What ADHD Adults Need to Build Self-Esteem
Episode Summary:
Many ADHD adults struggle with self-esteem and confidence, often because of internalized messages about their abilities or inconsistent performance.
It’s easy to feel like your worth is tied to what you accomplish or how “on top of things” you appear.
In this episode, I explore why traditional advice on building self-esteem often misses the mark for ADHD adults, and how practicing self-compassion can create a foundation for real confidence.
You’ll learn how to navigate setbacks, separate your abilities from your identity, and start building self-belief that lasts.
By the end, you’ll have practical insights to feel more capable, resilient, and ready to pursue the life you want without being trapped by self-judgment.
What You’ll Learn About ADHD and Self-Esteem:
- How ADHD-related challenges can make self-esteem feel fragile and tied to performance.
- Why conventional self-esteem advice often doesn’t work for ADHD adults.
- How internalized messages can shape self-perception and self-worth.
- How practicing self-compassion helps you separate your abilities from your identity.
- Strategies to overcome setbacks while building self-confidence and self-esteem.
Transcript:
(00:02): How can adults with ADHD start building self-esteem?
Have you thought to yourself, or maybe even perhaps been told, that you need to be more self-confident? Along with this, maybe you’ve also thought that you need to work on raising your self-esteem, or maybe other people have told you this.
You’ve tuned into Re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to be able to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins, an ADHD and executive function coach, and I’m glad you decided to join me today on this journey toward finding your way to doing what matters most to you without trying to do it like everyone else.
So, as not to leave you in suspense, I’m going to start by giving the ending away, and that is that self-esteem and self-confidence definitely matter, but there’s a precursor necessary for ADHD adults and, well, really for anyone: at the core of how you view yourself, the foundation has to be self-compassion.
(01:12):
Otherwise, you likely won’t be able to build your self-esteem and self-confidence, at least not effectively. If you’ve listened to my podcast before, you know that I rarely say things categorically. That is, I tend to think in shades of gray about most topics. But on this topic of the importance of self-compassion, I’m a hundred percent sure that’s where we need to start. Yet I know that some of you who are listening may hold the view that self-compassion might mean that you won’t try hard enough, you’ll become lazy, and will be more likely to give up when the going gets tough. If that’s you, I encourage you just to hang with me for a bit and then draw your own conclusions. When you finish listening to this episode, you may be surprised.
Okay, so let’s get back to the beginning and unpack this by first starting with a few definitions.
(02:10):
Kristin Neff, who is one of the prime experts on self-compassion, defines self-esteem as a global evaluation of self-worth, a judgment: Am I a good person or am I a bad person? If you struggle with self-esteem, how you and others have addressed the challenges you’ve experienced related to your ADHD have likely contributed to these difficulties that you are now facing with your self-esteem. Over the course of your life, this may have contributed to other mental health challenges you may have, such as depression and anxiety. As we know, it’s not a one-way street. Your depression and anxiety may make it harder to operate with your ADHD challenges, at least effectively. These challenges may have come from the messages you received over the years—maybe from parents, teachers, bosses, or partners—that you are irresponsible, selfish, smart but lazy, too sensitive, or not living up to your potential.
(03:18): How does growing up with undiagnosed ADHD affect self-esteem
Over time, these messages can become part of your identity, something you internalize and may still believe about yourself to this day. Take a moment to think about the messages you’ve received from people—again, parents, friends, partners, colleagues, or bosses—regarding behaviors that, in hindsight, maybe you now know are related to your ADHD. Once you see your origin story, you can start to rewrite it in a way that supports you now and makes sense.
Now, despite these messages, I’m guessing you’ve probably been fairly resilient. You may have even experienced success in your professional life, your family life, or hobbies. And even if you’ve kept it together outwardly, there may have always been cracks in the foundation, though. That’s partly because repeated comments about your behavior became interpretations of your identity. For example, I was often told I was too sensitive and just shouldn’t take things so hard.
(04:25):
I used to believe that. I don’t anymore. I think I’m the right amount of sensitive, and now it helps me professionally and personally to be more attuned to others. The tricky part is when these messages become internalized. You may tell yourself things like: I’m unreliable. I’m not trustworthy. Something’s wrong with me. I should be doing better. I’m barely getting by, and they’re going to find out. Or maybe I’m failing at the basics.
If you haven’t yet created the support or environment to manage your ADHD challenges, these messages become chronic. So, there’s missed deadlines, skipped steps, forgetfulness, misjudged time, unfinished tasks, and each occurrence can feel like proof that the messages were true—that you are somehow broken. It becomes “I can’t do X” becomes “I am X,” and this deep sense of shame can override all of your achievements. You may see yourself as flaky, lazy, incapable, or “too much.”
