Getting started is most of the ADHD battle

   Ok, this is true for some of my ADHD coaching clients.

You tell me that whoa! once you get started, everything is a-ok, or even hyperfocus great. But getting started is tough.

Today's getting started for me is full-on anxiety-provoking.  I haven't had all that much time for the work I've wanted to do for quite some time. Clients always take precedence in my work hours, and many of those hours have been nibbled up by other more important issues, leaving only time for my current clients. 

So, I've got my priorities straight. But now I have a little breathing room to do something like write blog posts, and reach out to people interested in coming off my waiting list. But I feel like I'm jumping from the 20-foot diving platform! That is the getting started nerves. The nerves can come after the diversions.

Diversions are not  procrastination in the sense of putting it off so I don't have to do it now. It's more of the slipstream behind the getting-started nerves. Ooh! let me think about how  I am going to get started. Which hours am I coaching? Legitimate question, also a possible roadblock. Ooh! let me organize my inbox so I can make sure I've gathered everything I need to respond to. Legitimate task, but can wash me away from my path. Let me think about the stuff I want to catch up on! Sounds like planning, but planning can also be an island, where you are stuck exploring and aren't actually connected to the dry land of doing.

Only when I get back there, and start moving along, will the anxiety disappear. Then I can step back and see what my next steps are. It is an odd process, because it means thinking once I'm in action, and not thinking it out before, yet also not impulsively going down another path.