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Everybody struggles at times to commit to better habits but it’s especially difficult for ADHDers.

Habits that are interesting, fun, engaging are easier to start but when the novelty wears off it’s easy to cast away as no longer a priority.

So how can we start and keep new habits?

I’ll let you in on my current thinking as, inspired by the TJ Power book ‘The DOSE Effect’.

The book takes you through the significance of brain chemistry on your health and wellbeing and does so in a structured way with actions identified and summaries at the end of each chapter.

I’d already resolved to create better habits around phone use, fitness, eating etc but this links it all together and has enabled me to devise an action plan – but how to make it sustainable?

The book asks you to consider your mission, if you can attach importance to habits linking with your mission you’re more likely to keep doing them. For me I had no idea about my mission or ergo my identity. I was just bimbling my way through life best I can and trying to raise great children.

But when you look back you sometimes see signs about what you really care about and could devote yourself to. For me I remember doing A Level Psychology at night school many moons ago and then after another relationship break-up and getting feedback that I just “didn’t do anything” I knew I needed to change something (I recommend seeking feedback at the end of a relationship but very carefully!!!)

For me I wanted to do something for charity and volunteer and as I entered therapy to help understand my lack of success with maintaining relationships I applied to join Samaritans and help others who felt desperate. I ended up taking a leadership role at the Nottingham branch training new Samaritans and coordinating ongoing training for existing volunteers.

I left Samaritans after a few years to study for an MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling which was a part-time four-year commitment, I was frustrated at helping someone on a call at Sams then probably not speaking to them again. I wanted to provide more structured and regular help.

Did I finish the course? What do you think?

In my day job working with GPs I have helped to launch support groups and wellbeing schemes and supported others to develop themselves too. In a long-winded way what I’m saying is that I’ve long cared about wellbeing and mental health being central to that. You can look great but it means little when you feel rotten inside.

I’ve started using an app called ‘Habitica’ which is a gamified way of keeping up with progress against targets and combining it with actions taken from ‘The DOSE effect’ is giving me a list of actions to assimilate into my daily and weekly routines.

Main areas I’m focused on are around improving my fitness and losing weight (see our Strava group), eating more healthily and mindfully, making more effort to see friends and connect more deeply with those close to me.

I know that I will not always achieve my targets but have come to believe that to be there for my family in the future I have to intentionally look after myself both mind and body. My mission or purpose is to help others to become aware of their ADHD traits and work with them to lead a happier and more fulfilling life, sadly living with ADHD can be lonely and very challenging and greatly impacting your ability to live well.

Habitica is like a role-playing-game and you get various digital rewards when you achieve targets and at the same time you can move up and down through levels. I’m less fussed about the awards and game elements but do like the interface, it’s really easy to add habits and track progress on one app.

So anyway, everyone is different and everyone with ADHD is also different though to a degree we have some common struggles around turning ideas and intentions to reality, and sticking with it.

My 3H approach will build and I’ll update you as I go, I hope that you can find some inspiration from this so that you can start to think about how you can adopt healthier habits which will have a massive effect on your mental wellbeing.

My early thinking here is to share thinking and progress as an approach – The ‘HYPERFOCUSED Healthy Habits’ programme or simply ‘3H’.

More on this very soon…

UPDATE – August 2026. I have dropped most of the good habits I was taking up and stopped using tools to keep on track. I’m reading ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear and nicking bits that make sense to me. I will update with some helpful resources and advise you to play with and see what works – very much trial and error.