What happens when ADHD gets janky?
A lot of single track mountain bike trails in Nova Scotia are really old school. There are not a lot of constructed features like jumps, berms or wood work.
Typically, they’re little trails through the woods, just wide enough and barely smooth enough to ride over.
The descriptive term is called ‘janky’
Janky means there are loads of ugly, rocks roots and fallen over trees in the way.
Janky means there’s a lot of resistance to forward progress.
ADHD is a form of mental janky-ness.
One way to deal with the jank is to slowly pick a clean line through the resistance. Get organized. Be methodical. Do all the things. Let someone 'manage you'.
Another way? Go really fast and absorb as much punishment as possible while just blasting through it. React to the world. Stay off your meds. Blame yourself. Tough it out.
Ride your bike 90's style on 26" rims and no suspension over trails that are little more than a constant course of rocks and roots.
what if we did it differently?
My favorite way involves using a rock or set of roots at a fairly favorable angle. Ride fast, use them as jumps and launch as far as possible over the underlying jank. Ideally, I’ll come down on some more favorable sloped jank that can smooth out the landing.
Right. We don't need to be super careful with our wildly wired ADHD brains. We also don't need to just throw ourselves at the world and take all the punishment it can dish out.
The other way means knowing what's there on the ground and how that works with what we have on the trail and how that works.
When that happens? We've an opportunity to fly.
Much of what we see as resistance to our forward progress in life is fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection.
Or worse.
Fear of success.
Fear is also now called 'anxiety' by the folks in charge.
Anxiety is excitement with no where to go.
Anxiety and excitement frequently physiologically manifest themselves in the same place in the body.
So?
When you’re working on making a big change in your life, how can you turn your fears into excitement?
How do you turn the janky resistance into a launch ramp to soar?
How can your know yourself well enough launch yourself to new heights?
