Bottom-Up Habit-Design is a framework you can use to create new habits—or strengthen current ones. It’s based on stuff that works reliably and it plays well with ADHD. This resource covers some background on habits and includes instructions on how to take things for a test run. If you get stuck, you can book a consult with me.
Once upon a time, I opened a personal training studio in downtown Toronto. We’re still rolling 15 years later and I can assure you that it’s not because of my natural business savvy. That’s good, actually. It means that our success has come from being good at doing stuff like helping people do the things they want to do. It took some doing. Along the way, I have had thousands of coaching conversations. Experience has taught me a lot about what works.
Want to hear a very human question? Why do we struggle to do things that we really want to do? To eat healthier food? To exercise with greater frequency or intensity? To be more patient with ourselves and others? Untangling this question has been a big part of my career.
Emotions play a role here. As much as we like to be rational and analytical, humans are not AI; we can’t just program ourselves with a simple rule like, “Eat 8-10 grams of fibre per meal” and then deliver at 100%. There is a lot of complexity behind change. There is an interplay between motivation, external forces, and internal forces—including your emotional life. And that’s before we even get to the skills and practical realities like how much fibre does a serving of broccoli have? And what the hell is a serving anyway!?
In time, I learned to look for high-percentage habit strategies. Rather than having an emotional attachment to a particular habit or outcome, I tried to estimate the odds of success. Using this perspective gets you thinking more like a professional poker player than a typical Vegas tourist. You make high-percentage bets and don’t sweat short-term setbacks. That’s because you know how to play with the odds forever in your favour.
Bottom-Up Habit Design is also the result of a fair bit of self-experimentation. I believe that this framework plays particularly well with ADHD brains—like mine. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no deficit of attention in ADHD; it just it roams more freely. So, being able to roam with our **attention and motivation is helpful. Sometimes, it’s the only way forward.
You don't need to have ADHD to experiment with this framework. You might just have a never-ending list of things you feel like you should be doing. On the other hand, you may also just want to scan through this for some insight on how to deconstruct and build habits.
Our motivation is a combination of internal and external forces. The external forces, like a paycheque or the approval of others can be powerful. However, they may also mask a lack of intrinsic motivation. To really understand your drives, you have to ask what you would choose to do in your quiet moments—without any obvious reward to be found. These might be value-driven but they may also be process-driven. As long as you enjoy doing something for its own sake, you’ve locked onto an intrinsic drive.
Intrinsic motivation doesn’t always rev as high as a million dollar bonus or a drill sergeant screaming at you. However, it is your most reliable wellspring of motivation. You will always find it present at some level. So, finding a version of action that matches your motivation, abilities and environments can be powerful—and often surprising.