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‘New Year, New Me’ With ADHD
The problem with trying to reinvent yourself if you’re neurodivergent
Hot take: ‘New Year, new me’ can be a problematic concept. Even hotter take: ‘New Year, new me’ can do more harm than good when you have ADHD.
Of course, using the new year as a clean slate to get you back on track with goals, habit-building, and motivation works for many people and is not an inherently bad trend.
But when everything related to goals, resolutions, and motivation goes against what actually works for a neurodivergent brain, we run the risk of feeding our feelings of not being enough instead of improving our lives. The reasons for this are complex and encompass common symptoms of ADHD.
Disclaimer: This article is largely based on my experience as an unmedicated ADHDer in the process of diagnosis. The ADHD experience is unique for every person and differs extremely from men to women.
Motivation is not about willpower
ADHD brains find motivation in passion or urgency. There is no such thing as writing down a list of goals and trusting ourselves to get motivated each day, each week, for a whole year, to get closer to those goals.