Is giving 100% always a good thing for ADHD-ers?

This blog post has been building up in my mind over the past few days. What the heck am I talking about when I say “Is giving 100% always a good thing for ADHD-ers”??! Isn’t giving 100% always the way to go?

Let me give an example:

I just started working as a virtual assistant. One of my upsides and also my downfall is that I have to do EVERYTHING at 100%. I literally spent 15 hours on a project that should have taken me 5. Why did I do this? How did this happen? There was the option of doing it the simple way, 50% or there was the Alyssa way at 100%. Well, I ended up spending like 5 hours imputing all the questions (normal way) and then proceeded with a super complicated way to organize everything. Then it turned out that the super complicated way wouldn’t actually work so I had to spend even more time to re-fix everything. Insert total meltdown here. I ended up getting incredibly mad at myself and was battling with myself between stopping and giving up versus continuing. I ended up continuing and completing but it was rough! And for what?! I was not happy with the results and I still am not.

I did have a couple of options for the way that I could have accomplished said project:

1. Option #1: “half-ass it”. The thing with the half-ass option is it is the way the most people will accomplish the task and there is nothing wrong with that. Most people will see it as the “normal” way. Me? I’m not normal and basically can’t do anything the “normal way”.

2. Option #2: Do it the “Alyssa” way, the big shiny bright way. The new, fun way… I think you get the picture!

What I realized while I was chatting with a friend is that the giving 100% option is so much more fun and appealing to me. The end result will be nice, shiny and bright. On the other hand, if I do the 50% option (half-ass it) the process is boring, mundane, and very straight forward. I do not learn anything new and like I said, it is BORING. I also have a huge internal battle because I don’t feel as though I am doing my best.

When something like this happens in my life I always, always, always need a solution. So here it is:

Solution: 4 Steps

Ask myself:

1. What is the task I want to accomplish? What is the end goal?

2. What is the easiest way to accomplish the goal?

3. What is the Alyssa(hardest) way?

4. What is the happy medium?

–> #4 is going to be the option that I will go with moving forward.

The key will be to actually realize that I need to pause and ask myself “is this the way that I should be doing this”?

Let me quickly explain to you why implementing this solution into my life is so crucial. I put in all the extra work (realizing I wouldn’t charge for it) and was super disappointed when that time and effort was wasted. I wanted to throw in the towel and I essentially had a little “breakdown”. I realized that I still had a few hours to go to be able to fix the mistakes that I had made. I didn’t want to give more of my precious time away to this project. I had messed up by already giving too much of my time. I started to cry and feel sorry for myself (I am 26 years old, I don’t think this should happen lol). I said okay, time out. I took a bath and turned on my meditation app. In the bath I told myself all the positive aspects of what happened. I learnt A LOT about the task that I was given. To move forward I gave myself a little competition to see how long it would take me to get the task fixed. I put on some fun music and I kept on going! All this to say, the time wasted and the emotional toll that it placed on me was not ideal in the slightest bit. I would really like to implement my solutions to avoid the emotional breakdowns!!

Fun side note: My next chapter to read in my school manual is called “Procrastination, Perfectionism, Incompletions”. This should be super helpful for me to realize if this 100% is a part of perfectionism or just that I want to give everything; my all. 

Does this happen to you? Do you give 100% when maybe you shouldn’t be?