Adult ADD and Money

There are two stages between Education and Action

In Jennifer Koretsky's book Odd One Out (The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD) she lists the four stages in order to make true lasting change in your life. The four stages are:

1.  Education

2.  Awareness

3.  Reframing

4.  Action 

The problem that many ADD adults have when trying to make financial changes is that they take action without properly going through the other stages of change. Many people who want to make financial changes start by trying to educate themselves. There are two main pitfalls that happen during the education stage. People get overwhelmed with the vast amount of financial information and stop making progress toward their goals, and people map out an unrealistic action plan based only on the education that they did.

Being overwhelmed can derail any goal, the key is to make your goal specific enough so that you can limit the scope of your education. For example it is a lot easier to educate yourself about getting out off debt, than it is to educate yourself on improving your finances.

The other pitfall of going from education directly to action can be even more detrimental than taking no action at all. When developing a financial action plan it is important to understand your strengths and weaknesses in regards to your financial behavior (Awareness). For example if you did not have any issues with impulsive spending, but did have issues with actually paying your bills you would want your action plan to focus on changing you bill paying behavior.  Instead of focusing on not paying your bills you could focus on how to increase the likelihood of paying your bills on time (Reframing). This could involve getting someone else to support you, paying bills when you are at your mental peak, or automating some of the bill paying steps. By focusing on all of the stages of change you will be more likely to make progress with your financial goals.

Emotions Journal

We are almost two weeks into the New Year, and now is about the time when we lose some of the motivation to complete our New Year's resolution. Financial goals are often one of the first resolutions that are broken. The first thing that helps to crush the desire to complete financial goals is when the credit card and utility bills come in for January, often they come in higher than expected, and throw January financial goals off track. The second thing is that you get no physical feedback when you are doing well. With most other resolutions you get a tangible change in yourself or your environment that helps to motivate you.

The question is how to maintain motivation to achieve your financial goals. This is extremely important for someone with ADD, because you are more likely than other people to lose focus when your motivation dips. One way to maintain motivation is to tap into your feelings. Emotions plays a great factor in how we manage money, and if you can understand what triggers your spending, or when is the best time to pay bills it will help you to achieve your financial goals. Maintaining the journal can be as easy as writing down one word to record your emotional state or you could write or draw whatever you feel like. The main goal of this journal is for you to get in touch with your feelings when you are handling money. By getting in touch with your feelings you are more likely to stay motivated with achieving your financial goals.