(05:39):
I see this every day in clients who are lawyers, doctors, professors, therapists, bankers, academics, and people raising complex families—people who look successful but struggle with confidence. If this sounds familiar, it makes sense. Low self-esteem affects how confident you feel tackling challenges. So, how does all of this internal messaging show up in your day-to-day experience? Let’s take a look at the rollercoaster of self-esteem you may ride as an ADHD adult.
This is where it gets really interesting, so I’m glad you’re still with me. Self-compassion lets you step off that low self-esteem and low self-confidence rollercoaster, because right now, like many others, you may think that your self-esteem and self-confidence will get better once you get better at all of the things you find challenging. Maybe that’s why you’re listening to this podcast, and I’m a fan of self-improvement, so I don’t want to dissuade you from that path. But it’s also important to remember that ADHD performance is inconsistent.
(06:50): How can ADHD adults stop letting inconsistent performance define their self-esteem?
Yes, I am positive that you can learn more about your ADHD and how to do better in your various domains. I’d be out of a job if this weren’t true. But you’re still going to have your ADHD. There’s no cure, as you know. You can think of ADHD like living in a shifting weather system which you have no control over. Yes, you can learn to check the forecast and dress for the day—that is, you can learn to build support systems to help you in different contexts. Some days may be sunnier and clearer because of your efforts, or honestly just because. But other times, despite your best efforts, the days may be foggy, rainy, or even bring hurricane gales—and your raincoat just isn’t going to help.
Here’s an example I’ve used before, for those of you who have been listening for a while.
(07:43):
I write every day, but I never know when I get up how effective I’m going to be, which is why I write every day. Sometimes it’s easy, and other days I spend more time staring at the trees and sky than at my computer. When that happens, I’m definitely disappointed and a little frustrated, but I try to accept it, get a cup of coffee, and hope that tomorrow’s a better day. It usually is, because the weather patterns come and go.
What becomes more problematic is when your self-esteem and self-confidence rise and fall with the changing weather patterns. Or in other words, you and others’ judgment about your performance. On any given day, if I told myself I was lazy or that I must not care about my writing, I might be less willing to engage the next day. Likewise, when it rains, whatever that means for you, if you judge yourself, you may feel crushed and then tell yourself all sorts of unhelpful stories about what that rain means.
(08:47):
On the other hand, when you are feeling good about your performance in your various domains and perhaps get good feedback from others, you feel good about yourself and more confident that you’re on the right path. You may even think to yourself, “I got this.”
The goal of using self-compassion is not to give yourself a pass or to try to control the weather patterns so that you’re always feeling good. The ultimate goal is to acknowledge your challenges, including your ADHD challenges. And then learn how to build a support system that is flexible and not rigid—and then not blame yourself again for the inevitable rain, because it’s going to come.
So let’s dig in and see exactly how you can do this. First, of course, as I like to do, we’ll start with a definition according to Dr. Kristin Neff. Self-compassion means that instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with your failings. After all, she says, whoever said you were supposed to be perfect?
She goes on to outline three components of this: one is self-kindness rather than self-judgment, common humanity versus isolation. And the third is mindfulness rather than over-identification.
Let’s see what this might look like if you apply it to your ADHD. One component is that you are kind to yourself rather than judging yourself. Even or maybe especially when you feel you fall short of your or others’ expectations because of your ADHD challenges. For example, one of my clients, who’s a vet, had a hard time transitioning when the vet tech would come in to fill them in on the patient before he went to see the animal. He was able to reflect on this and note that he wasn’t doing this intentionally.
(11:09): What strategies help ADHD adults ADHD develop self-esteem despite setbacks?
The second component is that you also recognize that you are not alone in the experience you are having as an ADHD adult. That is, you share this experience with many others. Trust me, you do. Your challenges can connect you to others rather than separating you.
In the case of the veterinarian, he also recognized that when he was deep in the work he was doing at his desk, it was just hard for him to transition. Just like it is hard for many other ADHD adults when they’re in the midst of a task to transition from one task to another.
The third component is that you are mindful of your negative emotions, ones that maybe you don’t like. That is, you can identify and be with these emotions, but you don’t waste time and energy avoiding or running away from them. You also don’t adopt your shortcomings as your identity.
In the case of my client, instead of telling himself that he was being disrespectful, he was able to recognize that the behavior may have seemed disrespectful to others, but it wasn’t his identity nor his intention.
