Anxiety, ADHD & Executive Functioning: Why "Just Try Harder" Isn't Working

You need structure and fighting against how your brain is wired usually only perpetuates the cycle and doesn't usually work very well. We need better systems. Hey there and welcome to let's Talk about it with Laurie Streeter. A space to talk honestly and get real about mental health, therapy and all things wellness. I'm Laurie, licensed therapist, speaker and your host, here to bring you insights, tools and information you can actually use. We whether you're navigating anxiety, healing your relationship with food, or trying to figure out which techniques will work for your life, I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in and let's talk about it. Welcome back to another episode of let's Talk about it with Laurie Streeter. I'm Laurie and we are going to dive right in because though this is one of the first episodes of 2026, all of this information is pretty timely. And anytime I have an update or if I do change my stance on something, I'm very transparent about it. But I don't have anything specific that is for the beginning of the year. And so everything I want to continue to share is going to apply. Whether it's the start of a new year or the end of a year or in the middle. I want you to be able to use this information and apply it anytime you want. So with this, while it makes sense because people are in the idea of this is the New year resolutions, some people are feeling frustrated or already feeling behind. I've already started to meet with clients for the new year. I want you to realize that if you are someone who feels behind or like you should have a resolution, or if that life just isn't for you and you don't like resolutions, that's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But today specifically is going to address when your brain is wired differently, understanding that it's usually not laziness. You know, inherently, if you're being lazy at the end of the day, it's not just being hard on yourself. It's like, no, I literally could have done more and I chose not to. Or I was stuck frozen on the couch and I literally couldn't get up. You know, if it's true laziness or if there's something else going on. So I want to frame this in terms of anxiety and ADHD and kind of how to work with your brain. But this will probably apply to you. If you're someone who has a hard time getting going, you're struggling with discipline and things like that. So. So maybe you are someone who's realized you've been fighting hard against your own brain for so long, and we're going to break all of that down. You need to understand that, yes, discipline matters, but what you need is better systems. You need structure. And fighting against how your brain is wired usually only perpetuates the cycle and doesn't usually work very well. We need better systems. And I know that sounds scary simple, but it's actually, like, a little revolutionary for my clients because they've been fighting against their ADHD symptoms or their anxiety for so long. And the thought that you need to just try harder and focus more and be more consistent is the message you've been given and the message that you're telling yourself. But then that advice consumes your brain, and it's just frustrating. It's just this constant cycle. So if your brain is wired a little differently, regardless of what it's wired for, this should help you. That's why I'm focusing on this, because I'm tired of fighting against my own brain, and that's something I've worked on. And I'm tired of seeing my clients fight against their brains. I want to stop perpetuating the cycle of thinking that quote, unquote, something is a problem, and instead we realizing that we've just been using the wrong tools. How do we work with something versus constantly try to fight against it and, like, fit a square peg into a round hole, because obviously that's not working. So we're going to address today that executive functioning part of how we function, which is just a fancy term for, like, the project manager of your brain. I want to talk about why it gets overwhelmed and more importantly, what. What strategies, what tools you can use to work again with your brain instead of trying to work against it to get it to do what you want it to do. And these aren't just things that I find on the Internet. Anytime I record podcasts and I put my spin on something. These are strategies that I use with my clients in therapy, day in and day out, week in and week out, and they work. I see this stuff work, and I throw some things against the wall and sometimes things stick. So when I give tips or strategies, it's stuff that you can try. And you will just have to figure out what works best for you. Nothing is going to magically fix your brain or the way you think, but strategies are designed for you to figure out how your brain operates and what is going to work best. Okay, so let's go back to executive functioning. Like, I Said, this is like the project manager of your brain. Your executive functioning is responsible for planning like what needs to be done, prioritizing which tasks need to be done first, initiating, actually starting the task, remembering, remembering what you were supposed to be doing, switching between tasks without losing your place, and following through until that task is done or complete or complete enough that you can call it done. When your executive functioning is working smoothly, you move through the day with like relative