Five sentence (or less) summary: Don't just set out to do something; set out to do a tiny part of it and to do it badly. Identifying the absolute lowest possible bar you could set and incrementally raising it will hopefully be humorous and result in some hits of dopamine. There are no hidden expectations here. You're not giving yourself permission to do poorly ("but I really should fold ALL of the laundry"), your goal is to do poorly. We often have trouble getting started on a task, especially if it's boring, has multiple steps, and isn't going to result in an easy dopamine hit. Like most of us, I had a paper to write that I could not possibly have been less interested in. I didn't care about the consequences of not writing the paper, so anxiety as a motivator wasn't going to work. I had scheduled out my time. I knew what I had to do, and nothing.
I. did. not. care. I was reading writing tips from a fiction author, and she recommended writing badly. Yep, you have this huge paper to write, you can't get started, setting a timer for ten minutes and working isn't going well, so write a horrible introduction. Write badly. Your goal is no longer to write "the introduction" or "an introduction," your goal is to literally write "a bad introduction." It's a variation of taking the pressure completely off and just write something, but your honest goal is to write poorly. Why? Takes the pressure off and honestly it is kind-of fun. ADHD folks often need that last part. I've adapted this as the years have gone on to what I'm calling the low bar reverse limbo.
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Whether you're neurodivergent or not, navigating college or university is a skill. It's something that has to be learned and it is something that isn't usually taught. Some schools are better at helping diverse thinkers than others. Most schools are really bad at it in my opinion. Some schools are more inclusive. There are a range of experiences, which is something to keep in mind.
Another thing about college is that it is actually not all that uncommon for this to be the time in many people's lives where they are diagnosed with ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, etc. Being away from home for the first time means we're away from a lot of the support we had. There are no teachers checking if we did our homework. There are no parents asking to see our tests or making sure we ate something other than potato chips for dinner. Rather than having multiple smaller assignments and multiple opportunities to improve our grade over the course of a year, now we have short semesters and our final exam is 30% of our entire grade. Lots of things about higher education make life harder. The freedom is exciting of course, but sometimes we don't make the best choices and we don't realize what we're doing wrong. My first semester in college, I studied harder than I ever had before but my grades had never been lower. I had to completely rethink how I studied for exams, took notes, and asked for help. Help yourself out by getting organized before the semester even starts. |
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