Have you ever wished a hack or clever trick could spark your momentum—only to watch it fade just as quickly? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we gently unravel why shortcuts can undermine our confidence and how true agency is built on self-trust and mindful practice, not fleeting novelty.

Join me as we explore the honest path to sustainable motivation for adults with ADHD and wandering minds. You’ll discover why “faking it” or relying on tricks often sabotages our systems and how deep, rooted confidence grows from repeated, intentional practice. Together, we’ll navigate:

- The hidden costs of tricks, hacks, and novelty-seeking in our personal systems

- How genuine trust in oneself—not force or self-deception—lays the groundwork for true confidence

- The transformative power of embracing gentle, manageable risks as part of everyday growth

Key Takeaways:

- Recognize why relying on hacks often erodes your sense of agency

- Practice building trust in yourself through small, consistent actions (“daily visits”)

- Embrace gentle risks as stepping stones to confidence and mastery

This episode features my original piano composition, “Running on the Sun”—a musical frame for the hopeful risks we take in growth.

If you find this episode resonates, subscribe and explore more resources at rhythmsoffocus.com.

Keywords

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #SelfTrust #DailyPractice #GentleRisk #Confidence #Neurodivergent #IntentionalLiving

Transcript

I just don't feel like it. If I only had a hack, if I had a trick, if I had something novel, a new, something different, that'll, something just gets me to start. Ah, once I start, I'm good.

The trouble with these approaches, it's not that they don't work, it's sometimes they do. Ultimately the seeds of the destruction of our systems are there, in the beginning of these sorts of approaches where we've just found some trick. We lead ourselves down some destructive path, something that will eventually fail.

Why does that happen? How does that happen? And then what does work?

What's wrong with tricks and hacks?

What's wrong with a trick or a hack? Why can't we just make these things happen so that we can start and make ourselves work. Well one trouble is that they often rely on some novelty of some sort, and novelty by definition will fall apart. And perhaps we argue so long as we can keep this roulette wheel of novel possibilities around, we'll be good.

Okay, look, if that works for you, wonderful. Please go right ahead and do it.

The trouble I have though is that I find that trying to trick my unconscious , that part of me that's deep, it doesn't work. It knows already that it's not going to work. Essentially, it goes into this conversation of,

"Well, if I somehow manage to trick myself into showing up, chances are I might even do something. And I don't wanna do something, and so I won't even try."

So the approach in this way would fall apart immediately.

But even in the case that we do succeed in tricking or forcing ourselves, the trouble is that we've effectively told ourselves that we cannot do things without tricks or force. In this way, tricks rot our systems.

Trust is Foundational

Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and most importantly, with the relationship that we have with ourselves. Psychoanalyst Eric Erickson notes the first task of infant development is Trust versus Mistrust. We try to know what we can rely on, and that goes well beyond infancy into our everyday world.

Trust, as I'm defining it, is a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been, such that we can rely on it.

As I tend to do, I like to repeat my definitions and I know I've presented trust before, but I'm gonna do it again. Trust is a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been behaving, such that we can rely on it.

If we look at that idea of developing belief , it means that it's forming over time. That it's a belief, means that it's resting somewhere in our experience. It's a feeling that we can reflect on. It's not something we can wish into existence.

Confidence

This idea of trust is fundamental, and this relationship of trust with ourselves, that's where we get into the word confidence. Confidence is a trust in our skill or ability within ourselves. By definition, confidence cannot exist without that trust in ourselves. And for this reason, at the very least, I find the suggestion to "fake it till you make it," causes me to wretch not only with a disgusted sense of irresponsibility, but also with this admonition that we need to be dishonest with ourselves in order to grow.

Tricks Undermine Trust

When we engage a trick, we tell ourselves we do not trust ourselves. We do not believe that we can do a thing from our own sense of volition, undermining, and further injuring ourselves every time we use that trick. We collude in the decay of not only our systems, but our own sense of confidence.

Tricks cannot last because fundamentally for us to gain any real traction, to have a sense that what we're doing is meaningful, engage from some depth of self and agency, we need to be able to do so from a sense of honesty and trust with ourselves.

Hope vs Practice

The question becomes "how do we learn to trust ourselves to make a decision and then engage? How can we approach something, something we may not want to do, for example, in a way that feels genuine?"

We might have hope that we can develop that trust. We might hope for that ability and that confidence. Now, the answer, a pithy answer, but still the ultimate answer is practice.

Beyond hope, in order for us to have a chance at developing that trust in ourselves and our abilities, we can look again at trust's definition, that sense that something will continue to behave as it has been such that we can rely on it.

When we experience something, for example, that I can play the piano, that I can write a newsletter, that I can handle rejection, and more- sometimes that experience helps us develop that tendril of confidence.

So what if we then deliberately arrange ourselves, arrange our environments such that we can have those experiences?

And if we could do that regularly, well then that would build in time forming a genuine confidence, one that resonates deeply.

Taking on Risk

But there is no true hope without risk. Every real stretch beyond what we trust involves risk. In other words, risk is the leading edge of confidence of that trust in ourselves.

We don't have to be reckless. We can be calculated, but somewhere there is risk. When we go out on a trip somewhere, we haven't been, when we work up the courage to ask the boy or girl out, when we try reaching for that new ledge, it's through that challenge where we gain the experience. We risk falling on our faces.

And as we do something again and again, hopefully- it doesn't always happen- but hopefully we start to grow that trust in our own skills and our knowledge. Also known as confidence.

In this way, I think it makes it clear that that recommendation to "just be confident" rings hollow because it is hollow. It must be developed through time and repetition, the very foundations of practice.

If you're engaging in some daily visit, as I often recommend, this is the medium of practice. Something where you show up, stay for only the moments where you can genuinely say you are there, maybe just for a single deep breath- you start to develop that trust between the past you that said, Hey, I'm inviting you to make a visit, to that future self that was then, to the present you that is now, that's now making that visit.

In that visit now, and here's the takeaway, i'd say maybe can you take that next step and ask yourself, what's the gentle risk I can take here?

"Running on the Sun"

I find art, music, or otherwise to be a framing of an experience. We basically point at a thing using a frame and say, "Hey, look at this thing."

Often as I'm writing some piece of music, I'll wonder what does this resonate with? What? What is this frame? Of course it's something within me. It came from me, but hopefully it's something within you, too.

And for that to be the case, there has to be something universal to it. Something universal in its nature.

This piece that I'll play for you now is called "Running on the Sun." It's about the flares that I see in the pictures of the sun, somehow that just comes to mind. But running on the sun? That sounds kind of risky, doesn't it? I'm not sure I'll get much out of taking that risk either, but eh, whatever. In any case, it's written in E flat minor, and I hope you enjoy it.

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