does anything!?) But I believe that is is more likely to help than not. I like to write, especially when I [standard disclaimer] don’t really edit or get fussy about mistakes. I enjoy sharing my ADHD knowledge with those who follow. And, it would seem that lots of folks find my website… Though hardly on a consistent, linear basis.
In an ideal world our equation looks like this:
Thing we like doing = Result we really want, (that’s very specific and doesn’t take too long to happen.)
But when you find yourself in an ideal world, send me a postcard. I’d love to visit!
In the meantime, I guess that my advice is to pick your battles. Make as much of life the interesting stuff, so as to balance out the sucky things. Pick your sucky things carefully. Avoid the biggest punishments. Work for the most substantial rewards. And understand that it often isn’t linear. But if you chose wisely and work smart, you should reap the rewards in the long run. But also be prepared for the ups and downs of the long run.
Standard disclaimer. As a person with ADHD, I made the decision when I started my blog, that I didn’t want it to be that thing that I avoided out of perfectionism. I made the decision to get my ideas out there with very little filtering and rarely any editing. Adhering to this philosophy means that I may never have put out a perfect blog post. But it also means that I put a really good blog post out most weeks for the last decade. So please continue to bear with me by overlooking awkward phrasing, typos, grammatical quirks, etc. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the heck out of the contact. P.S. I’m not even gonna read this before I start slapping it on the end of my blog posts. Ha!