Disappoint & Disagree With Grace

Disappoint and disagree with grace.

It is inevitable that you're going to disappoint some people.

We all do.

It's also inevitable that you're going to have disagreement.

Two people don't always want all the same things in all the same ways.

Conflict of some sort is just a part of life.

The question is,

How do we deal with it,

Right?

So let's talk about that,

Because that's definitely an important thing,

I think,

For all people.

But also,

If your ADHD makes it so that you're not kind of hitting the mark as often as you would like to,

Or at least as often as somebody thinks you should,

Then you might have a bit more,

You know,

Disappointments and disagreements that you need to deal with.

So one bit of advice I give people is disappoint early.

By which I mean,

If you're going to disappoint someone,

Way better to do it early than it is to do it late.

You know,

Like jammed up right against their deadline.

Now,

Part of the issue here is that if you have ADHD.

.

.

It's kind of easy to overpromise,

Right?

Like somebody asks you to do something and you say yes,

Because I don't know,

That sounds like a fun project.

Or you say yes,

Because you feel like you can't say no.

Or you say yes,

Because you're like,

Oh yeah,

I totally have time.

But you haven't thought of the fact of what else you have,

Or you haven't looked at your schedule to see what else you have.

Or if you did look at your schedule,

It was a good plan at the time you made it,

But then like other things come up and now all of a sudden it didn't work out.

I think it's important then to avoid these kind of false agreements and false agreement meaning.

There's an agreement between you and someone else that things are going to be a certain way or something's going to happen,

And it's not actually the thing that's going to happen,

Right?

Somebody knows this is probably not going to work out,

But they're not saying it.

Before agreeing to do something that somebody is asking of you,

Get really clear on whether you're willing to do it and whether you're able to do it,

At least within the requested timeframe.

Because maybe the answer is not really.

And if the answer is,

Nope,

Don't want to,

Or nope,

I can't.

Be willing to tolerate that other person's reaction to it,

Right?

They may be sort of frustrated or disappointed or sad or whatever.

But,

You know,

Kind of hold that discomfort and be willing to accept it without like praying that a miracle is somehow going to rescue you from this bad situation.

The reason why it's important then and frankly just respectful to disappoint early rather than disappointing late is that if you tell someone with plenty of time,

They can figure out a plan B,

Right?

If you're not available,

If you can't do it or don't want to do it,

They can find someone who can,

Right?

So you don't leave them in the lurch at the last minute.

It also gives them a chance,

I don't know,

Maybe to try to convince you.

And that's fair,

Right?

They can take a shot at it.

Obviously,

At some point,

No means no.

But like,

Sure,

If you want to take a shot,

Go for it.

I think it's important to learn how to say no,

Right?

To be assertive in the right kind of a way.

I think especially if you have ADHD where you might have too many things going on or too many things pulling at your time and attention.

I think it's easier to be motivated to do this and this if you've been able to say,

No,

Not that.

That feeling overwhelmed by everything makes it harder to muster the motivation to do the things that are actually really worth doing.

And that means being able to sort of hold steady when someone sort of is putting a bit of a push on,

Feel like,

Oh,

Come on,

Really,

I need you to do this.

Could you do it?

Staying calm within yourself and just saying like,

You know what,

Wish I could,

Unfortunately not,

Not going to be able to do it.

Or actually,

Honestly,

I'm just not that interested in doing it.

Um,

So.

In terms of this,

Then,

Trouble with saying no is not actually a time management problem.

Underestimating how long things take,

That's a time management problem.

But having trouble saying no is not a time management problem.

But if you're bad at saying no,

You're probably going to find yourself in situations that do cause time management problems.

So let's put ADHD in its place then,

Right?

That the better you're managing your ADHD,

Just in general,

Right?

Like the more productive,

The more sort of responsible,

The more on top of things you are,

The more you're,

I don't know,

Taking on what you can do and doing what you can take on.

You're in a much stronger bargaining position then to be able to say,

You know what?

Nope,

Can't do this one.

That you have more social capital to sort of push back a bit and say,

Sorry,

I can't be the person to do this.

I think you need to find somebody else.

So I've said before that free passes are earned,

But to extend that out even a bit further,

Forgiveness is earned or flexibility is earned.

That you want to be the kind of person that someone else is going to be like,

Yeah,

Okay,

Fine,

I'll work with you on this one because I know you were good on those other ones.

Now,

Sometimes it's not actually an ADHD thing at all,

Right?

It's not that you sort of lost track of time or forgot to do it.

Sometimes you just made a different choice where you're like,

Actually,

Yeah,

I decided that wasn't the thing I'm going to work on because I'm going to do this other thing instead.

Because for me,

This was a more important thing.

So I made a strategic decision.

Not an ADHD thing.

And don't let it get painted as an ADHD thing of like,

Here we go again.

You're not doing what you said you were going to do.

Could also be that it was a decent plan when it was made,

But then other things came up,

Right?

Like,

Sure,

I can do that for you.

Oh,

My God,

This thing just blew up.

I really have to take care of this.

This is the more important thing.

Not ADHD.

That's just,

You know,

Adapting to circumstances.

So let's put this to work then.

First,

Identify some recent examples of how some of those ADHD moments set you up to disappoint someone.

Of how not managing your ADHD well set up that future disappointment.

And really kind of remember that feeling of like,

I know I let that person down.

Like remember that feeling the next time you're trying to motivate yourself to start working on something earlier or to make a point of writing it down or to make a point of,

I don't know,

Getting into bed on time so that you can get a good night of rest and be more effective the next day.

Earlier next time and maybe do some things different Number two.

What can you tell yourself to help you hold your ground when you need to say no?

What's going to be helpful in that moment,

Right?

Maybe it's something like,

You know what?

I deserve to be able to say no.

Like I get to do that.

I don't owe this person this,

Right?

Like,

I'm in pretty good shape.

I've been doing a pretty good job.

I don't have to say yes to something I don't want to do.

Or.

.

.

I understand that they're sort of disappointed in this,

But like I can't be their only solution.

Like they need to figure out some other alternative.

It doesn't have to be me right now.

Whatever it is that's going to help you kind of like stand firm at the times where standing firm is the best thing to do.

And then finally,

How can you tell the difference between ADHD and just changing your mind?

Right.

Because everybody's allowed to change their mind.

So is it that you got distracted?

Is it that the other thing just felt too hard or too boring and you just weren't up for it?

Or is it that like,

No,

I thought about it legitimately.

I think I'm going to do this.

That's actually the better one.

I'm going to go with that.

And I think that's important because.

You don't want to beat yourself up over just genuinely making a different decision.

Right.

So you don't want to call it an ADHD moment when it really wasn't.

So,

You know,

Like,

Let's be honest with ourselves,

Not just the times are like,

Yeah,

I dropped the ball there.

Let's also be honest with ourselves.

At times it's like,

Nope,

That wasn't the thing that happened.

I want you to feel good.

I want you to feel like,

You know,

You can say no when that's the right thing to do.

I want you to feel like you can handle the sort of inevitable disagreements and disappointments that come up in life.

And I don't know,

Sort of act with integrity and feel good about how you're handling these difficult situations.