Shifting Your Focus from Problems to Possibilities

Your perspective on yourself and the world around you can make all the difference in whether you reach your potential, or stay just where you are. It is crucial to living a life of fulfillment! Your perspective can determine what choices you have in life: you are less likely to see all the choices that may be available to you when your focus is not on possibilities.

Many of us spend our lives focused on overcoming our challenges and trying to improve our weaknesses.  We become focused on what we cannot do well and on our perceived failures, trying to hide them in shame and valiantly trying to change. From this perspective, you are not building upon or taking advantage of your innate strengths and talents.  You are likely letting them languish.

This is not to say that we should not all be trying to improve ourselves and become better human beings, better spouses, better parents, and better friends. Quite the contrary! There’s always room for improvement. But there’s a better way to get there!  When you focus on improving your strengths and using your natural talents to be a better person, your challenges tend to be minimized. They start to take a back seat—which is where they should stay!

So how do we change our focus? The answer is simple, but isn’t always easy! It starts with education.

Knowledge is power, but self-knowledge is the most powerful kind of knowledge.  If you’re struggling with the challenges and symptoms of ADHD / ADD,

• First, educate yourself from reputable sources about ADHD in general.When you have a solid foundation of understanding about why your brain works the way it works, it’s a lot easier to let go of some of that negative self-talk and thinking.
• Next, educate yourself about how your ADHD is showing up in you, as an individual.I always say that you ADHD is as unique as your thumb print! How it shows up in you is unique to you, and how it shows up in me is unique to me. It can expedite this process to work with a well-trained ADHD Coach, because those of us with ADHD are notoriously bad self-observers.
• Finally, start paying attention to and shifting your focus toward your strengths.Most of us with ADHD lose sight of our strengths and our dreams over years of frustration and perceived failure. Start paying attention to what you do well, and you’ll be able to do more of it!

When you understand your challenges, and move your focus to your strengths, you can build and grow those strengths that are hard-wired in your brain. That’s the point at which your confidence and competence takes over, and you can start to approach your challenges as simply problems in need of solutions, and not moral failings. That’s when you end the “blame and shame” cycle and start having a proactive or creative perspective toward your challenges. Using the great problem-solving skills and out-of-the box thinking we ADHDers are famous for, you learn to live well with your challenges and become fulfilled!

So, let me ask you . . .

Where is your focus, right now?