(12:14):
It’s not that self-esteem of ADHD adults is low because of lack of ability—in this case, the challenge of transitioning. It’s because of being told that these abilities determine your self-worth, and then believing that. But self-compassion keeps you standing while you learn and grow. In this example, he was able to be kind to himself while also figuring out how to handle these contexts better. He asked the vet tech to get his attention when they came into his office. He would then ask them for a minute to finish whatever he was doing, and then he would stand up to face them and have the conversation.
Self-compassion is not just about finding solutions. It’s about being kind to yourself, whether there’s a solution or not. When things go wrong, you can use self-compassion to be kind to yourself because your self-esteem is no longer tied to your productivity. Inconsistency stops feeling like a moral failing, and inevitable criticism becomes less catastrophic. Occasional setbacks don’t wipe out all your progress and shame—it just doesn’t run the show any longer. This lets you stop needing to compare yourself to others.
In part, this can happen for you because you start to see that your ADHD behavior traits are the result of wiring differences. That’s all. It’s not a character flaw or a moral verdict. There are indeed things that you realistically might not be able to do as well as your neurotypical peers—like transitioning at the drop of a dime or being productive at the exact moment you decide you’re going to do something—but with self-compassion, you can realistically look at your abilities without letting them determine your worth.
Here are the steps you can use to do that:
(14:42):
Step one: notice the story you’re telling yourself right now, then remind yourself where it came from, and more importantly, that you can create a new storyline.
Step two: separate your abilities from your identity. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and your particular ADHD brain wiring means you have various executive function weaknesses that make some things harder to do. But forgetting the one thing that you went to the grocery store to get doesn’t mean you’re a flake.
Step three: respond with kindness instead of criticism when things inevitably go awry. Sometimes this may look like forgetting the one thing you went to the grocery store to get. Though small, this is a reason for self-compassion. When you are kind to yourself, you may also be in a better position to take step four: access the right resources to help you work with your ADHD.
For example, if you’re accepting of your challenges and kind to yourself—let’s say with memory—maybe you’d be willing to write that one thing down on a piece of paper rather than assuming that you’ll remember. You might think, “Who wouldn’t remember one thing that they went to the grocery store to get?”
(15:49): How can talking openly about ADHD challenges reduce shame and rebuild self-esteem?
That could also look like adding body doubling or accountability to help you follow through with your work when the interest just isn’t there. You do this perhaps not because there’s anything wrong with you, but because you want to be able to do what’s important to you and to lessen the shame.
Step five: talk more openly about your challenges. Whether or not you share with people that you have ADHD, you might say in a meeting, “That’s not my strong suit, but I’ll be happy to do the follow-up after.” When you open up and speak your truth, as Brené Brown reminds us, you take the air out of shame. One low-risk way to start is finding your people in settings like support groups, in person or online, such as the Mastermind I offer in the Added Perspectives Club, where we share our truths without judgment. Then hopefully, you’ll be able to say to yourself honestly, “I was never lazy, crazy, or stupid. I was just overwhelmed because of all of my executive function challenges.”
(17:01):
What I hope you’re taking away from this episode is that self-compassion isn’t giving up. It’s giving yourself a climate where you can thrive. A lot of ADHD adults worry that if they stop criticizing themselves, they’ll become lazy or unmotivated—but research and real-world experiences show the opposite. Think of a garden. If the soil is too harsh, too dry, or too depleted, things don’t grow; they wilt, right? Self-compassion isn’t removing structure or accountability. It just replaces the harsh criticism or sand with rich soil. It’s giving your brain what it needs to stay with the hard things. Shame might light a fire under you once in a while, but it burns out fast and leaves damage behind. Compassion, on the other hand, lets your effort take root and allows for recovery after failure while making it safer to try again.
(18:14):
That’s it for now. If you want to learn how to work with your ADHD, please sign up for my biweekly newsletter. You’ll get time-tested ADHD-friendly strategies and resources from me straight to your inbox. You’ll also receive a complimentary guide I created titled Six Common Planning Mistakes Adults with ADHD Make and How to Avoid Them. You can find the link in the podcast description, or you can go to marlacummins.com/planning to sign up and get the guide.
Until next time, this has been Re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, with Marla Cummins reminding you that ADHD doesn’t define you—but how you work with it can shape what’s possible.
ADHD Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence Resources
- Learn how to plan better with my Free Guide: 6 Common Planning Mistakes Adults with ADHD Make.
- Learn more about Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Institute.
- Explore Brené Brown’s work around shame.
