Transcription
ADHD can feel like living with a curse that's been spelled on you. Why? Because compared to the norm, your brain can make your life totally chaotic and depressing. And if you don't manage to avoid falling into this curse, that's the prison population, that's the addicted population, that's the unemployed population, the marginalized, the people who can't stay in a relationship, the people whose dreams never come true, and to die young. Yeah, it can literally take years off your life. It's almost like 95% of people are starting at level 1, whilst you are starting at level -1.
However, if you manage ADHD properly, if you learn to master this curse, you can actually become super successful. And despite what you might believe, it can actually become a blessing. And I'm going to show you how you can easily do that in just a minute. But first, let's start out by analyzing why it's always so black and white. Why is it that you will either fail completely or become massively successful?
Well, it's the same reason why you either exercise really hard or not at all. Why you either eat really healthy or really unhealthy. Why you're either hyperfocused or not focused at all. And why you either feel like you're having really good days or absolutely terrible ones. Because if you have ADHD, you can't do the ordinary. You don't do the okay or meh. It's always all or nothing.
Because your brain has a disregulation of dopamine, meaning your levels of mood, motivation, and focus either spike up or down. There's literally no middle ground. And if you don't know how to hack this dopamine regulation, you will end up in a downward spiral that is difficult to get out of. Because these negative days then comfortably compound over your life, which is when you may find yourself so deep down the pit that you're completely lost, isolated, and feel hopeless on a path that often feels like it's predetermined by fate, because you feel like you've lost all control.
But what if we could compound the great days instead? What would happen then? Well, I can tell you what would happen. Our brain would level up faster than any neurotypical person ever could. And there's a way to do that. Fellow ADHDers like Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Jim Carrey, or Bill Gates have figured it out. Or do you think Bill Gates has trouble staying consistent? No, it's easy for him.
You simply need to choose the path you want your life with ADHD to take. Either you remain where you are right now, accepting that you'll be stuck there indefinitely if you don't take action and make the few simple changes I'm about to share with you, or you go down the path of beating the ADHD curse and watch your life transform. You have the power to do that, and it's never too late to go down that route, no matter how hard things are feeling right now. You don't have to be a slave to your brain. Equipped with the right knowledge, systems, and tools, you can learn to trust yourself again. You can learn to have hope again. And you can beat the ADHD curse in just three easy steps. This is what I'm going to share with you right now. Make sure to watch until the end because all the steps build on top of each other, and steps one and two would be nothing without step three.
Step one: If you're watching this, chances are you're stuck chasing fast dopamine and feel out of control. You may not believe that change is possible, and I get it. I've been there. After my diagnosis 7 years ago, I discovered that all the problems that ADHD attracts into my life are driven by my brain's inability to say no to instant gratification, AKA fast dopamine. And it all starts anew every single day. Think about it. When you wake up, what's the first thing you do? Do you check your phone, or do you make your bed? Do you watch a YouTube video or get dressed immediately? Then, then what does that lead to? The reason I'm asking is because even though it may seem minor, these small actions in the morning are often the predetermining factor for the rest of your day. You either get stuck in a negative dopamine cycle after checking your phone and losing yourself on Instagram, or you get stuck in a positive feedback loop of accomplishment that gives you momentum to tackle more. Because while things like checking social media make you feel really good right away, we know that they are also a lot more short-lived. The pleasure is artificial and therefore fades quickly, leaving a desire for more and opening up the potential for addiction, especially when you have a disregulation of dopamine. And so, if you chase dopamine in the morning, you will end up in a dopamine-seeking loop for the rest of your day. For example, if you check your phone in the morning, you will much more likely get distracted by it again later. Because when your brain is looking to scratch that itch, it almost instinctively reaches for that phone before you even realize it. You're distracted again, doom scrolling, not doing what you actually wanted to do. And when you put your phone down and try to concentrate, it gets more difficult every single time. If this was a game, this would almost be like if you kept choosing the same passage where a spider keeps attacking you until you're dead. You keep leveling down and have less and less power. After the 50th time, it's almost like you're in a trance, just clicking on that passage, not knowing why. It's like you're a puppet with no control.
