Hi everyone.
When I try to follow a schedule to eat, clean my room and do my homework, it feels good at the beginning, but as time goes on, it just doesn’t feel good anymore.
I’m not even sure if I even feel trully happy about doing all of my responsibilities.
It doesn’t feel as if a burden has been lifted of my shoulder.
It doesn’t feel as if I were “refreshed” or more energetic after I do all of these.
I started slowly like my therapist recommended: I did a schedule to eat 3 times a day. It started rocky but then I manage to do it… but only for a while. Eating just didn’t feel good either.
Every single time I finally clean my room, I don’t feel any good: it just feels as though I wasted time because I don’t feel any better.
Doing math homework is fun, philosophy to, but I don’t like any of the other subjects I actually need to do homework for.
I know it might seem childish to only do things that feel good but I hate not being able to feel anything at all, especially when I do things that are supposed to help me but don’t make me feel anybetter afterwards.
Has someone here went through anything similar? What do you do then, if so?
Edit: I have read all of your replies so far, but I don’t know how to respond properly to them. All I can think of is to say thank you! I will try to change things (although slowly) today using your tips.
Here’s the thing, you do these things more for self maintenance rather than for it to feel good. Brush your teeth and floss now so they don’t rot when you’re older. And that comes faster than you think. Like I was eating dinner at my neighbor’s house on his 60th birthday and he was dealing with painful root canals. (But my sister had to deal with those in her teens)
Homework SUCKS, but it teaches you discipline for yourself. Doing parts you don’t quite enjoy just to get the job done. Which is insanely important for every single work ethic you do in your future. I know so many 3d artists who are incredible, but have the attention span worse than rats. So they don’t go anywhere and constantly need to be told to stay focused.
A clean room is a clean mind. Having a messy room to wake up to is fine at first. But it can tend to get worse and spread throughout the rest of the house over time and 1 small task each day turns into a mountainous multi-day cleanup. (My mother is a hoarder of projects and stuff. 2 rooms completely unusable in the house and she leaves her tools all over the place without making a habit of putting stuff back. I never know where anything is)
It’s the same for food. You eat the damn vegetables now to get a palette for them or you will suffer obesity by fast food or whatever. Which leads to lack of energy and always feeling fatigued. (Which I’m currently dealing with and only now just got to liking Broccoli. I’m 29)
As someone who decided to only live for things that I actually care about and even made my own job as a 3d animator, maintenance and discipline show up in places you don’t expect and you’ll be thankful you built it up beforehand. The things that make me feel good are my choices in what I work on, the dream that I strive for, and the fact that I carry a sense of quality and discipline at some points to be able to be more ambitious than others because I will carry out tough tasks rather than avoid them even when they don’t make me feel rewarded.
Lastly let’s talk about the schedule. Super important to even have one despite friends being all, “Let’s go out late at night til 4am”. Let’s see their attention span when they’re older. Well the schedule helps you get food in your body that you might forget to do because you’re so focused, or even overly eat. Sleep is incredibly important, but you know something is wrong when you wake up and already feel tired. You may break the schedule to however you want after school, which is really nice, but if you create your own job in art then you’ll have to apply one to yourself or weeks or months will fly by and you’re stuck on the same project without focus.
Also, take notes YOUR way. Forget standardized notes. Just write down whatever helps you remember things in the way you do. School usually forces tests without notes, but all work and even important conversations outside of school is all about taking notes and rereading them. Learn any way you can to enjoy that part! I have my own Discord server for all kinds of notes I take that get categorized. I also have a fast notes page in my phone’s home screen because my memory is just bad. And that’s OK, because I take great notes!
I understand. I think I lack self-discipline, because I don’t do things that I know I won’t like. I just thought that I would maybe feel happier after eating 3 meals a day for a week, but now that I think about it, maybe it’s just to not feel bad later, right?
Do you have any tips to get self-discipline, or do I have to change the way I feel about responsibilities? If it’s the latter, how do I go about it?
Thank you very much!
One of the things you realize at some point is that your brain craves structure. Maybe it’s not true for everyone but that is my experience.
The hard part is, your brain wants to do the most rewarding thing in the moment. This is bad for building and maintaining structure.
So, what I might suggest is this:
You can’t plan every moment of your life, but you can build a plan that applies every day. Stopping to plan for “tomorrow” every day is exhausting, but planning for the week is easier. Also, eliminate as much choice as you can. If you feel fine eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day because it’s easier that way then do it. Don’t let anyone make you feel shame over it.
I also like to reaffirm a montra that comes from addiction recovery that I think applies to people with ADHD. Instead of thinking, “I have to do these things forever”, I think “I just have to do these things today”. Don’t worry about tomorrow, just work on today. If you’re keeping track, you’ll be surprised with how consistent you can really be, and it’ll hurt less when you slip up.
Just try to find extra ways to extract enjoyment out of the tougher tasks. Turn it into a game AND REWARD yourself for getting through it.