Friendships usually grow out of common interests and become stronger as you spend more time together. Friendship is a contact sport so you have to get out and get involved. It can be scary, but have realistic expectations – do you really need a posse? or will one good, loyal friend meet your need for companionship? ADHDers tend to wear their hearts on their sleeve and can get hurt easily, but that’s a risk you need to take if you want to build meaningful relationships.
At a camp several years ago, I asked a roomful of junior highers what was most important to them. Top of the list? Friends! (I’m sure friends are in the Top 5 no matter your age.) In this day of social media you know exactly how many friends you have – just check your Facebook profile, right? But how many of these people are true friends to you? So today’s thought is: What makes someone a true friend?
An Enemy Called Average by John Mason is an oldie, but a goodie. Filled with over 100 “nuggets” of motivation, each is no longer than two pages and some are just quick quotes. I like to randomly flip to a page and see what I find. Today: “Am I on the path to something marvelous, or something absolutely mediocre?” A good question to ask yourself on a daily basis!
Delivered from Distraction a book by Hallowell & Ratey has brought me much hope. ADHD can be overwhelming and make you feel like you’re losing your mind and that you’re all alone in your struggle. Books like this one, help you verbalize and translate what’s happening in your head. It’s a great starting point to learn about ADHD. I usually suggest it to older teens and adults who suspect that they may have ADHD or newly diagnosed individuals.
If your ADHD came with Dyslexia like mine did, then reading probably has been and continues to be a challenge. But guess what? Hard or not, reading makes you better! If you struggle with words like I do, remember, the only way to get better is to keep at it. Your vocabulary grows, your spelling gets better, you can express yourself more clearly and all these help with self-confidence. Reading is the p90X for the brain!
I meant to tell you last week, but ADDers are notoriously late. I’m just kidding about this post being late, but we’re still characterized by our lateness.
During the first year of my career, I was late to almost every one of my shows.
While I wasn’t quite Harry Potter growing up, I had a magic notebook. It wasn’t full of spells, but it saved me from getting derailed by the biggest enemy of the ADDer’s focus: a passing thought.
ADHD comes with the gift of imaginative creativity, which, when used properly, can sprout great artwork and ideas. This creativity is a huge part of who I am and what I do. However, we can abuse that creativity as ADHD gives us a sort of a loophole that we can exploit to get out of our responsibilities.
In an earlier blog post, I explained how I used to wait for the perfect time to pursue my passion: writing a book. It wasn’t until my wife suggested (and when I say ‘suggested’, I mean basically stood on a chair and screamed in my ear) that I needed to stop waiting and just start writing that I actually got something done. Since then, I’ve written three books and am working on my fourth as I write this.
Most people might think that giving a project to someone with ADD is a great way to make sure that it won’t get done. That we would work on it for a few moments until we get distracted by something and that would be that. Nothing can be further from the truth…if you give us …
A lesson that I’ve learned over and over is that repetition works. If I want to be good at something, I need to do it a ton of times.
I grew up with learning disabilities and problems with reading comprehension (a lot of people who have ADHD also have Dyslexia and other Learning Disabilities).
I once met a kid who had an interesting game that he played when he was bored. I forget whether he had a name for it, but the local authorities did: breaking and entering.
I didn’t meet this kid at a jail. He never stole anything. He just broke into people’s homes to see if he could. He loved taking risks, and since his town didn’t offer much by way of entertainment, he started inventing his own.
At an event in Southern Indiana, I met Blake. He was a kid who had more energy than he knew what to do with, and that got him into trouble. He had no outlet for this energy, so it built up until it exploded during a time of frustration. He never hurt anyone but himself by punching a wall or doing something destructive or impulsive.
Well, if you’re a Green Bay Packer fan, you may have problems narrowing down the answer… (you caught me – I’m a die-hard Vikings fan). 😀
I pose the above question to people wherever I go and the overwhelming number of responses is probably the one the one you were thinking of as well: Us! We beat ourselves up more than anyone else in our lives. We throw mental self-punches for a variety of reasons; we start young and do it often: