One mistake many parents and professionals make is assuming people with ADHD are interested in changing to improve their lives.
It isn’t that they don’t want to change, it’s that they often don’t believe they’re able to create the necessary changes required to make the effort worth it.
We’re talking about a community of people who often has difficulty finishing what they start, have difficulty getting started at all, struggle with creating an action plan let alone executing on one.
People with life long difficulties in these areas can end up with such brutal self-talk they believe themselves to be stupid, incompetent, worthless etc.
The first thing to establish with any person living with ADHD you’ve been entrusted to help – is their mindset.
1. Is change something they want?
2. Do they believe they are capable of making the change(s) they want?
3. If things were more like they wanted them to be, what would be different?
4. What one thing could they do to begin making that change?
5. What do they need to believe about themselves in order to take that first action?
6. Do they agree to act as if what they believed what was stated in #5 is true?
7. Do they agree to take the new action and report back?
How they respond to this exercise will tell you a lot about how flexible their thinking is, their level of self-doubt etc.
Again, the objective is to introduce the possibility that change remains accessible and achievable but isn’t attainable until the individual believes it is. Mindset before Skillset.
