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I Never Finish Anything

A common complaint, challenge, or symptom of ADHD is ‘Fails to Finish What I Start.’

It’s a feeling I’ve had all my life.

So many things never get accomplished. Always a ton on the go, very little finalized.

Is this a challenge for you? Stacks of in-completions everywhere, reminders of your inability to follow-through?

Maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe there’s a reason some things never get done… In fact, maybe these remnants of abandoned goals offer an insight into what was missing, what actually motivates us to finish things, and what might provide motivation to get it done.

Or to finally let it go and move on without regrets.

For a full transcript of this video scroll down.


Never Finish What I Start

Now if you’re a lot like me you have lots on the go. If you’re really a lot like me you have lots on the go and almost none of it ever gets finished.
This is a dollhouse I started in 1984. Since then we’ve moved 7 times, And I do finish some things this is a painting that I finished back in the 1970s remember the 70s? I don’t, and yet I worked on and finished 700 episodes of radio and television writing acting even producing and directing many episodes.
So how can I finish all these programs and yet stall get stuck… take months to just like to sit down and record this vlog, and if the past is any indication take another 2 months to send it to the editor who will move all of the extraneous stuff like you know… or he may fast-forward through it and edit out all the pieces where I go off on tangents, like that year where I was a ballerina…
The point is lots of things get done, but it seems for every big project or tiny task that I do actually finish a dozen things are left hanging, those in-completions weigh me down they’re reminders of things I haven’t gotten to promises not kept, of great ideas that went nowhere, or simple jobs that somehow remain undone. Boxes and boxes of projects that I started and never finished. I feel like a failure, like I’m never living up to my potential.

ADHD and Emotions

Actually I used to feel that, but I have learned in making our video on emotional sensitivity and ADHD that of course feelings come and go, and that people like us with adult ADHD have trouble managing not just focus, paperwork, time ,stuff, but emotions as well. We can be overly sensitive. I started to realize I’m probably not as big a failure as I think. In fact it occurred to me as I was muddling my way through my thoughts that I haven’t really defined what I mean by a failure. I haven’t defined the parameters, the signs, the list of symptoms of a failure. The criteria or criterion… that’s the plural of criteria. Is a plural of cafeteria cafeteriion? and what’s the plural of crisis.. My life! Uh speaking of crisis’s when I was a ballerina on…
Sorry I was in danger of failing to finish what I started. Yes there are many things I have started and never finished. The dollhouse is one of them, but my kids always had clean clothes, food, I read to them every night, drove them to dance classes, well her. Put them through University, and that mattered more to me than a dollhouse or some TV project that went nowhere.
So those things that you started and never finished? Maybe you lost interest, maybe they didn’t matter that much to you, maybe your priorities changed, maybe you’ll get to it one day or maybe you’ll hand it off to someone who would love to have it or finish it or use it. Hey David are you interested in an old dollhouse? It’s about half constructed and… Don it’s Rick, listen I have this old dollhouse here… Sandy it’s Rick green calling. I haven’t even mentioned the dollhouse! Who told you? Don?

ADHD Novelty Seeking

Where was I? Right. Many of us with ADHD love new ideas, novelty, what’s next, but as we start the doubts the questions the concerns the challenges start to pop up. Well how’s this going to work exactly? What’s involved? Who will I work with? Do I like the people I’m going to work with? Is it all worth it? and more often than not, perhaps 9 times out of 10 it’s not a great idea, and that’s all it’ll ever be, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe when I see something that’s unfinished rather than feeling it still sitting there I might admit you know what that didn’t really matter enough to me, it didn’t get me going, didn’t get me juiced. It wasn’t for me, and I can let it go or hand it off to someone else. Give it away, throw it out knowing that something new, I now something more important, something more exciting is gonna come along. I’ll think of something, I always do.
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