Author: Andrea Grassi

For a long time, I was a big believer of “We can do anything”. 

A believer of the fact that no matter who you are, you have all the possibilities to learn new things, to try new things, to explore.

At the core of this is the single idea that willpower and consistency are enough to reach a goal. That dedication can trump talent (if talent is not nurtured).

I still believe these things, but one thing changed: I don’t think they apply to everyone anymore. 

Any clinical or mental condition can influence this outcome, and it should be taken into consideration.

A couple of months ago, I realized I wasn’t as focused as I was years ago. My world was trembling.  

It took me a while for me to get back on my feet again through meditation and learning.

During that time, I also tried to understand if I had some kind of ADHD. Turns out I have some very low symptoms, but nothing more. 

But during this journey I learned a lot more about ADHD, and it made me realize that my idea of dedication, consistency, etc, will fail if you have an undiagnosed/not cured ADHD. And it might as well fail in many other situations when the mental health or condition is impaired. 

Does this mean that people with ADHD cannot learn? Of course not! But you can’t apply the same rules to everyone. In some cases, you need to create new processes and ideas, to let the person’s skills bloom.

There will be days when you can’t do it all.
Scale down. Do what you can but keep the habits you care about alive.

Restoring a habit is much harder than maintaining it.

What is better for you? To workout every three days, or to do a small workout each day?
Or maybe one day a week?

You might start wondering which workout will give you the better results, which is more effective based on science and facts.

But… there is a fact that science didn’t consider: Your ability to do the workout consistently.

Because what you want is a workout you can do over and over, for the longest possible time. It should be achievable, but also it should be something that fits your schedule, your mood and the style of your life. 

Consistency trumps everything. If you can do the workout for more years, you’ll get more results. And this rule does not apply to the workout only, it applies to diets, to life, to whatever you need.

Rarely changes happen overnight. Sometimes you need to endure for weeks, months, years, to see a spark of light.

And when that light comes, it’s hard to know what made it possible.
Which of the things you tried?

Not all things work the same way, and it might as well be the mix that made this change possible.
But you won’t know, yet you’re there, living the change, enjoying this new moment in life.

Embrace it.
Mark down how it feels, remember those feelings and use them as a compass to navigate the trouble times you’ll eventually encounter again.

Every day, I meditate for around 30 minutes. I have an app to track my mindfulness minutes that has a neat feature: every X minutes it vibrates on my Apple Watch, reminding me to stay in the meditation.

This seemed like a useful feature, and it helped me quite a few times staying focused into the meditation.

But today that app failed. Probably because of some OS update. It didn’t vibrate.

I usually put a timer, as a backup, to be sure I am notified when the time ends, and since that feature was broken, I realized that it wasn’t likely helping me.

What I wanted to train was my ability to notice that I’m not in the flow and go back. That timer helped me go back, but didn’t help me be aware that I was losing focus.

Relying on it too much reduced the quality of my meditation.