You've got to earn it

How else will you deserve it?

It started innocently enough.

You can have dessert when you’ve eaten all your dinner.

You can watch TV when you’ve finished your homework.

You can play when you’ve tidied your room.

We learned that treats and rewards and their accompanying dopamine hit come after we’ve done the hard thing, the dutiful, boring, no-fun thing.

Maybe it helped us do the difficult thing (or maybe we weren’t given a choice) so we learned that to do difficult things we need to deny ourselves the tasty, fun, enjoyable thing until it’s been accomplished.

We learned that we should deny ourselves the enjoyable thing until we’ve done the hard thing.

And then we take this learning further.

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We deny ourselves not just the tasty, fun, enjoyable thing until we’ve done the difficult, tedious, obligatory thing, but also anything that we could consider to be a nourishing or beneficial to only ourselves thing.

So we tell ourselves that we’ll have lunch/take a walk/stretch/rest/go to the loo once we’ve finished this piece of work/replied to emails/sorted the washing/tidied up.

We allow ourselves to read or watch or take a break or listen to something we’re interested in, something we enjoy, something just for the fun of it, only when we’ve done everything on our to do list, or everyone else is taken care or, or we’ve done whatever we think we should do.

It becomes normal to not answer our basic needs, to not do whatever feels good, until we’ve earned it.

Until we’ve deserve it.

Which, we may never feel like we truly do.

On the flip side, if we do say screw boring boiled Brussel sprouts I want strawberry cream cake first, there’s a good chance we either:

a) don’t have either the sprouts or the cake and instead do entirely different things and feel guilty about having no willpower

or b) we eat the cake before the sprouts then feel guilty for daring to do things the wrong way round and put ourselves first.

However it plays out, the upshot is that we delay our nourishment, our pleasure, our peace, our joy until we have earned it.

Until we believe others will think we’ve earned it.

And so we deny ourselves joy

We roll it over to the next day, the next week, the next month, like a lottery draw with no winning numbers. We don’t even buy ourselves a Lotto ticket because we think it’s up to someone else to tell us when we get to play.

So what’s the effect of this? I mean, we get stuff done, right? Most of the time. Maybe.

Perhaps stuff gets done but it drags, you feel resentful. Maybe things get forgotten, or put off, or rushed at the last minute, or done-ish but will have to be redone.

And life feels heavier, greyer, it gets overwhelming.

Because the reward you get for doing the boring or difficult thing doesn’t come and you’ve learned that it, along with the accompanying dopamine, is not going to come.

You don’t feel you get to the point where you deserve it. Those around you who you’d hope would notice all that you’ve done to earn the reward and offer it seem to be oblivious.

All this time we’ve had it back to front.

It’s the fun and joyful and tasty thing that helps us to do the boring or difficult or dutiful thing. The cake helps the Brussel sprouts go down (a reimagining of Mary Poppins’ tune).

The increase in dopamine from the enjoyable action nourishes us in a way that makes us feel lighter, brighter, motivated, focused, able to do the hard thing.

This is especially true for ADHD brains because we have lower levels of dopamine to begin with and that makes it harder for us to feel motivated, pay attention and focus on the task at hand – hence ensuing procrastination, guilt and shame.

But it also makes sense for neurotypical brains.

Increasing positive emotions such as joy, hope, contentment and optimism by doing something that feels good first will enable you to go into the not-so-fun task with way more oomph than you would otherwise.

And if you’re thinking you don’t have the time to do something frivolous and enjoyable when you have a never-ending to do list here’s why you can think again:

1) You’re going to get through your to do list (the Brussel sprouts) more quickly if you’ve upped your energy and feel-good vibes (the cake) first because it’s a procrastination killer.

And 2) you don't have to spend a sizeable chunk of time doing the fun thing (although you absolutely can if you want to), even a few minutes doing what you find soul-nourishing will get your dopamine rising.

Still don't believe me? There’s one way to find out… try it!

See for yourself how you feel. If you think you might get so engrossed or be having too much fun to want to stop, set yourself a limit, a timer, an alarm to go off. Add an extra reward of getting back to the fun thing (or a different one) once you’ve done the less-fun thing.

Until next time,

Supporting quiet, empathetic, sensitive, introverted late-(self)diagnosed ADHD women find self-acceptance and understanding, as well as calm and joyful freedom to be their unique, beautiful selves.

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