If you have ADHD, you know that one of our biggest problems is not being able to pay attention.
Duh. That’s why they call it Attention Deficit Disorder.
Not being able to pay attention is a whole lot of what we struggle with in our lives.
For instance, after my daughter Sarah got engaged, I joined Weight Watchers online so that I could lose some weight and look nice for the wedding.
For a while I was doing really great. I kept track of my food points every day and my weight every week. And I lost about 15 lbs. Cool.
But then, the Weight Watchers thing got old.
You know – we’re all about something when it’s shiny and new, but after a while we need something else to play with.
Now I didn’t give up on Weight Watchers. After all, I had success with it.
No. What I did was to stop paying attention to it.
By this time, I knew the point values of certain foods or meals. So I got a little casual with it. If by lunchtime I felt like I had been careful about points, I stopped counting for the rest of the day.
Or if I had something that I knew was an outrageous amount of points, I just didn’t count at all that day.
The end result is that I’m no longer seeing results.
Because I’m not paying enough attention.
The same thing is true of housework or almost anything else you can think of. When you do it often enough, it loses it’s appeal.
And you stop paying attention.
So what’s the solution?
You have to start paying attention again.
Not so easy, huh?
Well here is a little tip that might help you.
Paying attention is all about mindfulness. Being present in the moment.
Mindfulness is something that you can learn and improve on with practice. And it will carry over into the parts of your life that are on autopilot if you try.
Here’s a fun and easy way to begin: start using your non-dominant hand for simple tasks like eating or brushing your teeth.
If you’re right handed, that means doing things with your left hand; if you’re a lefty, trying doing them with your right.
It will be awkward and clumsy at first. You’re going to have to concentrate and pay attention in order to have any success at all.
That’s good, because now you are in the moment. And the more you are, the easier it will become to learn to pay attention.