People are reluctant to accept their ADHD because they believe acceptance looks like toleration.
It is not. Toleration is what goes on up until acceptance happens.
Toleration turns ADHD into an excuse: “well, I have ADHD so I can never do that…”
Acceptance says: “Okay, I have ADHD which explains why I have trouble being on time and finishing things. Now what?”
Once you arrive at ‘Now What?” you’re ready to do some work.
That’s acceptance.
Acceptance enables the following three stages of that work:
Stage 1: Identifying what situations bring out your strengths and what situations are repeatedly challenging.
Stage 2: Creating support systems to compensate or overcome those challenges or finding ways to sidestep them altogether if there are other avenues through which you can accomplish your goals.
Stage 3: Implementing and tweaking your newly defined strategies so that your unique brain wiring works for, not against, you.
Acceptance of your diagnosis also allows you to seek treatment and other forms of support, such as coaching. Up until the point of acceptance, all you could do was tolerate your limitations in isolation because if you could have “overcome” your ADHD alone, you would have.
All true paradigms of self-improvement, from 12-step programs to psychoanalysis, begin with acceptance of what is.
That’s where all positive change begins.
