DESCRIPTION:
Self-esteem is key to succeeding with ADHD. Follow these steps to improve your self esteem and self-confidence.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- self confidence and self esteem are different
- your ADHD experience can impact both
- you can improve both
RESOURCES:
Blog:
ADHD and Time, 4 Steps to Getting Places on Time
Books:
- Feeling Good by Dr. Burns
- Mine Over Mood by Dennis Greenberg and Christine Padesky
TRANSCRIPT:
(00:01):
Self-esteem is key to succeeding with ADHD. You’ve tuned into scattered focused, done 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 get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to reimagining productivity with ADHD. So you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else do.
Adults with ADHD need more self-confidence and self-esteem or self-compassion. In a previous podcast, I claimed that ADHD adults need more self-compassion. I still stand by that, but having a good sense of self is also important to be able to feel good as well as do good. And I know from the questions I’ve received such as how can I self-esteem by leveraging personal strengths, both related and non-related to ADD, and what are methods of confidence boosting and self-image improvement?
(01:12):
You might be interested in strategies for improving your sense of self too. These are definitely important questions to answer because as Dr. David Burns author of Feeling Good noted, a poor self-image is the magnifying glass that can transform a trivial mistake or imperfection into an overwhelming symbol of personal defeat. Let’s start by defining the terms.
Because while these terms self-confidence and self-esteem are often used interchangeably, there are different concepts and may necessitate different strategies to make improvements in either of these areas ready to explore. You can think of self-esteem in terms of how much you appreciate or like yourself. That is, it describes your overall sense of self-worth. And one way you can determine this is to answer the question, how happy am I with who I see when I look in the mirror? If you’re like most people, your answer is probably some parts I like. Then some parts not so much.
(02:16):
While many factors contribute to who you see in this reflection, you can certainly point to your experiences as greatly influencing your self-esteem. Of course, this includes your experience with ADHD. Like other adults with ADHD you’ve had your fair share of challenges and may have been subject to criticism because of your ADHD symptoms. Obviously, negative feedback, current or past will contribute to any struggles you have with self-esteem. In addition, your perceived limitations related to your ADHD may impact your feelings of self-worth because of your diminished self-esteem. You might focus more on weaknesses than your strengths, lack self-confidence you can adopt workarounds for your weakness, feel shame about your ADHD symptoms, believe that neurotypical people are better than you because they think differently or better, fear that failure is more likely than success generally have a negative outlook.
(03:22):
If you find yourself defaulting to any of these statements, it’s time to work on building your self-esteem for sure. On the other hand, self-confidence is about your estimation of your ability to accomplish what is important to you in your various roles. Obviously, your feelings of self-worth contribute to your self-confidence. That is the better you feel about yourself, the more self-confidence you may have. Makes sense, of course.
So what are the origins of your self-confidence? In part, your confidence comes from memories of being masterful in different areas of your life. I know you’ve had your share of successes. And, if you can remember these successes, you will feel more confident. you can apply these skills and strategies you used in the past to achieve your current goals. Unfortunately, like many adults with ADHD, when thinking about your current capacity to accomplish what you want, you may not think about your past achievements.
(04:21):
Rather, you may tend to think about how hard it’s going to be to reach your goals and how much you will struggle along the way. This can be a consequence of your tendency to be ahistorical because you’re so focused on the here and now, and this tendency is in part due to your working memory challenges that make it hard to juggle multiple perspectives at once. So you may end up mainly focusing on your struggles rather than balancing that with thoughts of your past accomplishments.
And this can lead you to lack the self-confidence you need to achieve your goals and address challenges along the way. If your ADHD is getting in your way, now building your self-esteem and self-confidence is part of the solution to getting unstuck and moving forward. And the first step is recognizing this as a piece of the puzzle in your efforts to manage your ADHD.
(05:11):
Choosing the right strategies and support is the second step. Of course, there’s no one size fits all answer to doing this, and it’s definitely not a linear process. But there are steps you can take to improve your self-confidence and self-esteem. If you’re interested in doing more work on your own, do check out the book Feeling Good by Dr. Burns and Mine Over Mood by Dennis Greenberg and Christine Padesky.
And if doing work on your own doesn’t cut it, you may decide to seek out the help of a therapist or coach. Also, the following steps I’ll share will introduce you to some of your options. One of the first steps you can take to boost your self-esteem and self-confidence is to change your self-critical talk. For example, when you’re late, you may say, I’m sure Bob hates me now. I’m never reliable. People won’t want to get together with me anymore.
(06:07):
Sound familiar? Sure, maybe you’d like to work on being on time more often. But this critical inner dialogue will diminish your self-esteem and increase your despair you can ever change. So addressing your negative self-talk is necessary if you want to feel better and to change your behavior.
