ADHD Makes It Harder To Feel The Future

Navigating ADHD often means only the "now" feels real, making the future feel out of reach until it's urgent. This session helps you bridge that gap by bringing distant goals into the present, allowing you to honor your future self while working with your brain's natural rhythm.

Transcript

Hi there. Welcome to ADHD makes it harder to feel the future. So this is going to be kind of like the last video that, You know, Where I talked about ADHD and seeing time. This is how ADHD relates to feeling the future. But it's going to be a little bit conceptual, A little bit theoretical. But, You know, Really, Really, This is about understanding how ADHD impacts you in your life. And because, You know, We care about we care more about solutions than problems. Taking the strategies and applying it forward into your life to like actually make things better. Right. So that's kind of really what we're doing here now. So let's begin with this idea of kind of what's called response inhibition, Meaning that as we sort of go through our days, Right, There's all sorts of stuff going on around us. As we sort of think, There's all sorts of thoughts and feelings and ideas and sensations from our body, All sorts of stuff going on inside our head. The challenge then is at every single one of those moments, What is the thing to be paying attention to? What is the thing to be thinking about? What is the thing to like act on? So to act towards something that benefits us in the future, We need to be able to stop and pause and say, Nope, Not that thing right now. And the sort of easiest example of this is if you're working on something really important on your computer, You've got to get this thing done, And then you get a text message over there from someone that is kind of interesting to you. Oh, There's that pull, Right? Like there's going to be that pull to look and to grab it. And, You know, And then now you're on your phone. That's really easy to get pulled over there. So that moment where we go, No, Not that. That is that response inhibition because that's interesting now, But getting this thing into my boss, That's going to be better for me in the future. So here we go. Let's go towards the future. This is that response inhibition that Barkley talks about. And it's in that stopping, That pausing, That like, Ooh, No, Not that. That's where the executive functions do their thing. If you get a text and you're just like, Bam, Over, And now you're. There's no executive functions. There's no pausing. There's no thinking. There's no considering about how this is going to play out later in the day. So it's executive functions then that allow us to kind of sort it all out, Like really, Really, What is the thing that's best for me to be doing right now? Not necessarily what's most interesting, But what is best for me to be doing right now, Which usually is the thing that's better for us in the future, Not necessarily what's most exciting right now. This brings us then to a term that comes from mostly where it comes from is economics, But this idea of temporal discounting. So temporal meaning time, Discounting meaning we sort of like don't feel it as much. And the basic idea is that the further out a reward or punishment is, The less that we feel it now. A simple example of this is if I said, Hey, I'll give you $100 if you write up like a paragraph, Quick paragraph summary of this video. I don't know. You might be kind of interested. It's a pretty good deal, Right? 10-minute video, $100. That's a good hourly rate. But if I then said, So yeah, You're definitely going to get $100, But the problem is it's got this weird budget thing. It's not going to show up for like a year. $100 a year from now does not feel as enticing as $100 right now, Right? That is temporal discounting. It's exactly the reason why people like, I don't know, Stay up late and then the next day are like, Oh, Why did I do that? I should have gone to bed. I'm so tired now, Right? Because in the moment, Staying up was fun and the idea of suffering tomorrow was like, Ah, Whatever, It'll be fine. So this is the thing all people do. We all engage in temporal discounting, But people with ADHD do it a whole lot more, Right? People with ADHD really feel the present much more so than they feel the future. Because of that, Folks with ADHD, Too often, I mean, Not always, But more often than people without ADHD, Tend to do the things that make stuff better right now. And then they pay the price later, Right? So if you're procrastinating on that big work report. You're really kind of frustrated about it the day before it's due or the hour or the minute before it's due, Right? So the future all of a sudden becomes the past and now you got to deal with it. So one of the ways then of thinking about ADHD is it's too much present and not enough future, Right? That you're really tuned in, You're really influenced by what's happening right now and not influenced enough by what's happening later. And this is that response inhibition that you need to disengage from the present. You need to say, Nope. Not that, In order to stop and think and apply your executive functions to figure out what's really, Really going to be best for you. Or another way of putting it is by the time you feel it, It's too late, Right? When that big report is due in an hour, It's too late. When taxes are due in a day or two and you didn't save those receipts from the beginning of last year, It's kind of too late, Right? You can't track them down. Or by the time you, I don't know, Ate an unhealthy diet for 10 years and the doctor says like, Oh, You need cholesterol medication. It's kind of too late, Right? So in lots of ways, By the time we feel the consequence in life, It's too late to easily change it. This is the issue then with temporal discounting is it kind of kills natural consequences, Right? So natural consequence is this. You do a thing and here's the natural predictable outcome. If you throw your towel on the floor after you shower, Tomorrow you have a wet, Cold, Gross towel. That's the natural consequence, Right? I don't have to make your towel wet and cold and gross. It's just going to be. Folks with