How Emotions Inform Decisions with ADHD

Think about an important decision you have made recently.

Now think of the emotional state you were in to make that decision. Did you make the decision under duress? Was there the presence of great stress and urgency? Avoidance? Or was the decision made in a moment of clarity and spaciousness?

Everyday we make thousands of decisions, many small and often at a sub-conscious level. We also make significant decisions which can potentially have an enormous impact, personally and on those around us. Rarely do we consider how emotions come into play in our daily decisions yet emotions are a key element of the decision-making process.

For those of us with ADHD it can be challenging to track back to the emotions that drive our most important decisions. Not only can we struggle with regulating our emotions in certain intense situations, we can also struggle to access the most appropriate emotions for a given moment or an upcoming decision. Emotions are the road signs that predict the conditions ahead on the metaphorical road you are travelling. Because of working memory, emotional regulation and something called prospective memory - memory of some future moment in time - it can be difficult to conceive and ‘deploy’ the best emotion before heading into a difficult conversation or a challenging scenario. Years ago I wrote about emotions in the role of decision-making and a concept I call emotional organizing. Now I am seeing a way to proactively address the emotion dysregulation dilemma we face.

My Equanimity Group Coaching Course explores the roles of emotions in how we show up to our day and how we address the important decisions we make. We utilize a Positive Intelligence program to ‘light up’ those road signs so you can see them sooner and adjust to changing road conditions. We identify the Saboteurs who show up when we are stressed and fearful and learn to access the positve emotions of the Sage.
Equanimity is my group coaching offering for ADHD leaders who want to leverage emotions to the decision-making resources that they are. Emotions are not just for regulating.