Should I Stay or Should I Go Now...

I'm at a crossroads, needing to make a difficult choice.

Jul 23, 2024

I stare at the screen. Willing my hand, my fingers to put thoughts into print, yet they don’t move.

My hand keeps trying to move to my mouse, taking me to some blessed distraction in a browser. It tries to break free, searching for my phone and a simple Sudoku game.

If you don’t have ADHD, you don’t know this struggle.

Sitting in this frozen state, unable to take action leaves you feeling helpless. On the verge of tears, I take a deep breath and abandon the intention of brilliance in hopes of just getting words.

‘Mary had a little lamb.’

Anything.

‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’

I can type gibberish, I can type meaningless sentences! It’s progress, now to keep it going.

Brain Lock Sucks

The most frustrating thing about ADHD is brain freeze. I’ve had days when I literally go from room to room, out into the yard, over to my tools and find myself unable to do anything intentional. Getting locked in your body, knowing that your hands are only interested in “easy mode” seems absurd. This feeling of being unable to start anything, ANYTHING, is the most frustrating because we know how easy it is.

If you don’t have ADHD, or if your ADHD doesn’t present with brain lock, then you will look at this and offer all the basics.

Break it down into small tasks.
Once you start, it’ll all fall into place.
Swallow the Frog.
Use a Pomodoro Timer.

All the advice seems good. Often it even works, but when it doesn’t, when nothing works, you feel worthless.

Starting a Business is Hard

Coming up with ideas is amazing. Creating a plan for ideas, in a vacuum, is inspiring. Taking the first steps can be invigorating.

But what happens when the ideas stop, or they don’t pan out? What happens when the plan isn’t happening the way you designed? What happens when you have to take the first steps… again?

This is where I’m at. It’s where I’ve been most of the month of July. I write about the distractions I chase, the things I do, so I don’t have to work. The real problem is, when “working” makes the yucky parts of ADHD powerful, my autopilot moves aggressively towards distraction.

My current next steps are to re-factor my business plan. To be more specific in my intentions, recognizing that I was going too broad and making minimal progress down multiple paths. The result of my initial business plan is that I was spread too thin, acting on projects that I didn’t fully know how they’d work.

The reality of all of this is that, once the plan didn’t go perfectly, it left me apathetic and hopeless about the future.

Until I “drop” all the past rules and create new ones, I can’t actively make myself work on anything. Honestly, right now, as I type this, I realize…

I give up.

That sounds horrible. It sounds like weakness. It’s hard to say. But the truth is, version 1 is not the right path. An experienced entrepreneur would say “this is the way.” They would not have any pomp around those 3 words. They would just wipe the slate clean, take the lessons learned, and start over.

So, this is true. I give up.

Giving Up is Hard (as well)

Actually, that’s not true. Deciding to give up is hard. The words are cathartic. The next steps are starting to be exciting again. So, I’ll say it again until it sinks in. I give up.

I didn’t want to give up. That sounds like failure. It is failure by itself, so I’m not committing to that statement. I’m not headed to the chocolatier to get Bonbons.

Giving up, with full abandonment, is where failure happens.

Giving up, with an eye to the future, means taking the wreckage that I just abandoned, pulling out all the parts that still work, and moving on.

Share mindfullish

What Didn’t Work and What Did?

In the spirit of keeping this simple, and recognizing there is a lot of work to do in that analysis, I’ll keep it focused on the most obvious.

Too many Irons in the fire - These are the bad ones.

Write on Medium to build a voice, an audience, and earn some income.
Write on LinkedIn to build an audience of professionals.
Creating an ‘offering’ to put at the bottom of a funnel.

Medium was great for a while, but the truth is, you have to put in a decent amount of work to keep it profitable. If you take your foot off the accelerator, it loses steam very fast. The fact that its so quick to see makes it more depressing. Medium is one of the soul crushing ‘failures’ of this endeavor. It’s a weak platform with a limited audience. It’s an audience where my target, where my people are in short supply.

LinkedIn is similar, its a lot of warm or cold outreach. It’s a lot of, honestly, false hope. The atmosphere is Pollyanna, nobody wants to piss off their current boss or their potential new boss. It is not the place to start. Maybe when I run out of other places to look for my people.

Creating an ‘offering’ was always a muddy, messy affair. I was going to create a system to help everyone with ADHD. I’ve learned a lot in 4 months, with the truth that creating an ADHD productivity system is not what you open with. I’ve learned a lot about myself, about ADHD and about how others handle it, so it’s back to the drawing board with more clarity.

If I Were Starting Over…

Technically, I kind of am, though it’s a warm start. My focus is Substack and a newsletter. My focus is, Twitter as a HUGE platform with a lot of people. I can learn a lot building a following there and apply that elsewhere. My priorities now are finding my tribe. Being authentic about myself, offering wisdom when I can, being a person to talk to and a helper. I’m not writing from a position of authority anymore, I’m writing as a partner.

I feel a heck of a lot better now than I did an hour ago, and I’m glad to share it with you. I’ll still be here. I’ll probably still struggle, but I’m hopeful!