ease. You know what needs to happen, you do it and you move on. And unfortunately that is generally, I know for me, not most days we hit up against roadblocks. So when you're taxed, whether it's adhd, whether it's anxiety, whether it's stress, whether it's just life, everything can feel so much harder. And your project manager is like taking a vacation and left you with a to do list written in a language that you don't speak. It is really, really hard to get things done when your system, when that executive functioning project manager is technically taxed by again, life or whatever's going on. I need you to hear that this is not like a flaw. This is a neurobiological reality. When your brain is running on certain things and something gets in the way, it's going to impact how that system functions. So that executive function system runs on our neurochemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine. If you have something like adhd, your brain doesn't produce or regulate those the same way other people's brains do. If you have anxiety, your brain is so busy scanning for threats that it doesn't have like the bandwidth to plan your day or stay on top of things. So there are things when it comes to maybe a struggle like ADHD or anxiety or again stress that impacts the ability for things to keep functioning, like the well oiled machine that it's supposed to be running at. So when people say like just make a list or just focus, that's like telling someone with like a broken leg to just walk it off. The system that is supposed to do the thing is not operating at full capacity now you can do things to support your executive functioning. That's why we're here today. That's what I'm here to hopefully instill some hope about. You can't force it to work like someone else's brain. We can take other people's systems and ideas and adapt them to our own. But that's part of also what I do is helping my clients throw some things at the wall, give them a fair shake and see what works for them. Because I tell my clients all of the time, everything works. Not everything's going to work for you. So let's talk about how to build the systems that are going to work for you and where to even start with that. I want to break this down into four areas, and I want you to listen to each one for which one is going to resonate the most with you right now. Don't try to do these all at once. That's just another recipe for overwhelm. Just pick one area to focus on this week or the next time you're feeling like you're struggling. So the first one is that executive function and focus. So if your biggest struggle is getting started or staying on task, here's what is likely to help. In therapy, we work on things like task chunking. So this is breaking big, overwhelming projects into tiny, specific steps. It's not clean the kitchen, it's put five dishes in the dishwasher. That's it. That's the whole task. Then you can choose to do another tiny task or stop. But it's not all or nothing. So there's task chunking. The second one is accountability tracking. And again, this is all under that focus part of executive functioning. So there's task chunking, then there's accountability tracking. And this isn't to shame yourself, but this helps you build awareness of what actually helps get things done. So tracking what you're accomplishing, roping a friend into helping you, whatever accountability means for you. Then there's reframing the quote, unquote should thinking. So this is catching those thoughts like I should be able to do this, and replacing them with what does my brain need right now? And there's all or nothing thinking. So this is the belief that if I can't do it perfectly or completely, there's no point in starting. We work a lot in therapy on building tolerance for good enough and incremental progress and really getting into the gray and out of that all or nothing thinking, because that really impacts people's ability to start and stick with a task or a project or a goal. A couple other things you can do are things you may have heard of something called body doubling. This is where you work alongside someone else, even if it's virtually. Your brain can focus better when it senses that someone else nearby is also focused on something. So you can talk with a friend on FaceTime who's also working. You don't have to be doing the same task or something that a lot of my clients love. And I do is you can pull up a YouTube video of someone doing a similar task or someone who is just talking about something, and that can help. So there's literally videos of people folding laundry and cleaning or doing paperwork and studying. You just kind of work alongside them. It sounds simple, but it genuinely can help your brain feel less alone in a task that it thinks is boring. What I also want you to remember when it comes to focus is to not rely on your memory. Your brain is already maxed out, probably if you're listening to this, if this is something you're struggling with and trying to remember everything is only going to tax it more. So use timers, use alarms, put reminders in in your phone, but also like in your path. Put a post it note on your door, put a reminder on your front door as you're leaving the house. Like, put visual reminders in your path of movement to remind you to do some things. You need to take your vitamins, put them by your coffee maker. You need to bring something to work, Put it right next to your keys the night before. I know, again, it sounds simple, but a lot of times