By Kourosh Dini, MD with Dr. Megan Anna Neff

_________________________

"I just..."

"I just need to start,”

and

"I just don't wanna"

…are both familiar refrains for those of us with wandering minds. You may well know that once you're in it, you're good to go. But getting to that threshold can seem so difficult.

What gives?

Agency's Vital Role

When it comes to ADHD, we talk a lot about attention (and rightly so). But there's another vitally important concept that doesn’t get enough attention — agency.

Agency is the degree to which we can decide and act non-reactively.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to simply decide and act? Unfortunately, those of us with ADHD can find this practice particularly difficult. The mind runs quickly with ideas, emotions, interests, often faster than we can keep up with. Meanwhile, distractions, desire for stimulation, and a cacophony of social media bombard us. How can we possibly make a clear decision and non-reactively act when managing attention itself is such an issue?

The Stumbles

Still, things need to happen. And as we try, we can stumble.

We drop things, lose things, forget why we walked into a room, lock ourselves out of the house, lose track of one important matter while focused on another, and more. Because of these repeated stumbles, many of us begin to believe that something is wrong with us. It's difficult to compete with direct experience. When we struggle to get things done while others nearby seemingly make their calls, do their work, and get to things they enjoy with little difficulty we easily begin to lose trust in ourselves. Well meaning others may even point out your problems and ask,

"Why can't you just...?"

While a diagnosis or medications can be helpful, they don't change the fact that important matters still need to get done, well before they catch fire. The struggle to decide and act continues. So, mounting courage once again, you pick yourself up. And then stumble again, cycling between states of collapse and yet another attempt, all while feeling "something is wrong."

The Allure of Force

Perhaps you've discovered that things seem to get done when you:

1. Already have an interest in something, or

2. Have something major at stake (as is often represented by a deadline).

Once you notice these tendencies, you might understandably try to use either of these levers to make things happen. Unfortunately, these methods easily become hijacked by forms of force or inaction.

Examples include:

✴Waiting for a deadline to kick you into gear

✴ Creating fake deadlines to get yourself moving earlier

✴ Staking your reputation by publicly declaring that you will do the thing

✴ Writing a task over and over--on sticky notes, in task managers, across your hand, and more--each an attempt to yell at yourself louder and louder

✴ Waiting until you "feel like it" to begin

✴ Trying to fake "I feel like it" to begin

✴ Leveraging shame by remembering past failures, hoping that if you feel bad enough about yourself, you just might start

✴ Asking someone else to remind you or "make" you do it

Strategies like waiting for the last minute, creating artificial deadlines, or invoking shame as a motivator, can seem helpful but often result in a significant toll on our mental and physical well-being. This is because they frequently activate our body's stress responses—such as the fight, flight, or freeze mechanisms—putting continuous pressure on our nervous system.

The Fragility of Force

Navigating through these constraints can often feel like trying to dance in quicksand. Even when you manage to take a step forward, the effort seems monumental. Any progress made under these conditions might carry a sense of impermanence, as if the solid ground beneath your feet might give way at any moment, even if the results outwardly appear to be done very well.

The fragility directly stems from its forced nature.

For example, that "A" on a test that you crammed for the night before can feel hollow, especially when you see the knowledge you hastily memorized disappear so quickly. This emptiness stems not just from the superficial nature of the achievement, but also from the manner in which it was obtained. Had you absorbed the same material over the same time frame driven by genuine curiosity and a desire to learn, I imagine you would have remembered it much differently.

The mix of shame from procrastinating and the anxiety over potential failure casts a shadow over the achievement, subtly stealing away the joy and pride that should accompany our successes. It's like standing atop a podium built on unsteady foundations; the height might be the same, but the ground beneath feels anything but solid.

Injuries to Agency

While Force-based methods can make some things move forward, they can also injure your sense of agency. Every time you use one of these methods, you directly tell yourself, experientially, that you cannot be trusted to make decisions and act. You may even strongly believe this, having reinforced the belief over and over.

The injury is easily felt in the phrase:

"I just don't wanna."

It might sound strange, but when agency is injured, some part of you absolutely resents being told what to do, even if that person is you.

And every attempt to force yourself makes this rejecting part of you stronger, if not louder.

But with no other seeming option available, you can only double down on the things you can count on. For example, another deadline reliably creates the waves of urgency needed to overwhelm the inertia.

Still, the pattern of impairment continues here as well. For example, maybe you were able to get yourself to do something by using one of the above methods. But the next time you try the same thing, it doesn't work as well, whether it is turned in later, less thorough, etc.

The Self in Protection Mode

You might believe that the worsening results are about a decrease of "novelty" with each attempt. But I don't think that's the most important part of it.

Instead, consider that the "I just don't wanna" feelings are trying to protect you. While there are many ways the phrase can be used to protect yourself, one way in particularly might be:

"I want to maintain my right to choose."

While you might consciously and rationally understand this, the emotional parts of the mind rarely care to follow such reasoning. As I'm fond of saying, I've never won an argument with an emotion.

Instead, if we are to have some say with our emotions, we do better to engage them with direct experience and genuinely felt changes of perspective.

Changing Experience and Perspective

So how do we begin crawling out of this hole of seeming hopelessness?

Let's return to the beginning where we started with the phrase:

"I just need to start..."

The trouble with demanding a "start" is that it is still a demand. It is still you trying to force yourself in a way that another part of you is just screaming against.

A better expression is:

"Show up, then decide."

This might appear to be a meaningless shift or turn of phrase, but it can make all the difference, because here you support agency.

The first phrase is part of a Force-based system while the latter is part of what I call a Visit-Based system.

Making a Visit

A Visit is this:

1. Decide where you want your focus to be. This could be a task, a project, something fun, or otherwise

2. Show up to that thing

3. Preferably, set distractions aside

4. Stay for the length of at least a single deep breath

At this point, you can walk away. Or, you can decide to nudge it forward. Sometimes that becomes a flow. Sometimes not. But, it is vital to fully know that you can step away at any time.You are the captain of your ship. You have your choice. This is where and how you can begin to build trust with yourself again. This is where you grant yourself full agency. You get to decide.

Further, as you are there with the work or play, you directly expose yourself to the emotions of the work. Changes become possible, both internally and externally.There is one more bit to consider. If the work is not done by the time you decide to step away, whether you've done nothing, little, or most of it:

5. Consider making another Visit the next day.

6. Continue in the same fashion, day after day, until you actively decide:

The work is done or
You wish to set it aside.

An Exercise

Be warned, a Visit sounds simple, but it is not necessarily easy.

Consider the following exercise:

1. List out a series of things that are due at some point in the future, no matter how far off. (Maybe 5-7 items is fine - just enough to give yourself some options.)

2. To really get a sense of the power of this exercise, choose one of them with a due date further out than others.

3. Consider making a Visit as outlined above.

Stressing once again, you don't need to do any of it. You may well discover that you get many things done well before a deadline using this Visit-based technique.

About Kourosh Dini, MD

Kourosh Dini, MD is a clinical psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in downtown Chicago, IL. He is the author of several productivity books and courses including *[Waves of Focus: Guiding the Wandering Mind](https://www.wavesoffocus.com/)*.

The Visit is a part of the Waves of Focus Methodology to engaging work. If you would like to learn more about a Visit-Based approach to work, consider this free PDF: Your First Step to Breaking Free from Force-Based Work.

“I just don’t wanna” and the Power of a Visit