Transcript
Kristen Carter (0:05)
Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it's all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I'm your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let's chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I'll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point A to point B.
Kristen Carter (0:37)
Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carter and you've tuned into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated ish. Regulated ish and ready to roll. Happy to be here with you today. I have delayed this recording as long as I possibly could. I am recording in my own little office today. And I was supposed to do it yesterday and I couldn't. I couldn't make myself do it. And then I was supposed to do it today and I had plenty of time. Plenty of time. And you better believe I did not hit record until the very last minute. I officially have about 55,0 minutes to record before I host a coaching call in my coaching program at 2:00'. Clock. And so we better roll. Sometimes you just have to use that deadline to, like, get you into gear. And that's what I had to do today. I don't know why it is so hard to do this job sometimes. Sometimes it just flows and it's so easy and I love it so much and I'm so excited to show up and record. And then other times I'm like, please don't make me do it. I'll do anything to get out of it. And that's what it's been like this week. I don't know if I'm just, like, hungover from being sick. I was so sick. I'm feel, feeling so much better. But maybe that's it. I don't know. Anyway, I wonder what it is in your life that you are avoiding and pushing off because solidarity. I get it. I'm with you. I am you. I do the same things. Even though I am here recording and I am doing the thing, it's at the very last minute, folks. The very last minute. And sometimes it just be like that. Sometimes that's just the way it is. I don't know what else to say. Like, that's just, that's it. Sometimes there's no way around it. So you're in for a ride. Today we are doing a solo show. We're going in a bunch of different directions as we do for these solo shows. So buckle up, get Cozy. I am so glad that you press play on this podcast. I'm curious about what you're doing. Are you, like, folding your laundry? Are you out for a run? Are you doing your dishes? Are you just, like, sitting cozy on the couch trying to get through the rest of winter? Whatever it is, I'm just so grateful to you that you press play. I can't believe there's over 100,000 of you. There's like 150,000 listeners every single month. You guys just hang out and we're here together. And the fact that, like, ADHD years from all over the world get to be together in this community is just so heartening. It just makes my heart explode. It makes me so happy and I am so glad. I'm wondering if you would be interested in joining me for a live class. So these podcasts are recorded, Obviously they're prerecorded, and you're not listening to me talk live, but would you like to? Would that be fun? Would you like to do that? I'm actually hosting a parenting class on March 25th. It's a Tuesday. It's the same day a pod's gonna drop. March 25th, 1pm Eastern. We're going to talk about the number one skill that you need in your parenting to not F it all up. We're going to be talking about emotional regulation, and I'm going to give you and teach you an emotional regulation tool on the spot that you can learn in the class and then apply to your life immediately. It can affect your parenting immediately. No matter if your kids are tiny or if they're grown and flown, it doesn't really matter because increasing your ability to regulate your emotions so that you can show up as the parent that you want to be is a skill that we all need. So if this sounds fun, interesting, and you want to hang out with me live, ask me questions in real time and just all around, be in a community like in real time of ADHD. Join me. Go to ihaveadhd.com freeclass Sign up. All you got to do is pop your email address in there and you'll get all of the information. And yes, we will send you a replay. But if you join us live, you're going to get a free gift. And free gifts are really fun. So you should totally come live. I hope, hope, hope that you do. We're going to go ahead and talk about hyperfocus. Hyper focus is one of these really interesting characteristics about ADHD that can sometimes lead us to say, oh, my gosh, My ADHD is amazing. Like sometimes every once In a while, ADHDers have the ability to become intensely focused or preoccupied with a task. And we can give it all of our time, all of our attention, all of our capacity and really go all in on it. When I was working with children who struggled in school, many of them had adhd. So many of their parents said to me, he can focus on things that he likes, but he can't focus on things that he doesn't like. And in that they were trying to express to me this like invalidation of adhd, like he can't, he or she, like my kid can't actually have ADHD because when they're doing something that they like, they can pay attention just fine as if that means that they don't have adhd. So let's talk about hyperfocus. And I'm curious how this shows up in your life. It's the ability, ability to become intensely focused or preoccupied with a task or person that greatly interests you. How many of you have hyper focused on a person? Hello. Ever meet like a new shiny object, Like a new friend or somebody? Maybe if you're single and you start to date like somebody that you're really attracted to and you're like, this is my new hyper focus. Like I'm obsessed. This is why so many of us overshare at the beginning, by the way, because we just get so obsessed. Okay, so when hyper focusing, the ADHD appears not to have ADHD because they're intensely focused and they become zeroed in on what they're doing or what they're thinking about. During a hyperfocused session, the ADHD will block out distractions. They won't notice the passage of time and they're often not even going to recognize hunger or thirst or sleep or toileting cues. Like everything is blocked out, we noticing nothing. I just want you to think about like the last time that you hyper focused. Sometimes it is such an asset because you can get involved in something and really go, pardon the expression, balls to the wall, and totally go all in and really accomplish great things. I mean, this is why we have to totally Give credit to ADHDers for accomplishing great things. Having ADHD does not mean that you don't accomplish great things. On the contrary, so many of us do. So many of us get such amazing things accomplished and much of that we can attribute to our hyper focus sessions. Here's the thing though, here's the thing. And you know, like, you know me, you know me, so you know it's coming, right? You know that I'm gonna of course say that like, yes, ADHDers can do anything. And yes, ADHDers are incredible. And having this ability to hyper focus can be an asset at times, but the question always is, at what cost? That's always the question. With adhd, we always have to ask the question, at what cost? At what cost are we hyperfocusing? Because if we're not recognizing the passage of time, our own hunger cues, thirst cues, the need to sleep, and even the need to use the restroom, what's the cost of that? It would be absolutely incredible if we could channel our hyper focus on command right on, on demand. If we had an on demand hyper focus ability, I would 100% consent to calling ADHD a superpower. If we were able to decide exactly what we hyper focused on, exactly when we hyper focused and for how long, if we could just do all of that on demand, I would finally relent. I would be like, okay, I am submitting and I am giving in. And yes, ADHD is a superpower, but how many of you have hyper focused to your own detriment, to your own demise? You've hyper focused on the wrong thing. You've hyperfocused to the extent where now you're forgetting to pick up your kids, you're forgetting to eat, you're forgetting to sleep, you're forgetting that like, being a human is a thing. Hyperfocus is not controlled by the ADHD person. It comes and it goes on a whim. It's not predictable. It's not something that we can just like channel and like flip the switch on to hyperfocus. It can't be initiated on command. It's. That's not possible. It kind of blows through, unpredictable. And if it's there, it's there. Here's the thing. Also, we often hyper focus on lower priority tasks. So often our hyper focus is channeled on things that like, don't actually matter to our workplace or they don't actually matter if in our home, or they don't actually matter to the people that we love. And sometimes that's fine because like, if, if it's time to do your hobby, let's say you're a quilter. I don't know why that popped in my mind, but it did. If it's hobby time and you start hyper focusing on your hobby during hobby time, well, that's awesome because who cares if your family doesn't benefit from it? Like, it's your hobby. You get to do what you want. But let's say you're at work and you're supposed to be completing a project and instead, instead you're hyper focusing on like making a PowerPoint presentation look beautiful in Canva. Well, that's a problem. That's a problem, right? Because we're hyper focusing on a lesser priority task and then the higher priority tasks are not being accomplished. And now a word from our sponsor.