But we all know those ADHD mornings, right? Those mornings where your restless brain didn't let you sleep, where you literally lie in bed and tell yourself that today is lost. You start thinking about all the things you should be doing, and the day just becomes bigger and bigger and more overwhelming. And how are you going to be able to follow through with this for the next couple of weeks? What are people going to think? Let's just check your phone for some quick relief. Stop. Breathe. What's the first thing you can do right now? Is it just getting out of bed? Okay, let's do that. Wow, that was actually alright. Okay, now let's get under the shower and see what happens. Okay, time to make the bed. Wow, I'm feeling better already. Okay, now let's just sit down and try to focus. Do you see what we did there? One little exception for us ADHDers can cascade like a domino effect. And so, instead of getting stuck in a negative dopamine cycle, it's almost like we charge ourselves up. Instead of stressing about the day and thinking about everything we needed to get done, we built an on-ramp for our ADHD brains. I know those negative thoughts when you're lying in bed are so stimulating. "I'm not this person today. I can't do it. This is too much." But for us, very often, it's just about showing up and seeing what happens. We get overwhelmed by thinking about everything that needs to get done, and everything changes once we focus on just the first couple of steps. Just making your bed and seeing what happens. Just sitting down in front of your PC and working on something for 5 minutes. Starting with the easy fills up your dopamine so you can tackle more later. It allows you to decrease the level of difficulty you start working at and is absolutely essential for your ADHD brain. This is the first step to leveling up.
Step two: The truth is, it's not just about your morning. Because even if you start your morning right, most of the time you are still chasing the wrong activities, which multiplies your chances of slipping into oblivion because you're more impulsive and driven to fast rewards. If you don't see a fun and easy way forward. By the way, what did that word "easy" just do to you? Did it feel bad that we needed to be easy? Here's something I want you to internalize forever. Something society doesn't acknowledge is for the fact that we're interest-driven and that we therefore need to chase the easy. Think back to your childhood. You either did great at subjects you loved or terrible in the ones you hated, right? The same principle still applies to your adult life. You can't force yourself to do things because your brain is allergic to "shoulds." Needing to do something not because you want to, but because that's the way it's done. However, the sad truth is that everyone tells us to do exactly that. Friends, family, even loved ones may mean well when telling us that we should be nicer to ourselves, we should see the positive more. But what they don't know is that for every "should," our brain depletes its almost empty dopamine reserves even more because all of a sudden, it's a task. It's no longer something that we want to inherently do. And so, the most important question you need to ask yourself is this: What are things that I look forward to? And how can I find interest in the things I'm currently doing? This question then applies to two areas of your life: your activities and your main mission. In both of these areas, you're always presented with your opportunity to charge yourself up, level up, or suck yourself dry, level down.
Activities are things that live next to your main mission. Think of activities as small side quests that either level you up or lead you astray. The types of people you meet up with, the things you do with them, the things you do alone when you're bored. I want you to ask yourself: Do these things usually charge you up? Do you have more energy after? Are you doing things that you actually enjoy? Or are you living someone else's life? Are you finding that you need to constantly force yourself to do something? Are you finding that you're constantly masking your true self with the people you're with? Can you actually connect with your people and have your social needs met? Here's a good test: If you find yourself chasing fast dopamine after the activity, like through fast food or alcohol, chances are these people or things are poisoning your mind to chase instant gratification and aren't truly satisfying you. If that's you, don't worry, because it's never too late to change these activities. What we want to start doing is getting dopamine from them instead of them getting dopamine from us. I want you to imagine for a second what it would be like if it was easy to get dopamine from exercise, connection, or work. Sounds weird, right? For some reason, it's never something we associate with being easy. It always sounds like a chore. "You should exercise more. You should call your friends more. You should work more." So deflating. I immediately don't want to do it. But what about wanting instead of weightlifting, which may feel like a chore to you, playing a sport you actually like? Instead of needing to reach out to people that you don't really care about, devoting your time to the people that truly matter to you, whose lives you're genuinely interested in, where you laugh unconditionally. That's good dopamine right there. You see, chasing good dopamine instead of fast dopamine is not just about needing to make the right decision for us. You've got to make good dopamine easy to chase and bad dopamine hard to chase. It's about creating a new normal where you don't even have to make decisions anymore. Changing your environment to be true to you, knowing your differences, not abandoning yourself, and understanding that you have these basic needs like connection that you are allowed to get met your way.
