Sounds like a basic truth to me. How about you? What did you promise you would change during this year so far? We're nearly at Thanksgiving now; how much progress have you made in making your own promised change(s)? After all, if nothing changes...nothing changes!
So let's talk about that for today's blog post. Why is it that we are so quick to vow, promise, and/or otherwise declare "I WILL practice blah-de-blah-blah!" to ourselves and/or to others when we do? And yet here we are, eleven months into the "new" year of 2023 and what has really changed since January? Regardless if your proposed change(s) were vocalized in January, February, March, April, May...even up to last week---what are you doing to put hands and feet on those plans right now and today?
Please don't misunderstand me, there are plenty of us out there who will have a challenging time of making positive change(s) because we are impaired in ways that haven't been made clear to us (yet!).
First among these is the stumbling block of undiagnosed and untreated ADHD. ("Oh no, not that again!") Yeah, that again! Because so many of us don't even understand what ADHD is, let me summarize by saying it's when the "executive functioning" portion of our prefrontal cortex (behind our foreheads!) isn't working as it should be. We can't plan and prioritize our tasks in life properly; we fixate on the things we "like" doing instead of the things we need to be doing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. We are easily distracted. We melt down or shut down when our stress levels are too much for us and we don't know what else to do about it. We have difficulty paying attention long enough to understand and then do what it is we are supposed to be successfully managing and handling on our own. We are fidgety, restless, and otherwise driven by a motor inside ourselves that we can't turn off on demand. We can't manage our time well enough. We don't finish what we start when we don't want to do that which we have started. We forget things we shouldn't be forgetting. We lose things that we shouldn't be losing. (And all this, by the way, is just for starters!) (And the list goes on from here...this isn't "all" there is to executive functioning impairments by any means!)
To complicate matters further, we don't always struggle with every single executive function that has the potential to be impaired. This is why ADHD, in spite of being referred to as "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" is NOT always about being "predominantly hyperactive". It can also be about being "predominantly inattentive", or a combination of both hyperactivity AND difficulty with paying full attention. Needless to say, when you find it hard to make any kind of change(s) in your own life, your issue may be ADHD and you didn't even know it....or didn't know there was treatment available to better manage it than what you yourself have chosen! ;-)
One of the classic old skool books about adult ADHD is entitled "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?" by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo. It's available at most public libraries. Check it out. You'd be amazed at how a person with undiagnosed ADHD can make choices in life that lead him/her/them down a bad path. Just sayin'...
I am reminded of so many narratives as I type this now. The friend who used to call me and say things like "I miss seeing you so much! Let's get together for breakfast! Come over and we can have a good chat!" Then, when I get over to her house, I'm hearing as I walk through the front door. "Oh no! I don't have anything here to make breakfast! Do you mind running out to Kroger and picking up some....?" Yeah, ADHD can be like that also. And no, Door Dash didn't exist in those days o.k.? LOL!
Another major reason why we don't always do what we say we will do (to change for the better!) is because we are too shackled down by our past experiences that were more bad than good, to put it bluntly. We assume the worst, and expect the worst as well. We are more negative than positive and/or we are more oblivious than "checked in" with real life and right now reality. If we actually faced reality and the pain we are causing/have caused other people we claim to love and care about....that is going to be way way too much for us to emotionally process and manage well.
I think of the young man who dumped his faithful girlfriend after several years because "She got too demanding" about wanting to get engaged and married. Instead of buying her a ring...he dumped her. Then within three months, he found a younger and more extraverted girlfriend who, in short order, he treated like a queen. Within three months after that, they were married and she immediately fell pregnant. She assumed he had a highly successful career (not!)...and once she found out, she dumped him. And there he was, "I don't understand what happened to me/us?" REALLY?! Hurt people hurt people yo! We are all victims of other victims yo! We are what we attract double yo! Unless we do our work to change the impact of our complicated past on our present lives...we don't!
YO!
So let this be a lesson to us all. Work on the "junk" of our past so we can learn the lessons from it and not repeat those same mistakes in our present lives and relationships that matter to us! Let's go get checked out for any medical and/or psychiatric diagnoses that can impair our abilities to say what we mean, mean what we say, don't say it mean, and do all we have promised to do and achieve in a timely manner!
This isn't rocket science, but it is when we keep stumbling over ourselves in the pursuit of a higher quality life! After all, if nothing changes...nothing changes!
Until next post....