you’re not the only person who’s expressed trouble with the first step, so I’m gonna elaborate just a little on the concept of intent.
‘Intending to act’ can be rephrased as ‘expecting yourself to do the thing’.
It’s the difference between your teacher giving you homework (your teacher expects you to do the homework) and you deciding to do the homework (you expect yourself to do the homework).
I don’t think you can lie to yourself about whether or not you intend to do something. even as a person who often doesn’t have a real concept of how much I can actually get done*, I can always tell when I don’t really expect myself to do a thing vs when I do expect myself to do it but I’m struggling to start.
below is a list of things that might help you tell if you really intend to do a thing. if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.
- do you want to do it? or alternatively: do you want the benefits from doing it enough to do it?
- even if you don’t want to do it, do you expect yourself to do it?
- can you imagine yourself starting the thing? (even if you don’t have a plan for how to get there.)
- do you have even a nebulous plan for doing the thing? (my ‘plans’ often start out: ‘1. go to wherever I have to be to do the thing 2. do the thing 3. ???? 4. profit’, which isn’t much of a plan but at least there’s a sense of starting and ending.)
- are you trying to force yourself to do the thing by not allowing yourself to start any other things first (and thus continuously scrolling through twitter/tumblr, or staring at your ceiling, or whatever)?
- are you trying to make yourself do the thing by offering yourself rewards for doing the thing?
if even ONE of these is true, I believe you honestly intend to do the task you’re struggling to start.
and this isn’t an exhaustive list of ways to tell you’re planning to do it! you know yourself best, and you can develop ways to tell the difference between your good intent and your wishful thinking.
procrastination is a hell of a monster, especially if you don’t have normal executive function. be nice to yourself! you are a decent person and want to do good things.
*the real problem ADHD people seem to have (or at least, the problem I, an adhd person, often have) is intending to do too much. my to-do list for any given day usually overestimates both how much time I have & how much energy I have. as a result, I can honestly intend to clean my room, do the dishes, and do my budget in one day, but I’ll probably only end up doing 2 out 3 things b/c I’ll run out of time or energy before I get to the last one.
this isn’t a problem of lying to oneself about your intentions: this is a problem of lacking time-awareness & self-awareness, and it demands better scheduling. this list can’t really help with that, unfortunately. :(
