Preparation meets Opportunity
“Luck is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” - Seneca
Alright, let’s talk about creating our own luck. Let’s be real, life is hard, and raising a child with ADHD is crazy hard but we can choose to create our own luck for our family and teach our kids this same concept to life.
Last school year was one of Emily’s most difficult school years for a number of different reasons. She started the school year off on the wrong foot (her own choice) and then had to work from behind through Christmas break. As we approached January and going back to school, we talked so much about how you show up will determine what you get out of it. We also talked about how when we are always weeks behind in school that we lose out on opportunities to go have fun or spend our time doing things we enjoy like reading books, drawing, or hanging out with friends. Our words literally went in one ear and out the other. Fast forward a few months and Emily has several missing assignments, probably a couple of hours worth of work, and she wanted to go to several soccer games that her school’s team would be in for a championship. We let her know that she can go if the list of known missing assignments were done and turned in. She had a few days and the weekend to accomplish this task. Emily chose to look at other websites and daydream instead of being productive and literally wasted several days in regards to productivity. Every time we checked on her she would say I got off track and I’m getting back on. Needless to say, she lost the opportunity to attend the soccer games with her friends. I was so sad that she wasn’t able to go…I was really hoping that she would feel accomplished and have fun and that we could celebrate her for once during her 10th-grade year. It was such a difficult, exhausting, and draining school year.
Let’s fast forward to the present. Emily is not behind at school and is actually in a really good spot with her workload. For the most part, she is happy and willing to work. But we have our days too! For fall break this year, Emily’s younger sisters had more time off from their school and that meant Emily had to work while they were relaxing and having fun. She did not like this at all! As we approached the beginning of November she was adamant that she wanted to have more time off from working on school work as her younger sisters would. She was doing so well but she had 3 small assignments left and all motivation left her body. Her entire body language sitting at the kitchen table told us exactly how things were going and where they were headed. I was angry. We had scheduled time and worked so hard for her to be able to have the break she desperately wanted and I felt like she was going to ruin it. And that we were going to have to nag her all break and fight with her mood to get a few simple assignments finished. I expressed my feelings and thoughts about how we were going to have to fight a bad attitude and a lack of productivity for the next 4 days instead of getting the break she had wanted so badly. I wanted the break too! Surprisingly she regrouped and got to work. Emily’s Thanksgiving break was school work free and a welcomed break. Thank goodness!
Ok, to bring this back to the point. Luck is where preparedness and opportunity meet. Preparedness is another term for putting in the hard work that is necessary to be ready for what is ahead. Being ready could be for the school games or school break that you are wanting to attend or have a homework free weekend. Being ready could also mean that you’ve done what you needed to so that the unexpected opportunity to go out with friends can happen. So you can look at those who get to attend games, movies, etc as lucky or you can view them as prepared so they were able to take advantage of the opportunity presented to them that they could take advantage of because they put in the work.
In the case of Emily, she has had so many more opportunities this school year. She has hung out with friends, has gone to several movies, has gone to the arcade, and has read so many books I can’t keep track of them all. I think she’d say she is feeling pretty lucky right now. So how did we go from our experiences (like one of her worst school years ever) last year to being so lucky this year?
Here is what has changed.
Emily’s mindset. Now, this wasn’t something that happened overnight. It actually took her about 9-10 weeks to finally get to a more positive mindset. But as you just read, she doesn’t show up this way every day. We all have more difficult days. What allowed Emily to gain a more positive mindset was creating a consistent routine and stacking win after win each week so that Emily gained momentum.
A Schedule. Every Sunday night, we sit down and plan out Emily’s week. We identify when she has class, when she is working, when piano lessons are scheduled… we add in all the things. We look at when she had tighter timelines and outline when she is going to work on what assignments. Finally, we outline when she will have free time. This is an extremely important piece because it shows her when she will be able to do what she wants to do. I have found this to be an amazing tool when she is fighting for a really long break or wants to stop before she accomplishes her goal because I say, “So what you are telling me is that you would rather veg on the couch now, and not do your assignment, instead of going to the movie this weekend. Is that what you want?” It is a really powerful tool for them to logically work through how they want to use their free time.
Timers & Promptings. We use timers to help Emily stay on track. It helps her to refocus and make sure that she hasn’t gone down a rabbit hole. Earlier in the school year, Emily had a small PowerPoint project to share a few things that are unique about her with the class. The teacher provided templates and all she had to do was literally plug in a few sentences and be done. After an hour, I questioned what she was working on and my response to her was that should only take about 5-10 minutes. She argued back that the templates didn’t meet her character and uniqueness. I responded with, “Ok, sure. But is this really how you want to spend your free time…working on this template for school? I get it if you find this as a creative outlet but is there something more important to you that you would rather spend your time doing?” She decided it was not how she wanted to spend her time.
Stacking Wins. This one really is the best one…by doing these other items we have been able to stack wins. Once you’ve started to stack enough wins, then you start to expect that they will happen again. And when this happens, you are more likely to put in the work to be prepared so you are ready for those lucky opportunities.
To start out with, this took a lot of my personal time and promptings. It still takes some of my time and promptings but using DisruptADHD has been an incredible tool to assist. It allows me to be less of a nag and more of a cheerleader. Emily gets to see her making progress on assignments and the system automatically prompts her to be on track or take a reasonable time for a break. So I’ve taught you how to do this manually but having the software assist has been a huge help to our relationship and not only helps Emily feel successful but helps me feel like I can provide positive support and less nagging all while having a lower of a mental load to make sure it all happens.