When You Don’t Feel Like It

There are many ways that ADHD presents itself. One of the most common ways I see with my clients, and myself is a challenge to tolerate and manage discomfort. Whether it’s being on time, sitting still, getting a paper done on time, or even brushing our teeth – tolerance for discomfort makes it harder for us to do the things we want to do. If you pay close attention when you’re struggling to complete a task, you might notice yourself thinking, “I don’t feel like it.” This common refrain that I hear from my clients (and the parents of my teen clients) provides so much insight into how we’re dealing with the discomfort of not feeling like we want to do something. Often, it’s an indicator that we’re not dealing with it at all!

Unfortunately, most people with ADHD, myself included, jump quickly from “I don’t feel like it” to “Well, I (or my child) should just try harder.” After all, many people don’t feel like doing things, and they do those things every day, so the problem must be our effort. The reality is, though, that effort has nothing to do with our struggles.

A favorite quote of mine, which I share with many of my clients, is Ari Tuckman’s assertion that “If you can manage your ADHD with willpower, then you don’t have ADHD.” The problem is we simply do not have the same tolerance for discomfort as our neurotypical peers, and we find discomfort in tasks that others do not. Three of the more typical places we often find ourselves uncomfortable are boredom, ambiguity, and thinking toward a goal. In these areas, Ari Tuckman’s wisdom resonates, and I usually need to remind my clients that trying harder won’t solve the problem; willpower is not the solution. 

More often than not, the thing that ends up helping is finding a way to “feel like it” – that is, making the task less uncomfortable and, therefore, more doable. For example, I had a client who, try as she might, could not get herself to do laundry consistently. The piles of clothes were a perpetual source of shame and guilt. My client could recall a brief period in college when she used the laundry with friends, and for that brief period, she did laundry – because she felt like it. From that exploration, we gained a roadmap for how my client could begin getting herself to “feel like” doing laundry again – do it with friends! When she stopped trying to make herself do the laundry and started trying to figure out how to make laundry more appealing, making it something she felt like doing, suddenly doing laundry became much more manageable. 

My brother employed a similar strategy in college while studying for the LSAT. He hated sitting still and studying for hours, but he managed to find a way to “feel like” studying more often – he watched Phillie’s games in his apartment while he studied. He watched all 163 games that year and earned a 172 on the LSAT. 

These examples illustrate that even though it’s often not easy, overcoming discomfort to accomplish tasks is often simple – simply put, we need to reduce the discomfort by making the task more fun and less cumbersome, by doing it with others, or by thinking of any number of ways to make the task less uncomfortable to complete. Trying to convince yourself to “just do it” rarely works. Instead, try thinking of ways to help yourself “feel like it.”