Summary

In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we explore the hidden struggles behind the appearance of success. Many people believe that achieving a goal—whether it’s landing a job, excelling in school, or maintaining relationships—will bring relief. Yet, even after “making it,” the challenges often persist in subtler and more exhausting ways. We delve into the pressures of maintaining the veneer of success, the misunderstandings neurodivergent individuals face, and the relentless mental gymnastics required to stay afloat.

We discuss how wandering minds can embrace their unique rhythms instead of hiding them. You’ll learn practical strategies, including a simple exercise to support your thoughts during conversations, reclaim agency in relationships, and lighten the invisible weights of daily maintenance.

This episode is an invitation to rethink success and discover ways to navigate life with greater ease and authenticity.

Timestamps

00:00 A Wandering Mind's Struggles with Success

00:24 The Veneer of Success

02:29 The Pressure to Perform

04:16 The Burden of Misinterpretation

06:06 A Simple Exercise: Supporting Your Wandering Mind

08:12 Lifting Unnecessary Weights

08:36 Risk

09:28 Rolling Clouds

Keywords

#ADHDstruggles

#WanderingMind

#SuccessPressure

#FocusChallenges

#Neurodivergence

#ProductivityTips

#SelfCompassion

#CreativityAndGrowth

#MentalHealthSupport

#RhythmsOfFocus

#ADHD

Transcript

 Do you ever find yourself sitting in a meeting with no idea of what's going on? You might wonder, do these people know what they're even talking about? It seems like they're responding to each other. Why am I not getting it?

So then you nod politely and try to figure out what's going on later.

Later comes and you need to be doing something else. And meanwhile, you've just received two calls, five emails, and they all need responses, too.

The Veneer of Success

It can be a terrible struggle to just make it, to get a job, to do well at school, to maintain a relationship or something similar. If I could only just get there, things will be so much better. And then for many of you who do appear to have made it, the pain doesn't let up. It only changes.

You've got a job, you show up to work. Maybe even on time, people seem to think that you know what you're doing, but inside, sometimes it feels like the seams are barely being held together. Your mind continues to race just as it ever has. You've, uh, set a hundred timers and think, wait, is this the one that I should be paying attention to? And maybe blow this one off and keep doing what you're doing. Or maybe you're in a meeting and someone adds a thought and your mind goes somewhere else.

The Pressure to Perform

Boredom will swallow you at any moment, and you catch yourself tapping your foot again and No, no, I gotta stop and maybe I'm bugging other people. Or maybe that's just not the sense of what's going on. Or maybe it's just me or I don't know.

"I wonder if these people know what they're talking about?" While you're sitting in the meeting.

It seems like other people are responding. You clearly know what's going on. Why am I not getting it? So then you nod politely and try to figure out what's going on later. Later comes and you need to be doing something else. And meanwhile, you've just received two calls, five emails, and they all need responses, too.

And then you decide, okay, I'll stay late again. The thing is, is that you do have strengths, so you maybe decide to rely on that part of your mind that runs fast, that part of you, that can get a ton done under a lot of pressure, but now you're chronically under pressure and it's exhausting and above all, you don't wanna look incompetent.

You want to keep that veneer of success. It means so much though that you've been able to make it there. So it's, how dare I even call it a veneer? It's a thing. It's there! The years of work, medications, therapy, teachers, even loved ones who didn't think you could make it. Maybe you can't let them have the satisfaction or the knowledge of seeing that you've feel like you've barely kept it together.

Maybe you care about them too much to let them know how much you continue to suffer. Every day, the struggles to keep it together continue.

We can wonder how is this so easy for everyone else?

A Wandering Mind's difficulties are not simple.

It goes beyond just getting there. That may not seem fair, but that does seem to be the way it is.

The Burden of Misinterpretation

I've heard in a number of situations where a person's gone in to see a psychiatrist and they're told, "Well, you've been able to get there. You've got the PhD, you've got whatever degree, you've got, whatever job relationship. Clearly you don't have it."

They've missed the idea of how much work you've put into creating those compensatory measures, and now it's as if they're punishing you for it.

And the same thing goes beyond the professionals we meet. It's in the people that we see every day. You're talking and your mind seems to have gone elsewhere. They just said something and you have to say, "oh, I'm sorry I wasn't listening." If you can even get to that place. Suddenly you're assigned this idea of, "Oh, I don't think you care," as opposed to, "No, I had an association and my thought ran somewhere else."

It's not like it's easy to wrangle a thought, bring it somewhere, place it somewhere without the fear that you'd lose it eventually.

It doesn't mean that we're not responsible for ourselves. I don't say these things in order to say, "Hey, world accommodate us!"

One of several unfortunate things about accommodations is that they can often create resentment and as much as we might like them, we're still responsible for making it through the day, for dealing with time, dealing with clocks in a way that's beyond our own self time and more.

But I think it's too often that we confuse these pressures to be something that says we need to hide that sense of wandering. I would rather consider how we can use it . How can we find some rhythm between that playfulness, that creativity, that intuitiveness, that flow of associations in a way that works with the worlds that we're in, in a way that helps us connect with sometimes even the mundane or the slower parts of the worlds that we need to be in.

A Simple Exercise: Supporting Your Wandering Mind

I'll give you a simple, concrete exercise. Simple, but I don't think it's easy.

You may well have heard it before and I'll even lighten it up a bit. The usual suggestion starts with encouraging you carry a pad of paper and pen with you wherever you go, and I do like that suggestion. I'm a big fan of it and do it myself, but I encourage even a smaller step, which is try this once, one day, see what happens, and here's what to do with it.

At some point that day while you're in a conversation with someone, my guess is that, as a wandering mind, you're gonna have a lot of associations, thoughts that relate to whatever, multiple thoughts and emotions that are already on your mind right now. Some related to the conversation and some not.

But the worry is, is that you can't interrupt them without being considered rude or something along those lines. But now you're also dealing with that part of you that says that if I lose the thought, now I'm going to lose it for good, unless I do something with it right now.

Pull out the pad and take notes.

Here you have the pen and paper to write down your thought. You can support yourself. You can still ask for a moment, perhaps you can say, uh, maybe even telegraph that by writing itself, just pulling out the pad and pen and starting to write.

Maybe write something down about the conversation you wanna come back to. That way you can continue with the flow where it is. Or maybe you're just writing down some grocery list item that came to mind. Whatever it is, you can return to that conversation more fully engaged now.

Yes. You are advertising that you're supporting yourself and your thoughts, and in advertising you may well be rejected, scorned, looked down by whoever's there that you're talking to.

They can decide however they want to conduct the relationship with you, but so can you, so, as I said, simple but not easy.

Lifting Unnecessary Weights

Even though you may well have made it or maybe you haven't made it, whatever, making it means to you, if you still have that sense of struggling, I wonder if there's still ways that you can make things easier for yourself.

And I also wonder how much of those ways might be hidden from yourself in trying to lift weights of maintenance that don't really need to be there.

Risk & "Rolling Clouds"

One thing you might notice about the music I tend to write is that it has a unique voice, and that comes from playing with what I find to be the fundamentals of the work of the, of the music.

It also comes from taking on risk. And in this case, when I was beginning this particular piece, it sounded silly childlike. Somewhere I decided though that if someone heard it as silly and childlike well, I'll let them. That's fine. But it's easier to say that than to work through the feelings of it.

I can't ignore it. I don't think I've ever really won an argument with an emotion. I can be with it though. Anyway. In this case, this is called Rolling Clouds. It's in B Flat major. Another sort of gentle piece, and I hope you like it.

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