Just Another Adrenaline Pumping Distraction

Tonight the Temu app sucked me in like a whirlwind. I spent far too much time until I extricated myself and stopped the buying process. It was only then that I was able to truly admire the app. It’s exciting and gets your adrenaline going. I mean, who doesn’t love to win on one of those spinners and be offered free stuff? But when the free stuff is only had by reaching a spending minimum on not free stuff, that is when I realize how distracted I am. Our ADHD society is designed for adrenaline pumping distraction. So how do we solve the problem of trying to stay on target with our tasks and goals? How do we stop from being sidetracked by those in our environment? Most importantly, how do we stop distracting ourselves?

When we have a specific task that must be done yet we find every reason to do other things first, this is courtesy of our three second marketing ad society. However, this is only the external part of what makes us avoid the tasks involved in reaching our goals. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes it’s dislike, sometimes it’s self-sabotage, sometimes it’s emotional dysregulation, and sometimes it’s a deep seated worthiness issue or any of countless other reasons. When we are unaware of our own motivations and proclivities, we continue to avoid the important things and never accomplish our goals. The way out of our constant struggle with procrastination Is through our getting to know who we really are. Being honest with ourselves about what drives us, what fires us up, what we don’t like and what we do like, this is an important starting place. Journaling, self reflection and constant honesty with ourselves makes us more apt to see things in ourselves. We can then take time to think about why it exists. We can ask ourselves why we take the actions that we take or not take the actions that we need to take. When we ask these questions on a regular basis, this is when we begin to truly understand ourselves. We begin to understand how and why we think the things we do, how and why we do the things we do and how and why we avoid the things we need to do. Understanding these things about ourselves is an extraordinarily powerful way to consciously choose our words and actions. When we understand ourselves at this deep level, it is easier for us to understand others on a deep level as well. When we understand others on a deep level, it changes what we think about them and makes our relationships, kinder and gentler. This happens naturally because when we are this honest with ourselves about our good and not so good traits, there is nothing to do but to see the traits of ourselves in others. We are all the reflection of each other. This becomes completely evident when we do this deep inner work. This is important on so many levels. It affects us in every way. When before, a negative comment from a coworker could set us on an angry trip for the rest of the day, now we look at it as someone who’s having a bad day or someone that wants to remain in their unhealed state. When we get to this point, the distractions of the world begin to fall away and the goals we once put on the basement shelf only to lie in cold darkness can be taken out, dusted off and pursued with full vigor.

~Janice M. Burke

Image by KrakenImages from Unsplash