Our Own Worst Enemy (rebroadcast)

Welcome to Hacking Your I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.

Hey team, I was listening to the radio the other day when my own worst enemy biked. A fine example of from the late 90s. And while I enjoyed the With me was thinking about the name of that song, My Own Worst Enemy. This is a feeling I often have felt with my age. I seem to have an endless supply of maladaptive and self destructive behaviors that stem from the condition. Poor time managed.

Hyper focusing on non-priority tasks, overcommitting, and procrastination are just a few examples of how my ADHD can manifest in ways that feel And what we're talking about here is this view of ourself as our worst self. That self of ours that comes out in ways that we may later regret or that seem to work against our own interests.

HD, these moments can be frequent and frustrating. There have been many times when I've thought about this worse self of mine and how I wish I could just undo all this bad inside of me. I mean, looking around online, it isn't hard to find people who are prescribing how you can become your However, many of our worst sets Do not indicate our value as a few.

Instead, they were a reflection of our unnet needs and coping mechanisms. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about this worst self of ours, how it manifested, why perhaps we should And also. Moving forward to perhaps not our best self, but at least possibly a better one. If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackingyouradh.com slash one.

I also wanted to let you know about the Hacking Your ADHD newsletter, Eddie and All Distractions. And that's what this newsletter is all about. The things that have caught my interest over the past week that I think also might be interesting to you. In it, I bring you the top things of the week that have caught

From the world of ADHD and beyond. If that sounds like something you'd like in your inbox, just head over to hackingyouradh.com/slash newsletter and Alright, keep on listening to find out how maybe I'm not actually my own word. Thank you. Our worst selves often emerge when we're trying to make up for ways that ADHD impacts our lives. So it's essential to keep in mind that these behaviors manifest for a reason, such as when we are trying to compensate for something.

For instance, overcommitting might stem from a desire to prove our capabilities or to avoid disappointing others, while procrastination can be a response to fear of failure or perfectionism. While other times they will manifest directly because of our ADHD. Poor time management might arise from our struggles to prioritize or inability to estimate how long activities will take, hyperfocusing on non-priority tasks and help avoid the overwhelming anxiety of starting a high priority project.

Or simply be a way for us to build stimulation during an otherwise unstimulating activity.

This is an essential idea for us to embrace. Often, when we think about these habits and behaviors that we see in our worst selves, we simply see them as something that needs to be excised. If I'm procrastinating, think about Well, maybe I should just do the thing that I just shouldn't procrastinate, and I'll stand up and walk over to the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and then just stare at a minute before wandering away because I didn't address the actual reason I was procrastinating.

Procrastination can come from many different sources, and if I'm not addressing the cause and I'm just trying to address the symptoms, which in this case is the procrastination itself, then I'm not going to be making any progress in solving the problem. If it's perfectionism, then I need to redefine what done looks like.

Maybe I'm understimulated and I need to make the task more interesting. Perhaps I don't know where to start and I need to break down the task into more bandageable pieces. Each of those reasons for procrastination requires a different approach to solving the problem. I can't just say, procrastination be gone, and expect any results. Although now that I say it, that does feel kind of fun, so that might work just a little bit.

And this is true for many of our maladaptive behaviors. These behaviors happen for a reason. And if we can work on identifying the root behavior, then that puts us into the right direction of modifying these outcomes. Of course, this doesn't mean that we'll always find simple and easy solutions. In fact, most of the time we will see that we have a lot of work ahead of ourselves, especially on those maladaptive behaviors that have been really baked in.

We're also going to find that many of these behaviors aren't just a result of a single source. For example, I may go, well, my perfectionism comes from my desire to not disappoint people. But then I have to work on figuring out why it's so important for me to not disappoint people. And that in turn may lead to something else as well.

Now I do want to be clear here that I'm not trying to absolve anyone of the consequences of our worst selves. Some of the more extreme maladaptive behaviors we can develop, like anger issues, addiction, or self-carm, can have dire consequences. Rather, this episode is aiming at trying to build that gap of empathy that we might have in regards to those behaviors. While it may seem that we shouldn't have empathy for these behaviors, it's important to realize that they don't exist in a vacuum.

