Day 18: Actions

Here’s what I know about taking action and adhd, they go hand in hand.

When you have adhd tendencies, it’s actually harder to stop taking action.

In fact, some of what happens is we’re taking so much action we look like the Tasmanian Devil. Spinning and bouncing and flitting around.

The problem is that the energy or feeling behind our action is often one of lack or urgency.

We’re either feeling like we’re not enough, therefore need to overcompensate by doing more. Or we’re insanely curious and so can’t help but do more. Or maybe we resist feeling restless and bored so do more.

When we have a point or goal that we’re aiming for, this happenstance type of business isn’t enough.

We can spin around and around our goals, never actually landing on them.

Here’s what I now know…What we do is never as important as how we do it.

The 4th step of The Model is Actions (which includes inactions - doing nothing, and reactions - responding without awareness.)

How we feel drives us to act. Our feelings cause us to do something that moves us closer to our desired result or further away from it.

How we feel can cause us to freeze, stand still and do nothing. This is inaction.

There are times when we’re a frenzy of emotion and we just react. It happens so quickly the only way we’re aware of what happened in these instances is by realizing it after the fact. (remember the Tazmanian Devil example from above.)

Let’s revisit this…

WHAT we do is never as important as HOW we do it.

The actions that we take are heavily influenced by how we feel. For every action that exists in the world, you feel an emotion first. When the action stays the same, but the feeling is different, you will get a different outcome. End up in a different place.

Think of the act of offering someone an apple. The action is giving a person an apple.

Elementary aged kids will often really like a teacher, feel love for them and give them an apple.

You may feel concern over your spouses health and eating habits, and give them an apple for lunch.

The witch in Sleeping Beauty felt jealousy for the princess and gave her an apple (albeit a poisoned one).

Same action-giving an apple. Different feelings driving the action and creates different results.

See what I mean? It’s crazy how it works.

When we know the result that we’re after, we can then be more aware of how we’re feeling and why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Instead of spending so much time on the what to do, we want to focus on the how we’re feeling to get better results. ~Shaun