By Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG – July 24, 2023
One of the biggest challenges with ADHD is self-awareness. To learn self-awareness, you need to look in the mind’s mirror. With ADHD, executive functioning is impaired, and it’s very effortful to be self-aware so you can override the automatic brain. That’s why the pause may be the most helpful tool to manage your ADHD.
The pause is an example of engaging and overriding the automatic brain, to pause and pay attention to what you are thinking. Those with ADHD have difficulty putting on the brakes so they can discern what the best options are. It’s like running on a Ferrari engine without brakes.
If you watch, listen, or read any advertisement for weight loss, you’ll hear about the need for regular exercise as a part of the program. Or watch, listen, or read tips on managing ADHD and more often than not, you will hear directly or implicitly about the need to pause.
What you pay attention to is what will continue to grow. Failure to learn self-awareness results in negative emotions, negative patterns, negative reactions, and negative harmony in your body and brain. Self-awareness gives you the ability to self-regulate, to direct things back to yourself and change your behavior. You can’t do that if you don’t pause and take a breath.
The whole notion of the pause is actually learning to pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself, what you’re feeling about yourself, what you’re hearing about yourself. It’s an essential discipline to manage ADHD.
If you struggle to manage your ADHD, please check out my interview, “ADHD: The Power of the Pause,” on Attention Talk Radio with Master Certified ADHD Coach David Giwerc, founder and president of ADD Coach Academy (https://addca.com). We talk about the power of the pause, what it means to ponder and respond objectively to a situation rather than react with established, negative patterns of behavior. Listen and discover how the power of the pause can provide you with choices that can significantly improve the quality of your life. http://tobtr.com/6370759