Now, here's the crazy part. Research shows that you build the best dopamine through things that you enjoy. In other words, once you stop people-pleasing and learn to listen to yourself, your life will change its trajectory. Your reward is a free life, a happy life. And if you have ADHD, you now know that you literally need to live an authentic life to not go under. There is no other option. Which leads me to my last and most important step.
Step three: When we land in jobs or careers that promise safety but aren't something we genuinely want to do, as ADHDers, we often end up chasing fast dopamine in our free time through partying or playing video games because we're not getting it elsewhere. We are not charging ourselves up. We're sucking ourselves dry every single day. Even though it may feel like you're leveling up, in reality, you're leveling down because you're sacrificing yourself for the external money, status. It doesn't mean much if you don't like what you're doing. And so, instead of having an occupation or following a career, you need a mission. Truly something bigger than you, where it's easy to make the right decision of starting that positive feedback loop every morning because you have something to look forward to. I strongly believe that if you have ADHD, you can only truly thrive once you live life on your own terms. We lose the game once days become effortful and win once they become effortless. We need to think about what comes easy to you and then make the decision to actively engage in these domains more, erasing the belief that easy is bad.
Now, here's the twist and why the game of ADHD can make you hyper-successful exponentially. Once you follow the easy and you have a mission, you actually have an unfair advantage because of your dopamine deficiency. Because while our brain can trap us in negativity, it can also be the reason why we're able to hyperfocus on things that we love. You may have noticed time passing at incredible speeds when you're playing a game you like. The same can happen with your mission. All of a sudden, you need that mission instead of those destructive things we talked about earlier to fuel you, which makes all the difference. And all of this is possible once you get hyper-fixated on building your dream life. For me, it's been becoming a full-time content creator, which shows that even with ADHD, you can stay consistent for over 3 years. I've never missed an upload for longer than a week during this time.
But where can you start? Yes, you watching this video. I didn't forget about you. The first step to getting hyper-fixated on building a life you love is by finding out what your personality type is so you can see where your areas of interest lie and then pursue those areas relentlessly. Actually taking an MBTI 16 personality test and checking what areas of jobs or careers are recommended. Maybe it's writing, or video editing. Maybe it's networking, or art. Maybe it's stand-up comedy. There is no wrong answer here, and nobody, absolutely nobody, can tell you what that answer is except for you. This may well be a huge aha moment for you. After you figure that out, you need to craft your why. In order to get interested in building a life you love, you need to find interest in it. And so, you need a mission statement that resonates with you deeply and authentically. Ask yourself these questions: What is your contribution? Who do you impact? And why does it matter? Reflecting on these questions can provide valuable insights into your why, guiding you towards a more purposeful and meaningful life. There's a reason why Simon Sinek, one of the most well-known motivational speakers, has ADHD and literally wrote a book on finding your why. If finding your why sounds too overwhelming, ask yourself what you're curious about. We can't fake that, and simply following your curiosity will lead to the authentic life that we're referencing here.
Now, at this point, you may be asking yourself, "This is all great, and I'll leave a like because I'm inspired. Thanks for that, by the way. But chances are, I'll forget this tomorrow and won't turn my life around. This video was just a quick dopamine hit from my brain, and I'll never be able to achieve my dreams." Well, if that's what you're thinking, I don't blame you. A lot of us ADHDers have stopped believing and have lost hope because of the amount of times we told ourselves that we'll change it all and didn't. That's why I want to help you kickstart this and actually turn your life around this time. By far the most crucial step to fully integrating the lessons from this video into your life is to consistently and intentionally work on them with focus. However, as we all know, this can be very challenging for those of us with ADHD. But most people have no idea that there's actually an extremely simple way to consistently focus, execute, and stay on track without falling into this loop of procrastination and executive dysfunction we all know too well. It works by using something called curated external triggers, and countless ADHDers are already taking advantage of it. If you're interested in understanding how it works and how you can apply this strategy into your own life, click the link in the video description. In it, there's another free video that explains everything in detail. So, click the link below, and we'll see each other in the next one.