How To Handle Failure When You Have ADHD – Failure is The Default

Published on: December 23rd, 2019

Failure is the default.

This applies to everyone and especially those with ADHD.

By default, if you don’t eat a healthy diet and commit to exercising regularly, your body will degrade over time. 

This is obvious when you compare the body of a 70 year old lifelong athlete to the body of a 70 year old lifelong truck driver.

The lifelong athlete must constantly exert energy into keeping their mind and body healthy. While the lifelong truck driver must constantly exert energy into driving a large 18-wheel vehicle.

If both people shared the same life vision of maximizing their health and wellness over a lifetime, the lifelong athlete is most likely to “win” while the lifelong truck driver is most likely to “fail”.

Failure is inevitable when you don’t continuously channel energy and attention in the direction of your life’s vision

This is just the reality of Mother Nature herself!

For example:

• Kick a soccer ball one time and it will stop rolling after just a few seconds

• Upload just three videos to YouTube and people will eventually stop watching your videos

• Publish 2 blog posts and it’s highly unlikely that many people will read your blog

Now let’s compare the flip side of these examples:

• Kick a soccer ball back and forth between an entire soccer team and the soccer ball has the potential to keep rolling forever

• Upload 100 videos to YouTube and your videos will probably be watched for multiple years

• Publish 100 blog posts and people will most likely read your blog for multiple years

Notice how the amount of attention and energy you dedicate to a pursuit will almost always dictate whether the pursuit “succeeds” or “fails” over the long-term.

While it’s true that success and failure are subjective and entirely dependent on your life’s vision…wouldn’t you rather have a YouTube channel that actually generates revenue every month. Even if you have to make 100 YouTube videos to ensure its success?

This sounds a lot better than uploading just 3 YouTube videos which don’t help you earn any additional money, don’t help you build an audience, and don’t serve any real purpose at all.

The point here is that failure is always going to be the default state of nature.

This is because energy is constantly being transferred.

Energy is never going to stay in the same place.

Energy is always moving. 

You’re either moving closer to your life’s vision. Or you’re moving further away from your life’s vision.

This means you must constantly drive more attention and energy into your Attention & Energy Grid to ensure the successful fulfillment of your life’s vision.

Action steps

• Know that “failure” is the default state of nature because anything worth achieving requires a sustained amount of attention and energy

• Know that failure is common, and success requires exceptional energy and commitment

• Because success is the exception in life, know that you have to dedicate exceptional amounts of energy and attention towards achieving your life’s vision with ADHD