ADHD then, Because they don't see time as clearly and because they don't feel the future as much. They tend not to change what they do. Even if you've got burned on the last 10 monthly reports that you got to give your boss. Here we go again, It's still hard to motivate yourself earlier to really kind of get it done. Which can be really frustrating, Really confusing, Kind of maddening and just sort of sad sometimes. And however confusing and frustrating and whatever it is for you can also, You know, Other people might feel that same way where they're like, Why don't they just do this different? So to feel those future consequences, Right, To say, Here I am a week before that thing is due, Yeah, I should probably start working on it. You need to bring back those old experiences and really sort of feel it right now, Right? To really sort of feel that future so you can push away against the present and say, Nope, Those are not what I'm doing. This is the thing I got to get going on. So this is where pausing and picturing perhaps comes in that to compensate for that temporal discounting, Right? That tendency to be like, Ah, Whatever about the future is to really try to. Bring that future into the present moment, Right? To really sort of visualize it, To really feel it, To sort of picture yourself in that future moment. So it's not just this vague idea of, You know, It would be nice if I started earlier, But more like here I am in that moment. If I do some things now, How do I feel in that moment? If I don't do some things now, How do I feel in that moment? And how will future me look back at this moment and say like, Ah, That guy, Man, He really screwed me there. You know, Monday me really screwed me here on Friday. If Monday me had done a few things, I'd be in way better shape right now. So the more you can bring that future into the present, The easier it's going to be to kind of kick yourself into gear, Right? To sort of crank up a bit of motivation to do something. And of course, If you're asking yourself the question, Do I feel like doing it? The answer is no, You don't want to do the boring thing. But here's the deal. You don't want to do it tomorrow and you don't want to do it the next week. You don't want to do it right before it's due either. So wanting to do it is totally the wrong question to ask. The better question is, How am I going to feel about it later? Because I don't want to do it at any time, But I'm going to be happier later if I just at least chip away a little bit right now. You So here are five ideas then for how to feel the future in this moment here. So you can bring the future into the present, Perhaps by, You know, Making some consequences more immediate, Right? So it's not this long-term thing. So for example, Rather than waiting a month, You know, Until the end of the month, A week from now before you get your monthly report in, Tell yourself like, Okay, I cannot get up and get a snack until I finish the part that I'm working on now. Maybe make the consequences more frequent, Right? Because long space between consequences, Not motivating. So maybe, You know, See if you can do kind of a quick check-in with your boss, Like every day or, You know, A couple times a week or something. Just like stop in, Don't even sit. You just stand there like, Hey, Here I am with this, Here I am with that, Blah, Blah, Blah. Let them ask questions. Maybe making those consequences a bit more external, Right? So it's not just like, Oh, I feel bad in my head. But make them kind of external out here in the world. So for example, You know, If you're running late to a meeting or late to lunch, Tell the person like, Look, If I'm late, I'm going to buy you lunch or like, I don't know, At least an appetizer, Like a decent enough, Not the most expensive, But like a decent appetizer, Right? So then you kind of feel it a little bit more because it's like real now. And then fourth idea is to make those consequences more salient, Right? So they're not this vague feeling inside your body somewhere. It's something that you really care about. So, For example, Maybe you tell your spouse you're going to do the dishes if you forget to text them to tell them you're going to be late. Right. Like that might grab your attention where you're like, Oh, Don't want to do the dishes. OK, Let me send a quick text. And then finally. Make those consequences much more consistent, Right? We all love the idea of being able to kind of wiggle out and get away with something. But if you make it really like definitive and like, Nope, This is definitely happening. It's a lot harder to talk ourselves into like, Man, I don't have to deal with this time. So, For example, You know, You say like, You know, You can't leave at the end of the workday until you enter your customer information into the database. Right. So whatever it is, That's the rule. That's that's how it's going to be. Imposing some sort of artificial consequences is almost always more effective than waiting for natural consequences to show up. So here is your part. Let's put it to work. First, Notice how your feelings about a future event or deadline kind of change as time passes, Right? Here I am far away from it. As I get closer and closer to that deadline, How am I feeling about it, Right? Do I feel a bit more pressure? Do I feel a little bit more stress or drive or motivation to do something about it? Second. Practice feeling the future in order to change what you do in the moment, Right? Really visualize it. Put yourself into that future moment and really kind of feel what that's gonna feel like. And then finally, Identify some places where you can bring the future into the present by kind of tweaking the consequences, Right? Do something to kind of feel that a little bit more right now, Right here. So let's see how you do.

Reviews

Excellent. Very clear, easy steps for those of us late diagnosis grown-ups who never learned any tools! Thank you.

Great lecture with interesting insights.

Such good advice. I’m definitely going to put these checks in place. Thank you.

💫🕯️Ari, Thank You for sharing your Light. ✨

I am very knowledgeable about ADHD and fhis was a fresh, well constructed, practical perspective.