Have you ever wished a hack or clever trick could spark your momentum—only to watch it fade just as quickly? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we gently unravel why shortcuts can undermine our confidence and how true agency is built on self-trust and mindful practice, not fleeting novelty.
Join me as we explore the honest path to sustainable motivation for adults with ADHD and wandering minds. You’ll discover why “faking it” or relying on tricks often sabotages our systems and how deep, rooted confidence grows from repeated, intentional practice. Together, we’ll navigate:
- The hidden costs of tricks, hacks, and novelty-seeking in our personal systems
- How genuine trust in oneself—not force or self-deception—lays the groundwork for true confidence
- The transformative power of embracing gentle, manageable risks as part of everyday growth
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize why relying on hacks often erodes your sense of agency
- Practice building trust in yourself through small, consistent actions (“daily visits”)
- Embrace gentle risks as stepping stones to confidence and mastery
This episode features my original piano composition, “Running on the Sun”—a musical frame for the hopeful risks we take in growth.
If you find this episode resonates, subscribe and explore more resources at rhythmsoffocus.com.
#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #SelfTrust #DailyPractice #GentleRisk #Confidence #Neurodivergent #IntentionalLiving
I just don't feel like it. If I only had a hack, if I had a trick, if I had something novel, a new, something different, that'll, something just gets me to start. Ah, once I start, I'm good.
The trouble with these approaches, it's not that they don't work, it's sometimes they do. Ultimately the seeds of the destruction of our systems are there, in the beginning of these sorts of approaches where we've just found some trick. We lead ourselves down some destructive path, something that will eventually fail.
Why does that happen? How does that happen? And then what does work?
What's wrong with a trick or a hack? Why can't we just make these things happen so that we can start and make ourselves work. Well one trouble is that they often rely on some novelty of some sort, and novelty by definition will fall apart. And perhaps we argue so long as we can keep this roulette wheel of novel possibilities around, we'll be good.
Okay, look, if that works for you, wonderful. Please go right ahead and do it.
The trouble I have though is that I find that trying to trick my unconscious , that part of me that's deep, it doesn't work. It knows already that it's not going to work. Essentially, it goes into this conversation of,
"Well, if I somehow manage to trick myself into showing up, chances are I might even do something. And I don't wanna do something, and so I won't even try."
So the approach in this way would fall apart immediately.
But even in the case that we do succeed in tricking or forcing ourselves, the trouble is that we've effectively told ourselves that we cannot do things without tricks or force. In this way, tricks rot our systems.
Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and most importantly, with the relationship that we have with ourselves. Psychoanalyst Eric Erickson notes the first task of infant development is Trust versus Mistrust. We try to know what we can rely on, and that goes well beyond infancy into our everyday world.
Trust, as I'm defining it, is a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been, such that we can rely on it.
As I tend to do, I like to repeat my definitions and I know I've presented trust before, but I'm gonna do it again. Trust is a...
