Do I Have ADHD? Why I Start Everything and Finish Nothing

Ever start a million projects and never finish a single one? Same. In this episode, I open up about my personal struggle with focus, unfinished ideas, and the creeping suspicion that I might have ADHD. From creative bursts to burnout, we explore what it really means to live in a world full of distractions — and whether there’s more going on beneath the surface. If you’ve ever wondered, “Is this just how I am, or could it be ADHD?” — you’re not alone. Let’s talk about it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yes, who's beg Beck again? Yes, Who's Burg? Well? Is
that where he goes? I have no idea if that's
how that goes. It's been a long time. What's it been?
It's been over twelve months. Welcome, Welcome, How have you been?
I'll tell you how I have been. There has been

(00:24):
a lot going on in my head. Today is the
twenty first of April twenty twenty five, and it's the
new and improved and different Confidence and Self Esteem podcast.
May not even call it this moving forward. What I've
learned is a number of things and I'm going to

(00:48):
talk about them now in a bit more of a
structured way, and hopefully it's going to be something that
you go, Okay, I see what you're doing here. Who
I want to listen forever? So here we go. The
deal is this. I think I potentially have ADHD and

(01:13):
I'm forty nine years old. It's undiagnosed, and to be frank,
I'm probably not going to get myself diagnosed go through
the the process of doing that, just because I'm forty
nine years old and I figure, I wonder what difference
it would really make having a diagnosis and currently being

(01:33):
in my current position I don't but what ADHD means
to me, and I don't know if I am, by
the way, But what I do know is I am very,
very creative, and I'm always coming up with ideas. And

(01:54):
my understanding from that is that is when my dopamine
is high, but my unlike a lot of people's, burns
through dobamine very fast. So I go from a good idea,
something really creative, to then having to the routine of
it being structured and procedural, and that's what kills my ideas.

(02:21):
So I go through this feedback loop of being creative,
having ideas, starting to execute on them, giving up, getting bored,
can't be bothered, whatever the phrase is, and then it
just becomes another failed project, failed exercise, another thing in

(02:45):
my life that I just don't continue doing. And what
I've learned is that I'm not wired. My brain cannot
cope with maintenance or routine work because in my head
that's just where the dopamine dies, and I just that

(03:08):
needs to be offset to someone else. And what I
realize is to optimize and achieve the best I can,
I need to fuel my brain and motivate myself by

(03:30):
doing you know, big open ended problems, especially if I
get to reframe or rewire them, creating urgency with purpose,
high sort of brainstorming ideas, naming, positioning, working out where

(03:51):
things sort of are and how they could look in
the future. And to also ensure I stay clear of
the exact opposite of those things, which is sort of
the repetitive tasks, the admin formatting, the uploading, the tagging,
the you know, sort of once an idea works, I

(04:17):
mentally just check out, or once I found a shortcut,
I think, haha, I've round a shortcut. That's the end
of that. The things also where I face problems, like
I'll face a reasonably small problem and then I'll go, oh,
I'm sure I could fix that. So I then watch

(04:38):
fifteen YouTube videos and by then I've just lost all
motivation to even bother sorting it. So again, I just
need to understand when those points are and make sure
that I just put a pin in it, pause where
I am, and offset that to someone else or you know,
come back to it. And what this all means for

(04:59):
me and this podcast moving forward is I thought it
would be nice for my own personal journey to document
exactly what I'm doing where I am and why I'm
doing it, and any sort of tips and advice that
I've learned about myself which potentially can help you guys,

(05:20):
the listeners as well. So that's where I am at
this moment in time. If that sounds of interest to you,
I no longer have the confidence and self esteem dot
com podcast domaining. I just let it run out again
one of those things. But now done that, why do

(05:41):
I need to keep it going? So I do have
a website again, another idea that may not go anywhere.
I have the website called the Strategic Idiot or Strategicidiot
dot com. So if you contact, if you want to
email me James at strategicidiot dot com, please let me

(06:03):
know any thoughts. If this resonates with you, would love
to hear from you, if you want me. If you're like, oh,
I kind of see what you're saying in kind of
you know I'm thinking the same, then again we'd love
to hear from you. Please reach out. And if you're

(06:24):
kind of well, I have ADHD and you're completely going
about this the wrong way, then again please let me know.
As I said, I don't know if I do have ADHD,
I don't know, I definitely got something. I've realized in
the last sort of since the last podcast episode maybe
twelve to eighteen months ago, that I know I have something.
I just don't know what it is, but I'm quite

(06:48):
motivated at the moment to get to the bottom of
it and understand myself. And interestingly, the podcast, this very podcast,
it's had like sort of been going for maybe five
and a half years now and has over one point
five million downloads, So you know, when I find that thing,

(07:09):
I can keep it going. It's just very few and
far between I get to that stage. So that's me.
That's where I'm at. Does any of this resonate Let
me know, get in touch the New Way, have a

(07:29):
fantastic day. Goodbye,