If we want to start modifying the behaviors, then it's also important to understand why we developed them in the first place. Coming from a place of judgment isn't going to help us find a solution, and I often find that the judgment itself obfuscates the reason. If I have an angry outburst and label it as me just being a bad person, well that's not especially helpful for trying to correct that behavior in the future. But if I can step back and say, well,

That was probably because I had a bad night's sleep and I skipped breakfast. Okay, well then that's something I can work on. But not just in terms of, hey, I need to take better care of myself, but also I can go, hey, when I'm not taking care of myself, I'm more likely to get irrationally angry at small things.

I should watch out for the signs that I'm heading into that mental state, so I can head those things off so I don't blow up like that again. I can work on identifying the mental habits that lead to that kind of reaction and see if I can adjust so that even when I'm cranky, I'm also not blowing up.

This self-compassion is one of the most critical steps in managing our ADHD. It's easy to fall into the trap of negative self-talk where we berate ourselves for perceived failures and shortcomings, especially these maladaptive behaviors.

However, this only exacerbates the problem by reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and creating other maladaptive behaviors to try and make up for them. Negative self-talk itself tends to be a maladaptive behavior that we often develop to try and preemptively protect ourselves.

From what we think we'll hear from others. I know for me it frequently came out as a form of self-deprecating humor. No one can make fun of me about how late I or forgetful I am if I'm ahead of the game and I'm the one making the joke. Now, to be sure, this isn't the case for everyone, but more often than not, when I see someone making a joke at their own expense, I can bet that it's probably something that they're actually really sensitive about.

Again, this is where I think it's essential for us to have empathy for ourselves. If we can work on understanding that we're being mean to ourselves in order to protect ourselves, it can help us see how maybe that isn't the best approach for what we're trying to achieve. Because maybe making myself feel bad isn't the best way to keep me from feeling bad? And again, having realizations like this doesn't make the process of changing those hard-baked habits suddenly easy.

If I've been using self-deprecating humor for years, it's going to be hard to break out of that habit. I know when I started working on overcoming some of my negative self-talk, I had the thought, man, I'm such a piece of trash. Wait, no, I shouldn't call myself trash. Yeah, only a piece of trash would call themselves trash. Thanks for that piece of wisdom, Brain. Of course, I responded to the course correction with more negative self-talk because that was the habit I had already developed.

Fortunately for me, I found the humor in this particular situation and the absurdity helped me work through the moment. And we can build on these ideas as we choose to approach our worst selves with empathy. We can recognize that these behaviors are not signs of weakness or moral failings, but as a response to difficult circumstances. By understanding the root cause of our actions we can begin to address them more effectively.

And we can also consider some of the ways that our other worst self behaviors develop. Right now I'm thinking about things like being lazy, which I find is something that often comes up when I'm thinking about my worst self. I mean I'm not doing all of those things I want to be doing, so it fits right in there real nice, huh?

Now, I've done episodes before about how being lazy really isn't a thing, but for this episode, I'm going to focus on an economic idea I have a bit of a problem with, but I think still helps illustrate what I'm talking about. And that's the idea of maximizing versus satisficing. The basic idea is that maximizing involves seeking the best possible outcome, while satisficing is about settling for a good enough outcome.

My problem with this idea is that I feel like maximizing has a problem with definitions because it's about maximizing our outcome. But the maximum outcome is subjective. I've seen this concept in terms of something like finding lunch. A maximizer will spend time finding the best restaurant that's going to give them the best lunch experience, while a satisficer is going to find one that's good enough.

But that defines the end goal there as best lunch experience. What if I'm maximizing the speed of getting food into my mouth? Or what if I'm on a budget and I'm maximizing my bang for my buck? Both of those are valid things to maximize that the best lunch experience maximizer would view as satisficing. The point here is that we're often maximizing for something, but it isn't always the best possible outcome. In terms of our ADHD, we're often optimizing ourselves for

less desirable long term outcomes in favor of immediate satisfaction. Instead of hanging up my coat, I'll toss it in the corner because that's faster. And I'm optimizing for speed here, even though realistically it would only take me seconds to hang that thing up. What this means is this whole idea is one of priorities. What's important to me now versus what's important to me in the future. So let's go back to laziness.

