How I increased my focus and overcame my fear of failure

Intro

Hey everyone,

I’m a founder with ADHD. After many years of trouble at school, I was diagnosed with ADHD in 8th grade. When I got diagnosed with ADHD, a decent amount of damage had been done - I identified as the problem child and the kid who was always in detention. The major struggles that I had to overcome were

• Struggling to focus
• Perfectionism, avoidance & fear of failing
• Bad habits that created time debt
• Lack of consistency
• Time blindness

Luckily for me, I had the time, intelligence, and work ethic to make adjustments. Here’s how I tackled each of these struggles.

Increasing my focus with medication

Paying attention in school has always been challenging. Middle school and high school were night and day. I was in detention every week in middle school and was a focused straight-A student in high school. Medication was the solution. Once I was diagnosed with ADHD in 8th grade, I was prescribed Focalin XR 10mg. The meds helped me

• Focus in the classroom,
• Reduce my impulsiveness,
• Complete the boring things,
• Stay awake in the classroom,
• Reach my goal of going to USC.

The medication allowed me to shine bright in the classroom, but I stopped taking my meds when I left for college. My first 2 years were a real struggle without them, so I started retaking them junior year. I went from getting 3 Cs in my 2nd semester of Sophomore year to getting dean's list all of my Junior year. I learned a great lesson during school - take help when you can get it. While the meds helped tremendously with studying, there were other side effects that I didn’t like:

• I didn’t feel like myself
• I was always tongue-tied
• My brain could get stuck on one thing all day. For example, say I failed a homework, that would consume my thoughts until the meds wore off.

Towards the end of college, I was worried that I couldn’t survive without my meds. For me, it was essential to get off my meds, and I eventually did post-college. Medication was a great short-term solution for me, but I needed a long-term solution. So, I embarked on overcoming my ADHD by developing a growth mindset.Side Note: I don’t want to discourage people from taking medication to combat ADHD. Ultimately, I did what worked best for me. There are different medications, and they affect people differently. There is a complete section about medications in the book “Delivered from Distraction.”

Breaking my fear of failure by developing a growth mindset

During college, I realized I was a perfectionist and feared failing. This fear displayed itself in many ways:

• nervousness before tests or competitive events
• depression after underperforming on tests or sporting events
• Avoiding trying new things because I might be bad
• Only doing things I’m good at

But, the most obvious was during group projects. I’d push work onto others, get distracted, or avoid work when working on group projects. For one of my clubs, we received feedback from other people in the club, and one year, I left that meeting feeling like a loser. People loved being my friend but felt like I wasn’t carrying my weight, saying things like,

• “Frankie is fun to be around, but when I talk to him, it seems like things go in one ear and out the other.”
• “I dread working with Frankie because it makes my job harder.”
• “Frankie doesn’t know how to listen and follow instructions.”

These things made me feel like I was a burden. I was terrified of making mistakes, and the easiest way to not make mistakes was not to do anything. Luckily, with this feedback, I was able to improve my behavior. It took some time, but I was able to get over my fear by

• trying new things,
• making mistakes,
• doing things that made me uncomfortable,
• solving my problems,
• working hard at things I enjoyed even if I was bad at them,
• Developing a growth mindset

Doing these things allowed me to push my boundaries and get used to making mistakes. Making mistakes became part of my path to success, and I gained confidence knowing I could figure things out. I updated my definition of failure from making mistakes to giving up. With my newfound confidence, I started my magazine. Sadly, it completely failed and blew up in my face. I wasn’t as far along as I thought, but this was great information. I learned that I needed to level up if I was going to get going where I wanted. This revealed my next big struggle: I had terrible habits and struggled to be consistent.

Enter Scattermind

I’ve productized my systems into ScatterMind to help you master your ADHD, overcome procrastination, and achieve your goals. I launched this product in January and reached $1400 MRR by mid-June. If you’re struggling to master your ADHD, overcome procrastination, & achieve your goals, reach out!