Part 2 – How ADHD Adults Can Finally Fix Their Love-Hate Relationship with Habits
(originally published September 5, 2013, updated February 11, 2022)
While habits help ADHD adults do what is important to them, you know it is hard for ADHD adults to adopt habits. I explored this along with steps you can take to change your habits in Part 1 How ADHD Adults Can Finally Fix Their Love-Hate Relationship With Habits.
A suggestion. If you haven’t read Part 1, go ahead, and read it. Then come back here.
Ready?
Now I’ll take a deeper dive into steps you can take to make it more likely and easier to change your habits. Specifically, I’ll explore how you can do this by creating cues or triggers — location, time, emotional state, other people, and preceding action.
Let’s get on with it.
Habit Loop
It’s important to remember you’re already spending half your day acting out of habit. At some point, these behaviors, whether conscious or not, became firmly entrenched, automatic. And now, whether they are helpful or not, they are habits.
Your habits have three parts, which make up a Habit Loop. The cues or triggers are the is the prompts for the routine. As soon as you encounter the trigger you begin to crave the reward. And this prompts you to follow through with the habit.
One of the best ways to change your habits, as I illustrated in Part 1, is to start with a mini habit.
If you already experimented with mini habits, you used one of the five triggers. Though you may not have known it at the time. But intentionally using the five triggers will make it easier to change your habits. So, let’s see how you can be more deliberate in doing this.
#1 Identifying Locations to Help You Adopt Habits
Location is one of the most powerful triggers.
Think about walking past a bag of chips on the kitchen counter and grabbing a few. I know you didn’t think to yourself, “I’d like to have a salty snack right now.” You were walking through the kitchen for whatever reason and grabbed some because, well, they were there. You didn’t give it much thought.
If you’ve ever belonged to a gym, you know how powerful location can be to help you adopt an exercise habit. It’s unlikely you would go to the gym and sit in the lobby having chips and a soda, right? The gym is the location where you exercise. It’s your cue.
How can you use location?
For example, I know you’d like to be more intentional with your time. And one way to do this is to plan your day first thing in the morning. But right now, like many others, you may start with your email. And that takes you down one rabbit hole after another, right?
Going to your desk may be a trigger to look at your email. Instead, sit in another room or in a chair in another part of the office to plan your day.
Likewise, if you want to shed a habit, consider whether you could change your location. For example, if you commonly surf the web when you are tired or bored in the late afternoon, work in a different place at that time of day. Maybe you can work in a different part of the house or a coffee shop.
#2 Choosing an Optimal Time for Your Habit
What do you do when you wake up every morning? My morning habit certainly changes over time. Lately, during the workweek, I get up, shower, make my matcha latte, and drink it while reading the paper next to my happy light for half an hour.
I bet you have a morning routine. I know it may be dictated by the needs of your kids or pets. But whatever your morning habit, you’re just on autopilot, right? So, you know time is a strong trigger for habits.
I’m sure there are other habits you also do at specific times. Think about it. For example, you might play a computer game mid-afternoon, check your email first thing in the morning, or watch TV in the evening.
What do you do habitually at specific times of the day?
For example, consider what you do mid-afternoon (2-4 pm) when your energy starts to ebb. Do you mindlessly eat, surf the web, or do something else that’s not what you intended? Of course, you’re not consciously thinking to yourself, “Oh it’s 3:00 I think I’ll grab some cookies, look at Facebook and then play Rummikub online.” It’s just what you do at that time because your energy is low.
Once you are more aware of what you do habitually at different times of the day, you can decide whether it’s OK or if you want to change that behavior. So, in the example I just shared with you, you might decide to go for a walk mid-afternoon instead of what you are doing by default now.
#3 Being Aware of the Connection Between Your Emotions and Habits
Because of your ADHD, you may have challenges with emotional regulation. So, the third trigger, your emotional state, is particularly important to learn about.
For example, when you feel overwhelmed by work, decisions you need to make, relationships you need to navigate, etc., what do you do? While it likely looks different depending on the context, you might shut down, engage in a distraction, eat or drink too much, etc.
If you’re not sure what you do, pay attention this week. I’m guessing you’ll discover you have an overwhelm routine. But it is so automatic you may not even recognize it as a routine response to your overwhelm.
You probably also have habitual responses to other emotions, like anger, shame, sadness, boredom, etc. If you’re not sure but interested in finding out, use the following steps to learn how to respond more intentionally to your emotions.
First, pay attention and write down what you do when you feel an emotion. Then take a break when the feeling(s) arises. Maybe do some deep breathing. When you’re feeling more grounded — your prefrontal cortex is back online — you can decide how you want to respond.
To do this you’ll need to process your feelings by journaling or talking to someone – a friend, family member, or therapist. Alternatively, you may decide you just need time and space to become more detached from the situation. Working out or meditation can help you do this.
Learning to respond differently to your emotions is tough! But possible with practice.
# 4 How Other People Can Help You Adopt Habits
You’re probably already familiar with the cue of using other people to adopt and follow through consistently on habits, right? If the person is someone with whom you feel comfortable having a partner in crime — an accountability partner — can be an exceptionally powerful trigger.
A familiar example, of course, is exercising with other people. You may not follow through with your plan to walk every day if you only commit yourself. But, if someone is waiting for you to walk, it’s unlikely you’ll cancel, right?
Of course, other people can also be a trigger to engage in habits that don’t serve you. For example, maybe you eat or drink too much when you go out with certain people. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to get together with those people, but maybe you need to pick a different activity when spending time with those people.
What is a habit you would like to either adopt or drop? How can you enlist other people to help you? Who are those people? When it comes to changing habits, other people can be your most powerful ally or roadblock.
#5 Using Preceding Action as a Trigger
The last cue you can use to change your habits is a preceding action. You already have habits triggered by a preceding action. Think about it. You pick up the phone when it rings. When you hear or see the email notification you look at your email. You may eat even if you’re not hungry when your emotions feel like too much.
You get it.
If you want to change this, alter the preceding action. For example, to minimize distractions turn off your email notifications and put your phone on “do not disturb.”
You can also harness the power of a preceding action to adopt a habit by attaching it to another habit. For example, let’s say you want to make sure you take your medicine. If you have a regular habit of brushing your teeth when you need to take your medicine, you can put the medicine next to your toothbrush.
Think of a habit you are trying to adopt. What other habit you currently have can you attach it to? And how can you alter a preceding action for a habit you would like to drop?
Your Turn…
Now it’s time to experiment with using one or more of the 5 triggers to change your habits. While you don’t need to use all five, you do need to be specific. So, if you decide you want to journal, rather than having a vague idea you’ll journal before bed, your plan might be to do it:
- after I brush my teeth -preceding action
- by 10:00 – time
- in the chair in my bedroom – location
Go ahead and try it…
