Lisa is a therapist with a thriving private practice, and her clients genuinely loved working with her.
She had natural empathy and could read people incredibly well.

The problem was that Lisa approached everything by winging it, and while she’d always figure it out in the end, it was starting to catch up with her.

She'd walk into client sessions without reviewing notes from last time, figuring she'd just go with the flow. She'd book speaking engagements without preparing what she'd actually say. She'd even started therapy groups without a clear structure for how sessions would run.

Lisa convinced herself that this made her more creative and do better work. But then clients would bring up issues from previous sessions that Lisa had completely forgotten about. Or her speeches felt scattered and left people confused.

Last month, one of her long-term clients had a complete breakdown in session, sobbing that she felt stuck in the same patterns for months with no progress. Lisa realized she'd been having the same conversations with this client over and over because she had no actual plan for moving her forward.

Lisa told me she felt like a fraud calling herself a professional when she was basically improvising her way through her entire practice.

About three weeks into Optimize Your ADHD Brain sessions, Lisa had a major realization while we were doing the brain exercises. It changed not only her own life but also her clients.

Thinking Skills 
While you are doing any task, you, without even realizing it, are using your 28 thinking skills.
When the thinking skills you need to use are strong, doing the task happens easily.
If the thinking skill you need to use is weak, doing the task is a challenge.
The struggle that Lisa had came from a weak thinking skill of having a need to make a plan.


Having a Need to Make a Plan
One day in session, while doing the brain exercises, Lisa realized she was constantly having to erase and start the exercise over. I had her create a plan on how she was going to proceed forward, and immediately afterwards, she was able to get into Flow.
That’s when it hit her, she was doing the exact same thing in her own life and practice. She was jumping right into situations and figuring out what to do as she went along.

Having a need to make a plan is not about planning. That comes later. It starts with having the desire to make the plan. The brain needs to see the benefits of making a plan or else there’s no way it’s going to do it.


ADHD and Making Plans
Here's the thing, people with ADHD are so good at figuring out what to do in any situation that your brain is like “Why should I plan? I'll just be able to figure it out.” And it's true you will be able to figure it out.

However, oftentimes it ends up costing you a lot more time, money, and mental energy.
You end up having to pull an all-nighter, pay insane fees for overnight shipping or go to 7 different stores to get the item that you're looking for because everything is out of stock.
If only you had simply planned ahead and obviously followed your plan, then you wouldn't have these issues.
So, while it seems like it takes more work up front, it ends up being worth it.

Note: Actually making the plan requires you to use many thinking skills. If one of the thinking skills required to actually make the plan is weak, your brain is going to resent planning.
You want to figure out which part of making the plan is a challenge for your brain and solve that problem.
If you need help figuring it out, DM me on LinkedIn at @ST Rappaport, and I will help you figure it out.


4 Exercises to Improve Having a Need to Make a Plan

Here are 4 exercises I did with Lisa to improve her desire to plan.
Once these were in place, we were able to work on her actual planning skills.

1) Stack proof of where planning DID help
Turn on a timer for 4 minutes and list out all the times you did make a plan and it DID work out.
The Disney trip, the client launch, the one week your whole life you actually planned dinner ahead of time.
Just list them out and show your brain it can be worth it.

Two bonuses to take this exercise to the next level:
A) After your timer rings, go back to your list and write out what were the benefits you got because you planned?
B) Make this a living document. Every time you do plan and it goes well, add it to this list.


2) Reflection
Take out a pen and paper, and journal about a big project you did recently.
Where could a plan have helped you?

Don’t get caught up in “but I wouldn’t have known that” or “but this detail happened.”
If you were to go back to the start of this project at what point could you have made the plan? And what would that plan have been?

Sure, things always change and that brings us to number 3

3) Replan
Often, people get caught up in “life happens,” and so they don’t want to plan.
It’s true. Life does happen and we can never really know what the next minute will bring.
But that doesn’t mean we should lose out on the benefits of planning.

You want your brain to understand that just because you planned, it doesn’t mean you’re stuck in this plan forever. You can always replan.


4) Start With Micro-Plans
We want to show your brain it’s actually worth it to make the plan. As soon as it gets too complicated, your brain will shut down.
Don't try to plan your entire life at once.
Start with planning one thing each day.
Spend two minutes in the morning planning 3 things you want to accomplish today and in what order.


My Favorite Part of Lisa's Story
A few weeks later, a client, who happened to have also have ADHD, came in frustrated about a situation. While in the past she would have let her just talk it out, this time she made sure the client didn’t leave without a plan of action.
“I was never taught these skills in school. All of a sudden I’m now able to give the client a strategy that they’ll actually be able to use.” She told me.


Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!