Now that we’ve gotten some prerequisites out of the way, it’s time to get to the heart of habit-building with ADHD.

Habit building is a complex subject, and everyone can have slightly different approaches to it.

But through my own and my client’s experiences, I’ve extracted 5 ADHD strategies for habit-building that can make this a lot less stressful and intimidating.

5 ADHD Strategies for Habit Building

TLDR:

Building habits with an ADHD brain can be tough, but following these 5 simple strategies can make it easier:

1. Have a damn good reason for starting the habit, list the desired habit, and ask yourself "why" you should do it 3 times to go deeper.
2. Make it too easy to start by lowering barriers and creating convenience.
3. Reward yourself for small wins to keep your brain engaged.
4. Do as little as possible at first to avoid burnout and build consistency.
5. Schedule everything to minimize stress and stay organized.

With small, steady changes, you’ll gain control over your habits and see big transformations.

5 ADHD Strategies for Habit Building ( Full )

Have Damn Good Reasons to Start Them

Nietzsche said, "He who has a why can bear any how." I think the ADHD version of this is, "He who DOESN’T have a why won’t bear ANY how."

Sometimes the deep reasons why something is good for us won’t be apparent immediately.

An exercise I use to get some depth in my decision-making is something called the “3 Whys.”

How it works:

Sit down and write down the habit you want to start adding to your routine, and then you ask yourself why you should do it 3 times. 

This will allow you to dig deeper into your internal desires and reveal the reasons that matter most for you to do something.

For example:

Habit: Fitness

Why?

Because I want to be healthy.

Why?

Because if I’m healthier, I can manage myself and my ADHD better.

Why?

Because I’m tired of feeling helpless.

BOOM, that’s a pretty damn good reason to start going to the gym.

Make It Too Easy to Start

New habits should be laughably easy to start as part of your schedule.

The bigger the barrier to entry, the more willpower we need to overcome it, and willpower is finite with ADHD.

For convenience’s sake, let’s stick with the example of fitness.

To make fitness too easy to start, you can:

• Go twice a week for just 30 minutes.
• Lay your gym clothes out the day before so you don’t have to decide that at the time.
• Pick a gym that’s as close to you as possible.
• Choose exercises that have the least learning curve.

If those don’t work, you can literally just show up to the gym twice a week and then leave, building the habit of going there and then building on it later.

The most important part of building the habit is finding a way to keep it consistent—it’s less about how well you perform the habit starting out.

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Sorry that plug was just too easy to pass up on, alright moving on…

Reward Yourself for Your Efforts (Even Small Wins)

Our dopamine-starved brains must find ways to reward ourselves for the wins we accomplish.

This keeps things interesting and exciting for us.

Rewarding yourself can be simple or extravagant.

It can be as little as getting your favorite coffee or going on a shopping spree.

Just make sure to try your best to match the size of the reward to the size of the accomplishment.

For example, going to the gym?

Great reason to hit up Starbucks after, but maybe not a shopping spree.

Going to the gym for 3 months?

Okay, maybe we’re talking about a nice dinner—something a bit more grand.

6 months?

Okay, maybe something on the pricier side from Amazon that’s been on our wish list forever.

12 months?

Okay, now let’s hit the mall.

See what I mean?

If you go overboard too soon, you can diminish the challenge relative to the reward, making the challenge much less meaningful and if taken to an extreme, can even be counterproductive.

Do As Little As Possible

When starting out, and just in general, I always recommend ADHD'ers do as little as possible. Believe me when I tell you, this is going to be harder than it sounds.

In my opinion and experience, doing less is way harder than doing more because ADHD'ers are prone to overworking themselves.

It’s so easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle because it’s actually easier to do that than to do a couple of things very well.

Why?

Because it’s so much more exciting.

But when starting on the path to habit development, it’s key that you limit the number of new habits you implement and only add more when you’ve solidified the previous ones for about a month.

Trust me, it sounds boring now, but you’ll thank me later for all the stress this will save you from trying to conquer the world overnight.

Schedule Everything

With ADHD, what isn’t written down probably won’t be remembered, and what is written down still might be forgotten.

But when we schedule everything into our calendar apps on our electronic devices, we can set them to give us a reminder—or multiple reminders—before a task is to be completed or an appointment is coming.

We can also constantly reference the calendar to stay ahead and ensure we’re mentally prepared for what’s ahead.

Without a schedule, I’ve noticed life is much more stressful because, with ADHD, it’s much more difficult to organize a day in our brains.

The anxiety of this can easily lead to us just curling up in bed and doing nothing.

So, as you introduce a new habit into your life, schedule it immediately—and schedule it at a time that you KNOW you will be available, so you have minimal excuses not to do it.

Bringing back fitness as an example:

You want to work out twice a week, so you schedule yourself to work out Wednesday and Friday at 5:30 PM at a gym that’s on your route home from work.

There you go—now you know exactly what you’re doing, and you’ve made it as convenient as possible to do it.

Chances are, you’ll probably do it.

Now, let’s picture the typical alternative:

“I should probably work out, I’m going to start going to the gym tomorrow.”

*Never goes*.

That’s because you have no plan, no schedule, no clarity.

You just had an idea, and those are a dime a billion with ADHD.

Conclusion

Habit building is critical to taking back control of our lives with ADHD, and it all starts with minor changes that lead to big ones, eventually leading to total transformation.

With these strategies, I’ve noticed the most success in my own life and in my clients’ results in fitness and general lifestyle.

If you use even one of them when you start your next habit, I guarantee the likelihood of you sticking with it will be much higher.

Now that you’ve got the strategies, in the next email, I’m going to show you which habits are best for you to start with ADHD so you can take action.

Learning is doing and getting better results, so it’s time to get to the doing part.

See you tomorrow.