The frog stared at me, and I just couldn't eat it (sound familiar?)

Hope your week is going well so far.

This week I wanted to share a piece of advice that I have to remind myself of almost daily, because the old programming and conventional thinking keeps creeping in and tries to default me back to how I was taught to do things. So this might help you too.

It is this concept of 'Eat that frog' - a book written by Brian Tracy. It revolves around the idea that if you had to eat a frog, then that should be the very first thing you do when you wake up, and that way, you've accomplished your biggest challenge, gained momentum, and avoided procrastination. Then the rest of your day will be lovely and effortless.

Sounds blissful...but it has NEVER, and I mean, NEVER, worked for me.

I always thought it was because I was lazy and gave myself a really hard time. I built up decades of shame as I watched people around me being able to just start and complete things, whilst I would freeze up and procrastinate like a pro.

For so long, I built up a deeply held belief that I just wasn't good enough. I watched everyone around me seemingly 'get on with it', stick to their schedules, do things on time, be consistent - all the things I couldn't seem to do, no matter how hard I tried. And every time I broke my own intentions and procrastinated on the things that really mattered to me, I felt like a failure and filed it away as more evidence that I was the faulty one.

The comparison started early. As a teenager, I remember watching my lovely sister sit down every day to revise for her GCSEs, following her schedule to perfection, whilst I struggled to even open the first page of my revision notes. Then it was my friends at uni. Then the other doctors. Then the officers in the Army. Everywhere I looked, I collected more proof that everyone else could do this thing that I just couldn't.

Even now, with all the external evidence that I AM capable, that deeply held fear of 'I'm not good enough' is still present at times. That's how much shame can accumulate over decades.

To compensate, I've had many periods of my life where I've worked relentlessly, forcing myself to be productive in such an unsustainable way that I've burnt out more times than I'd like to count.

It is only in the last couple of years that I've finally understood what was going on: I was applying the OPPOSITE strategy to what actually works for my brain, and feeling absolutely awful that I couldn't get it to work.

Anyway, back to that frog...

Because ADHD brains have lower amounts of dopamine available to them, initiating tasks (for which dopamine is required) can feel insurmountable - even when the person is completely capable of achieving said task. Additionally, for ADHD brains, interest, novelty and challenge drive activation far more than importance does.

So tackling the hardest, most difficult task as the very first thing is just setting ourselves up for failure. There isn't enough dopamine there to get it initiated, and a task perceived as hard or complex quickly overwhelms an ADHD brain and makes it freeze up.

What I've realised instead is that I'm far more likely to get started if I set myself the EASIEST, almost effortless task possible as my first task. It needs to feel really simple, small, and quick to complete. For instance, the task could be to write 3 YouTube video ideas. That's it.

It's so small, it's almost meaningless. But what happens once a small easy task is completed is that the brain then feels good, releases more dopamine, and builds enough momentum so that bigger tasks become easier to tackle and accomplish. It's funny because once my brain is fully activated, it's often really hard for me to stop!

I now see this as 'priming' my brain, or doing a bit of a warm up, like we do when we are going to exercise.

It doesn't mean I'm lazy! (I have to keep repeating this to myself even to this day) - I'm actually incredibly driven and love accomplishing things. It's just that I was forcing my brain into something that was producing the opposite result, and destroying my confidence and self-trust in the process.

This has been my experience so far, and I've found it's really resonated with other high-achievers with ADHD.

However, I'm sure that different people have different experiences. So I would genuinely love to know - are you someone that prefers to eat that frog first? Or do you find the idea of tackling the easiest task first something that gives you a sense of relief?

Thanks for sharing with me ☺️ And wishing you a wonderful rest of your week!

Warmly,

Marcela