Tenacity - An ADHD Super Power
te·na·cious (tə-nā′shəs)
adj.
1.
a. Extremely persistent in adhering to or doing something; stubborn or relentless: "tenacious defenders of their harsh and pitiless land" (Dee Brown).
b. Characterized by extreme persistence; relentless or enduring: tenacious detective work; tenacious superstitions.
*taken from thefreedictionary.com
Tenacity is one of the ADHD super powers I admire the most in my friends, family and clients with ADHD. When I get stuck on an important To Do Item and feel like I have explored every option possible, I will frequently call my husband up and say, “I need you to do your thing.” It is one of the greatest super powers he has, to call the same phone numbers I have called and frequently speak to the same people as me, but somehow elicit, through sheer doggedness and persuasion, a completely different result than me. I don’t take this gap in my abilities personally. When faced with a multi-paged, multi-stepped task of organization, my husband has been known to show up at my office door with a pile of papers and that same request to me: “I need you to do your thing.” As was once noted by a friend, our strengths compliment each other, and one of my husband’s great strengths is Tenacity, a strength gifted to many people with ADHD.
I was recently discussing this ADHD super power with one of my clients, a small business owner. She started the call by telling me “I have had two of the worst weeks of my life.” She proceeded to recount her misadventures in obtaining a required permit for her business that needed to be secured by a specific deadline or she would lose a significant amount of money. She had thought she had handled the application already, but found out she had misunderstood the application and still needed a form filled out and signed. She set about getting the formed signed only to hit repeated dead ends. Hers was a story of misunderstandings, failed attempts, wrong turns and countless frustrations with success achieved only in the final hours. I frequently hear stories like this from my clients, with their focus being on recounting every misstep, error and failure along the way; but I hear something different when my clients tell me these tales…
“...the ADHD super power of Tenacity. You knew what needed to happen and you absolutely refused to stop until it was accomplished. ”
“I don’t want to diminish the frustration you experienced over the last two weeks,” I began, “and I know you are experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety which we can talk about how to strategize around to lessen, but I do want to share with you what I hear in that story you just told me. What I heard in your story, was the ADHD super power of Tenacity. You knew what needed to happen and you absolutely refused to stop until it was accomplished. That’s a super power of ADHD. Tenacity. A lot of people would have given up or not completed it on time or not even taken on your business idea to start with, but you did whatever it took to get the permit you needed by the time you needed it. THAT is an ADHD super power.”
When I stopped talking the phone line was silent. After a few minutes I realized it was because my client was crying. “I needed to hear this,” she told me once she stopped crying. “Thank you. I’ve been so frustrated and focused on the mistakes that I forgot……if I look at the history of Me, outside of a few exceptions in my lifetime, I ALWAYS get it done. Whatever it takes. I’ll do it. I’ve always been like that.”
“‘……if I look at the history of Me, outside of a few exceptions in my lifetime, I ALWAYS get it done. Whatever it takes. I’ll do it. I’ve always been like that.’ That is the definition of Tenacity”
That is the definition of Tenacity and it is a gift many people with ADHD are blessed with. It’s easy to overlook. People with ADHD often focus on their own mistakes and the negatives on their journey and lose sight of the bigger picture—they get the task done. I sometimes think it’s the ADHD individual’s familiarity with life not going as planned which allows them to push past the obstacles many of us might see as insurmountable walls. I don’t know and I don’t know that it’s important to know why people with ADHD are so often blessed with the super power of Tenacity. It is one of their gifts and when they can embrace it and own it, then they can begin to build that confidence my client above was starting to get a taste of…..the knowledge that she has the ability to get it done. It may be messy, it may be improvised, but she will get it done, that she can trust and believe in.