I tend to find that what we define as laziness is really about us not meeting our needs. Because when we step back and look at the reasons behind why we're not doing something, it's rarely because I just don't want to do it. Although that is also a perfectly valid reason. And let's start with this I don't wanna.

What's the reason behind what we don't want to do? Is it a lack of motivation? Is it because it's genuinely an unpleasant task? Because those are solvable problems, or at least problems where we can alleviate some of that burden. If it's motivation, we can work on figuring out what would make it more interesting for us to do. Maybe you need to listen to some music while doing it, or figuring out a reward to go along with completing that task.

And if it's just genuinely unpleasant, we can figure out what would make it less unpleasant. And here I'm thinking about maybe cleaning something gross where a good pair of gloves and some air freshener could help. Of course, that isn't going to make it more enjoyable, but it might make it more bearable.

Or maybe we have something like we want to start going to the gym more, but we're finding that after work we're just so exhausted we can't get ourselves to make it happen. Labing ourselves lazy here would be easy, but pushing through that resistance probably isn't the answer either.

The first thing to look at here is whether or not we're giving ourselves enough rest to have that energy, but it also could be simply an issue of timing. Maybe going to the gym right after work isn't the best time for you, but you might have better luck working out in the morning or the evening. Our energy levels will always fluctuate throughout the day, so we're going to have times when doing things like going and working out will be harder and times when they will be easier.

The point here is that often the piece of the picture we're missing when we're thinking about our worst self is that maybe our worst self is coming out to meet those unmet needs that we're just trying to ignore. Sure, it would be awesome if I had infinite motivation and energy throughout the day, but no one has that. And this applies just well beyond physical energy. We also need emotional connection, mental stimulation, and doing things that bring meaning to our lives.

When we're not purposefully meeting these needs, we'll find other ways to compensate for them. This is where we can see many maladaptive behaviors coming out. If we're missing something like finding meaning in our lives, it's easy to turn to things that will numb those feelings instead of seeking out what we need. This means that if you're trying to correct that behavior of, say, just zoning out in front of your TV while scrolling on your phone for hours,

you need to find something that will fill those holes behaviors are filling. And it's not an easy path, but it's certainly a more fulfilling one. I know a few months ago I did an episode about Gaber Mate's interpretation of ADHD and how I didn't agree with him there, but right now I'm thinking of a quote of his regarding addiction, which goes, Ask not why the addiction, but why the pain. And that really sums up what this episode is about.

We want to go beyond just looking at the behavior and see what's driving it. What's the underlying trigger driving the behavior? If we're seeking to better ourselves, we must go beyond treating the symptoms. While it's easy to assign moralistic values to the behavior of our worst self, I think it's important to step back and just acknowledge that the behavior is what it is and view it as something that we developed for survival.

Sure, it wasn't the best way for our brains to go about things, but it worked with what it had. With that in mind, we can work on setting realistic goals for modifying our behavior. We want to focus on making sure that we're meeting our needs and doing the things that align with who we want to be. The focus here is on creating realistic routines and habits for us to keep up with.

This isn't about instantly becoming our best self overnight. Instead, we're just doing a bit of course correction to try and get to the place that we actually want to end up at. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs with this process, so it's important that we're coming at it with emphasis and understanding that it won't be easy. Thanks for sticking with me all the way to the end. Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tip.

1. Approach the idea of your worst self with empathy. Focus on the fact that you develop these maladaptive behaviors for a reason. 2. Pay attention to situations and emotions that trigger your worst behaviors to anticipate and manage them more effectively. 3. Often our maladaptive behaviors come out when we're not doing a good job of meeting our basic needs. If we're engaging in numbing behaviors, we can look below the symptoms to try and see what's really setting them off.

That's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me over at Hacking Your ADHD.com slash contact. If you'd like links or to read this episode's transcript, you can go to the show notes page at hackingyouradh.com slash one eight. And now for your moment of death. If you spell the word absolutely nothing. You get zupa, which coincidentally means absolutely.