going back to the should we think we should be able to remember something, or we rely on our memory and then we just stress ourselves out more. So there's a lot of things we can do to help with executive function and focus. So that's the first big chunk of all of this. The second big piece is organization and time management. So if you struggle with feeling scattered across a million things and you feel like you have no system, and when I work with my clients, we do things like learning how to recognize that you can't hold everything. And you have to build those external systems that work. So some things you can do are creating like an external command center. And this isn't an app. This is like a whiteboard and a notebook and a pen, colorful markers, sticky notes, a timer, whatever you need to kind of keep yourself on task, Whether it be work or a personal task, keep them in one spot. And that is your command center. Everything will go there. First you need to put something on a list. That's your command center. You make a note, you put it on a sticky note, and then it goes in your planner later or whatever it is. You need to create like this physical command center that your brain can rely on where everything goes. Another thing that can really help with organization and time management is what we call habit stacking. So attaching new habits to existing ones. So this is like after I pour my coffee, I look at my Whiteboard. After I brush my teeth, I write tomorrow's top three tasks I need to do. Your brain will remember sequences better than isolated tasks. So if you're like me, you remembered everybody's phone numbers growing up, because I grew up in the 80s and you just remembered everybody's phone numbers and you had a little bump, bump, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. There was like a tune to it, right? You could remember seven numbers easily because it was a sequence and there was like a tune to it to just say a bunch of numbers or without it meaning something, it's going to be harder to recall. So habit stacking and training your brain to remember the sequence of something is going to probably be very beneficial when it comes to staying organized and staying on task. So the first one was executive functioning and focus. The second one was organization and time management. This third big chunk is nervous system regulation. And if you follow me, you've been following me, you follow me on TikTok or Instagram, you're seeing more about me trying to break down nervous system regulation and what it is and how you do it. So this third part is if you feel like you're running on fumes, that wired and tired feeling, if you struggle with, like, being busy but not productive. Some things we do to help regulate the nervous system are things like somatic awareness. So noticing where the anxiety or the stress lives in your body. Is your jaw tight? Are your shoulders up by your ears? Are you breathing shallowly? You have to train your body to be able to relax in order for your system to relax and be more receptive. So start with body awareness first and practicing relaxation throughout the day and before bed to help start to create calm in your system. Another thing you can do is grounding between transitions. So the example I always give my clients is they rush from place to place and they like get in their car and they hurry up and then they hurry to get out of their car car to drop the kids off or to get to work. Stop, take 20 seconds and just breathe or not even 20 seconds, take a breath before you get out of your car. Or every time you get in your car. Anytime you're kind of in a transition, give yourself a couple extra seconds. Give yourself a chance to pause as you shift gears. If you've. A lot of people haven't driven a manual car, but there's this sweet spot of letting off the clutch as you press the gas to be able to shift gears. If you do it too quick or you're off, the gears grind. So you kind of have to find your sweet spot of I just need a breath before I get out of my car. And then you're like, oh, that was enough, that was good. Or you need a few extra minutes. Like before you walk in your house at the end of the day, just think about when you're shifting gears from place to place or task to task or situation to situation. How do you stop grinding your gears and instead giving yourself more of a smooth transition so that you're not like jerking from one again scenario to another or situation to another? The other thing you can kind of do that I want you to think about when it comes to nervous system regulation, if you are feeling stuck. Because if you remember at the beginning of this episode talked about that feeling of is it laziness or is it I just couldn't get off the couch and I felt stuck, I felt frozen. Ask yourself, am I avoiding this because it's boring or because it's scary? If it's boring, usually you're going to need to add some stimulation in like music or a movement or a timer or a body double. If it's scary and it's more anxiety, you're going to need to calm your system first, like breathe or stretch or walk. Then you're going to be able to get that task started. A lot of times again, we don't have a smooth transition and we just kind of try to shift gears and we get frozen and it's like, I just can't move. I just can't get started. So start asking yourself, am I not doing this thing because it's boring, I don't want to do laundry? Or because it's scary because I have to make that phone call that will help you