To do this, the first step is to acknowledge the existence of these inner critics and note they’re insidious messages, and then to recognize that these thoughts do not reflect reality by becoming familiar with your cognitive distortions and negative thinking traps, such as these examples jumping to conclusions or mind reading, you have no way of knowing that Bob hates you for being laid all or nothing thinking, well, you may sometimes not be reliable. I’m sure there are many instances you can point to when you are catastrophizing, while people may not like when you’re late, it is unlikely that everyone will stop making plans with you.
(07:06):
The second step is to practice self-talk that reflects more accurate self-evaluation, such as maybe Bob’s not thrilled I’m late, but he doesn’t hate me. After all, we still get together and there are plenty of times when I’m on time. Last, give your inner critic a one-way ticket to a nice warm, comfortable place that will not want to come back from. Once you send them on their way, hopefully you’ll be more compassionate with yourself.
I know this next suggestion may sound counterintuitive, but there are times when the best solution is to recognize your faulty thinking for what it is, just thoughts, not reality, and then step away from whatever it is that’s worrying you rather than trying to address it in the moment. This is definitely the best approach when you’re in a low or bad mood, according to Richard Carlson, author of You Can Be Happy.
(07:55):
Think about it. When you’re in a low mood, how do you feel about yourself and your capabilities? Not very good, and also you’re not in a great place to come up with good solutions. Yet you may feel compelled to try to figure it out. What you’re likely end up doing is revisiting the same thoughts again and again ruminating, but as Albert Einstein said, we cannot solve our problems with the same think we used when we created them. So turning over the same thoughts in your head is not going to get you very far. The better option when you’re in a low mood is to give your worries a rest, and if you need to come up with a solution, circle back when you’re feeling better.
(08:36):
Well, you may decide to take a step back from actively working on addressing your worries. You can still work on building your self-esteem and self-confidence, and one way to do this is to engage in building a practice of gratitude. When you compare yourself to others who you perceive to have a better life than you, more money, better jobs, et cetera, it reduces your self-esteem. On the other hand, if you can appreciate what other people have, but also be grateful for what you have, you’ll build your self-esteem. Being able to identify reasons you are thankful can also help build your confidence in your abilities to reach your goals and address the challenges you’ll encounter along the way, including your ADHD.
Because when you build your self-confidence in this way, your problems will not seem as insurmountable. Of course, along with better self-confidence and self-esteem, gratitude will bring you more happiness. All good reasons to get started. Then again, sometimes when you’re feeling bad about yourself and your abilities, the best strategy is to just start, even when it feels messy, do something because you know, the more you stay stuck, the worse you feel about yourself and your ability to eventually get unstuck.
(09:53):
For example, when you focus on your need to finish something or do it perfectly unwillingly, you may be causing yourself to procrastinate because as you focus on needing to reach your goal, it may become more and more daunting, and you may become more stressed and overwhelmed. Makes sense. But when you focus on persistent starting and see, you are making progress, you will build your self-esteem and self-confidence.
So even when you’re feeling low and unsure about your ability to tackle a hard task, you could work on the task for a half hour each day until it is finished. Do as much as you can in an hour or whatever amount of time you set aside, and then when you stop working, decide when you’ll work on it again, spend just 15 minutes reviewing the task. It’s a start. Then decide what you need to do next and when you’ll start again.
(10:48):
The key sometimes is to just keep on starting. Because you know feel worse about yourself when you continue to put something off. It’s true your self-evaluation may not be an accurate depiction of reality, but you may still want to make improvements to address areas in your life you find problematic. Coming up with solutions can help you improve how you feel about yourself and your abilities. For example, if you are prone to being late, as in the example I shared, you’ll want to address your negative thinking for sure, and you may also decide to work on being more on time more often.
You can check out my article, ADHD and Time, 4 Steps to Getting Places on Time for suggestions on how you can do this. I’ve included a link to this with the podcast on my website. Coming up with solutions when necessary rather than just ruminating can help you see, you’re really in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing your life, including your ADHD, and this will help you build your self-esteem, your turn. What can you try today to start building your self-esteem and self-confidence? And if you need support, who can you reach out to for help?
(12:09):
That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me and stayed until the very end. If you’re interested in learning more about my work with adults with ADHD, check out my website, marla cummins.com. Of course, if you’ve learned a thing or two from today’s podcast, which I hope you have, please pass along the link to anyone else in your circles you think might benefit, and until next time, this has been scattered focused, done. And I’m Marla Cummins. Wishing you all the very best on your journey to re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD.