Resisting the Temptation of Negative Self-Talk

Summary

The author discusses their personal struggle with productivity rhythms influenced by ADHD, creativity, and a drive for efficiency, which often leads to cycles of hyperfocus and exhaustion, and their journey towards self-acceptance and trust in their natural patterns of work and rest.

Abstract

The article delves into the author's experience with their personal productivity rhythm, which is characterized by periods of intense focus followed by crashes, a pattern they liken to a fractal. This rhythm is attributed to their ADHD, creativity, and a desire for efficiency. The author reflects on the temptation to engage in negative self-talk during periods of low productivity, especially when comparing current performance to past achievements. However, they are learning to embrace their cycles of energy and to trust in their ability to return to high productivity. The author acknowledges the challenge of maintaining self-acceptance during an overall downswing in productivity, while also recognizing the importance of consistency in self-acceptance rather than striving for neurotypical patterns of consistency.

Opinions

The author views their tendency to hyperfocus and then crash as a natural rhythm, similar to fractals found in nature.
They recognize that their pattern of productivity is influenced by ADHD, creativity, and a love for efficiency.
The author is critical of the negative self-talk that arises from comparing current productivity to past performance.
There is an acknowledgment that while the pattern of hyperfocus followed by exhaustion is inevitable, it is also a part of their identity and creative process.
The author is working towards accepting their energy levels and work patterns as they are, rather than wishing for neurotypical consistency.
They express a sense of peace and self-trust by comparing their life's rhythm to music, suggesting that they are learning to "sing along" with their natural ebbs and flows.

Even when you don’t feel like you’re being your best self

Recursive patterns in nature. Photo by Laura Gilchrist on Unsplash

I’m a min-max-er by nature. I try to find the most efficient ways to do as much as possible and max out my XP or rewards when I’m playing video games.

I tend to handle my “regular life” the same way. If you were to heat map my productivity over the course of a week, you’d find, well, not exactly a repeating pattern but a rhythm. Like many rhythms you can find in nature, mine scales. The pattern is there at every level, like a fractal. I see it in my months and years as clearly as I do my days and hours.

This rhythm is deeply ingrained into my being. Some of it is ADHD, I’m sure. Some of it the pattern of being a creative person. Some of it my love for efficiency, the “right” way to do things, and always looking for the best — before burning through my candle too quickly and crashing.

I hyperfocus and crash on a predictable basis. On Sundays when I clean for two hours and then collapse in an armchair when I run out of steam. On Fridays when I rush to finish my work for the week and then nap once my kids are home from school. But this is true on a larger scale too. I hyperfocused from April to June on huge work projects… and my work schedule fell apart in July. I still haven’t fully returned to myself from this. I stopped bullet journaling, stopped planning my weeks, stopped reviewing my days. Even as work picks up again, these habits are stubbornly refusing to return.

It can be easy to fall into negative self-talk when this is the recursive pattern of my life. “You were so productive a few hours ago!” “You accomplished so much more last week than you’re getting through this week!” Those are statements of fact. What comes next, though, can make or break how I treat myself.

“You were so productive a few hours ago! You got one thing done and now you feel like you’ve done enough and you can just stop? You’re so lazy.” “You accomplished so much more last week than you’re getting through this week! People probably think you’re so unreliable. A decade in this business and you can’t even get close to an estimate you can stick to?”

That pattern of thinking is easy for me. After all, the evidence is there, and this is how I was spoken to as a child. But it’s not true. Recursive patterns are pretty. And I’m practicing trusting myself to come out of the exhaustion back to the highs of hyperfocus again. Daily. Weekly. Sometime over the course of a year.

I’m not perfect at trusting myself yet. I became certain that the times when I’d dive head-first into a writing project in the evening hours were gone. My kids stay up too late now, work is too much, my body is still longing for a sabbatical I haven’t been able to give it, I’d tell myself. I was working on adding “and that’s okay,” when I decided to look at a story that almost got me an agent back in 2019 through the lens of potentially turning it into a musical.

Every night this week I’ve stayed up late reading through the novel version, highlighting what works, taking notes on what to change. I’m excited about writing again in a way I haven’t been since I wrote my novel-in-verse three years ago. I’m going to burn myself out, too. I’m okay with that, I think. It’s part of the cycle.

Once, on a Sunday when I was knee-deep in an organization project that really didn’t need to be done but I was motivated for it, my husband chastised me, saying I needed to slow down or I would find myself catatonic. But what I’ve learned is that I’ll reach that state of exhaustion after hyperfocus whether I use the hyperfocus or not. The pattern continues whether or not I color it in and make it my own.

It’s harder at a time like this, where I feel right now I’m in a mini peak in the pattern within an overall downswing — when I know that I’m still burnt out overall and I need a better break than I’m giving myself — but there is a zen focus of seeing what is and commenting on it, of letting yourself feel how you feel, that I’m trying to apply not just to my moods (I notice I’m feeling sad right now about this) but to my energy levels, too. They’re as uncontrollable and and inextricably a part of me as my emotions are.

My brain doesn’t work like most people’s do. I don’t get unconscious good habits. Consistency with effort almost never turns into consistency without effort. I used to want to give my right arm for neurotypicality in this respect. But the only part of consistency that really matters for who I am, I think, is consistently accepting myself. Trusting myself. Understanding that ebbs and flows that look more like feasts and famines are a part of the rhythm of my life, then sitting down at the piano and singing along.