approach it and differently and tell you what to engage first, to figure out what the avoidance was in the first place. And then the fourth big section of this is that emotional compassion piece. If this is your biggest battle in your head, telling you that you're lazy, you're behind, you're failing things, we need to do things I do in sessions with my clients, things that you can practice challenging this laziness narrative. So your brain again, is already working overtime. It's exhausted, it's not lazy. So start asking yourself questions. Out of curiosity, what is happening here? What's going on? What do I need right now versus just self deprecation? Because you're just feeling like you're lazy or you feel like people are ahead of you, or you feel like you, quote unquote, should be doing more. The other couple Things you can do for that self compassion is to keep a to done list. We all have a to do list. Very rarely do we have a to done list. So this can really, really be helpful. At the end of the day, think or write down what you did that day, not what you didn't do. This isn't your to do list, it's your done list. I answered three emails, I ate lunch, I moved my body, I asked for help. Your brain is generally so focused on what you didn't finish that it genuinely cannot see what you did accomplish. Doing this can help retrain your brain to see your effort. And that's going to help you start having more compassion and be like, oh, I can do this stuff versus just staying stuck in the thought of like everything I'm not doing or everything I should be doing or everything that's not getting done. Okay, so quick recap. Executive function and focus. This is if your biggest struggle is getting started or staying on task. The second one is that organization and time management. If you are someone who feels scattered with no system. The third one is that nervous system regulation. If you feel like you're running on fumes, you're wired and tired, you feel busy but not productive. And that fourth section is that emotional self compassion. If your biggest battle is the voice in your head telling you you're lazy or you're behind or you're failing, that's the section you need to kind of revisit and think about first. I want you to really remember all of this stuff doesn't need to get done at once. This is a lot of information and you really can start to implement these strategies on your own. And there's actually a lot more that I have in my notes, but I feel like that was already a little overwhelming. What I want you to remember that small changes can build momentum. Therapy can help accelerate the process. Accountability can help make sure you're on task. Like, there are things you can do to speed this up. But I don't want you to put extra pressure on yourself to speed this up. I want you to just start thinking, where's my biggest struggle right now? Where do I feel like I'm holding myself? Back, back. And just pick one of those things I mentioned. I mentioned a whole bunch of things. Just start to implement one and see how it works. And if you're like, Lori, this sucks. After a couple weeks, you try the next thing. Or if you're like, hey, this is going great, let me add on the next thing. Stop thinking about it in terms of that all or nothing. I have to overhaul my life again, especially at this time of the year. I think this is why this is kind of timely, but it's also good any time of the year. I want you to start thinking about customizing your approach to your brain to help you create structure and systems that work for you. Yes, get ideas from me, from the Internet, from social media, everything works. Not everything's going to work for you. This is all about me trying to help you build your capacity and your toolbox so that you feel like you are working with your brain and you constantly have a set of tools to pull out when you're trying to accomplish whatever you're trying to accomplish. All right, so again, I know I gave you a lot. I want to bring this home. If you're feeling overwhelmed, it's okay. Just pick one. That's all. Pick one. Is it focus? Is it organization? Is it nervous system regulation? Do you need a little more self compassion? And just choose one strategy from that section and start trying it. Not every day, not perfectly. See where you can implement it. Small wins build momentum, and momentum will build confidence and more confidence will build more capacity. This is all a good loop to get into. You don't have to fix your brain to make it work. For you to feel more accomplished or more confident, you have to understand it and you have to have things in your, like I said, toolbox that are going to help you approach it in a way that makes sense for you. I know that was a lot. Take a breath. This is what's awesome about these podcasts is I think they're very, very tangible and helpful. And that's why I make so many notes to try to cover such broad topics the best I can. So it's here for you anytime you want to revisit it. As always, let me know your thoughts. And until next time, take care. Thanks for hanging out with me today on let's Talk about it with Laurie Streeter. If this episode resonated with you, it would mean so much if you'd leave a five star review, share it with a friend, or come say hi on Instagram loristreeter. Your support will help this podcast grow and I so appreciate you being here today. I want to help people just like you feel like they're not alone, and gain the tools they need to grow. Until next time, take care.