Unmasking the Secret to Controlling ADHD Impulsivity

ADHD impulsivity isn't just a spark. It's a wildfire. It's that buy now button you click before your brain says, wait, we need this. It's diving headfirst into a new business venture on a whim. Like that time I impulsively bought 10, 000 bottles worth of collagen without doing any research. Only to realize that I needed to get approval to sell it in Canada, which took about 15 months. ADHD impulsivity can be exhilarating, but unchecked, it can steer your life and business off course. Today, let'

s navigate the storm, turning impulsivity from a foe to an ally. All right, so these are the things that I do to help manage the ADHD impulsivity. That I personally face and it's worked from everything from poor business decisions to Stopping me from buying some particular 3, 000 item I don't need even helping with Relationships and how I react to things that I don't necessarily like so the first tool In the toolbox is what I like to call, we're going to implement decision cooling off period. Wh

at this means is if you're like super hyped up or you're like really getting some kind of like dopamine fix from wanting to pursue a particular action, what I want you to do is I want you to never take action in that moment unless the potential negative outcome is incredibly small, but I would suggest that you take an idea and you say, okay, I really like this. Take, write down some notes because that usually helps with the requirement to squeeze the impulsivity. But take some notes, figure out

the pros and what you consider the cons in your impulsive moment of taking this action. And then, I want you to wait 24 hours. Wait, wait till the morning. If you're still feeling that same way the next day when you wake up, when you're not in either like hyper focus or dopamine seeking patterns. You're not in those patterns, you know, think about the idea and do you still think that the idea is as good when you're not an impulsive state? This, like I said, this can go from whether you're buying

something to even reacting to something that's happened to you. I don't know how many times I've written out these incredibly long emails, going over everything that I thought, how I felt I was wronged, I thought the other person did to me, and then I, you know, I just, now that I'm an adult, when I was younger, I would argue with people about everything, because I just didn't care, but as I've gotten older, I've realized That it's okay. I can write out the email when I'm in that state, but we'

re not sending it. Write it out, reevaluate it in the morning. And sometimes when you just type it out, you get it out of your system and then you don't even need to send it. The next day you're going to have much more clarity and you can make a decision based on how you're feeling then. The second thing, and I highly suggest you take these notes and you do this step is seek second opinions. From trusted sources. Now, all sources are not equal. We want to go to people who have an understanding a

nd expertise in the subject matter that we're seeking validation on. The reason being is if you're an entrepreneur and your family is not entrepreneurs, if you have this crazy business idea and you bring it to your family, chances are they're going to give you either false positives or false negatives. Or maybe they're right, but you want somebody who understands and can help you validate what that idea is. So if it's a business idea, try to find a mentor or somebody else that's in that space, w

ho can tell you whether or not it's a good idea. If it's like a purchase decision, you know, maybe you want to buy. A beautiful guitar, and you can't even play it yet. You know, your logic might be, and I know this from personal experience, that if I buy this nice guitar, it's going to motivate me to practice. For me, you know, that is kind of true, but it's not a sustainable source of motivation for me. So while it might temporarily solve the problem, I need to find another more sustainable way

. To get my guitar fixed and for this type of scenario talking to somebody that's a musician and asking them Hey when you buy new instruments, does this keep you actively practicing or does it just give you this little blip? And then you you're dead in the water again, so it's stuff like that and then you know Relationship stuff, again, that one's easy. If you have a friend, ideally, if you're going to ask somebody relationship advice, try to find somebody who has a healthy relationship or under

stands relationships, because that one could be a slippery slope too. Those questions are great for counselors or psychologists, or if you're taking ADHD drugs, ask your psychiatrist. But I highly suggest if you've done the cooling off period and you still think it's a good idea, Then on it by somebody who, who might have some insights. Number three, and this one is fantastic. I used this a ton a few years ago, and it really helped calm my mind and reduce my overall impulsivity. And that was pra

cticing mindfulness in some form of stress reduction. So for me, I use this awesome tool by a guy named Glenn Harold. I think he's on a couple other apps as well, but it was guided mindfulness. And I would just literally listen to it before I went to bed and like nine times out of 10, actually maybe 95 times out of a hundred, I would fall asleep while listening to it. And that was okay. Like you're supposed to try to pay attention, but it was putting me to sleep in a very peaceful state where I

was able to fall asleep without having a bunch of thoughts going through my head. And this really calmed down the wild nature of my brain that was always. Trying to find a new way to get dopamine. Don't get me wrong, I never eliminated my need to get dopamine. I have ADHD. I can't do that without stimulants, but most of the time anyways. But it really helped. There's other great techniques that I've been taught through counseling over the years, but stuff like box breathing and different breathi

ng techniques are also great ways. To get your body back in rhythm and if you're kind of like in a manic state, calm you down, get you grounded so that you can focus without having an overwhelming emotional sense of needing to do things that's not logical. And the fourth thing, and this is another thing I do a lot, I've had cycles with this throughout my whole entire life. And it's avoid making significant decisions while under stress. It's kind of sounds like implement a decision cooling off pe

riod. And there are some overlaps, but your behavior, when you're stressed often leads to dopamine seeking activities. For me, I like to eat sugar. And once I eat a little bit of sugar, I can't stop. It's like fireworks go off in my brain. And I'm like, I'm mindlessly going to the cupboard and just wolfing back whatever kind of sugary snack I can find. And then when there's no more, I start digging around and I won't eat until I am so full that I need to go to sleep. This level of impulsivity fo

r me is almost entirely linked to stress. I get it the most when I'm not feeling great and always eating terrible food. is consistent. But if I recognize that I'm under stress, I can try to make alternate decisions that will calm me down. Things like going for a walk, going to the gym, picking up a guitar, and playing it for a little bit. Like basically kind of going back to number three, but trying to reconnect and get mindful. Practicing these breathing techniques. These are the easiest ways t

o kind of get yourself out of like hyper focus on something stressful. Another great thing that you can do. is simply like journaling. If you're stressed about something, writing it down can be a huge relief. Especially, I find a huge source of stress for me, is overwhelm. Which comes from basically juggling too many balls at the same time. The easiest way that I've found to overcome this particular type of stress, is to simply just Write all of these down, right? Write every task down and then

you got to put them in an Eisenhower Matrix, which I talked about in another video, which I'll have at the end here But put them in an Eisenhower matrix or just like list them based on how difficult they are To accomplish and then put due dates beside them and rank them by urgency Knock a few of them off that really easy ones and you feel great like a hell of a lot better It's funny how just accomplishing tasks makes you feel better and I would highly recommend using a notebook something like th

is because the tactile feel the tactile event of Scratching off a an item off a list. There's dopamine feedback Response there and it makes you feel so much better so much quick. Anyways Uh, this is not my first video on ADHD. If you want to learn a little bit more about time management and how to dig deeper into what I just talked about, I made another great video talks about the Eisenhower matrix talks about prioritizing exactly what you have to do and how to skip past the overwhelm phase. Che

ck out that video. It's linked right here and I'll see you in the next video.