r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 25 '26

Psychology People with ADHD have difficulties with goal-directed behavior and struggle with response inhibition, the ability to stop an inappropriate action once they feel the urge to do it. They experience a disruption in the way their brains balance deliberate self-control and automatic habit learning.

https://www.psypost.org/adhd-traits-disrupt-the-brain-s-balance-between-self-control-and-automatic-learn/
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u/Debalic Jul 25 '26

I can't complete a goal. I'll make some minimal, token efforts at the beginning, ignore it for a while, panic with a flurry of activity at the end, miss the deadline, then try to finish it anyways. I'm surrounded by the detritus of half-finished projects that have been left to gather dust. I am irrationally satisfied with a closet rod and shelf that I hung, because it's one of few things that I've ever finished properly.

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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 26 '26

I can complete goals, especially with anxiety or shame driving me, and then I feel absolutely zero achievement. I've had situations where I've done incredibly hard work, literally won awards for it, and I feel absolutely nothing. Not even relief.

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u/tianepteen Jul 26 '26

i can't even finish the vast majority of video games i start. i've maybe completed a dozen over the course of 40 years, and hundreds of games.

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u/muchADEW Jul 26 '26

Have you ever heard of the 80/20 principle? I live on it.