Stopping Smart with ADHD: Break Free from ADHD Hyperfocus & Perfectionism – Simple Strategies

You finally got started on that project, maybe you even use some strategies from last week's episode. But now you're three weeks in and you're stuck in what I call the improvement vortex. You keep finding just one more thing to tweak, one more element to perfect, one more expert opinion to research. Or maybe you're avoiding finishing because once it's done, you actually have to put it out there and find out if people want it and that's terrifying.

Welcome to Stopping Problems, the second part of the ADHD entrepreneur unholy trinity. I'm Diann Wingert, this is Adhd-ish, and today we're talking about how to stop digging when you're already in a hole. Okay, here's a question that will probably make you feel uncomfortable. Are you ready? How many projects are sitting in your almost done folder right now? I'm not talking about the ones you abandon. I mean, the ones that are like 85% complete but somehow never seem to make it over the finish line. The course that needs just a few more lessons, the website that just needs a few copy tweaks, or the marketing campaign that needs just a bit more testing. Hey, if you're anything like me or the majority of ADHD entrepreneurs, that folder is getting pretty damn crowded and here's what's really fucked up about it.

The work in that folder is probably already good enough to launch but good enough feels like giving up when you have a perfectionist for a brain that whispers. Just a little bit more and it will be amazing. Last week we talked about the two sides of the starting problem. Analysis paralysis, and impulsive launching. Well, guess what? Stopping problems have three sides, and they're all connected to how you started. If you're a perfectionist planner, you probably struggle with perfectionist stopping, right?

I mean, you can't call anything done because nothing ever feels complete or good enough. If you're an impulsive launcher, you probably hit what I call the confidence crash when you realize halfway through you are in over your head. Lose faith in your original vision and start researching your way into total paralysis. And regardless of how you started, you may be dealing with what I call the rejection sensitivity shield, keeping things almost done so you don't have to face the possibility that people won't want what you've created. All three of these feel like responsible perfectionism, and all three are actually fear, wearing a productivity suit.

So let's dig in. I want to tell you about three different people who are all stuck, but in different ways. The first is Lenor, in what I call the perfectionist tweaking trap. Lenore has been working on her signature course for, I'd say, six or seven months. The content is rock solid. The structure makes sense, her beta testers loved it but she keeps finding things to improve. Last week she decided the workbook needed better graphics. This week she's redoing the module on goal setting because she found a new framework over the weekend that she thinks might be better.

Lenor is not making the course better anymore, she's making it different. But she can't see that, because she's convinced that if she just gets it perfect enough, it'll be so good that success is virtually guaranteed. And what she's actually doing is avoiding the moment when she finds out if her work is good enough not for her ADHD brain, but for the real world, while real customers and clients actually live.

Then we have David. David has got a problem with the rejection sensitivity shield. Now, David has written a book about productivity for creative professionals. I think a book that's very much needed and it's good, it's really good. His writing coach says it's ready for beta testers now. But David keeps finding reasons not to send it out. He needs to revise chapter three. He should probably add more examples. Maybe he should just restructure the whole thing. These are all the thoughts that David is having and is completely convinced that they're accurate.

David's not improving his book anymore. He's protecting himself from finding out if people will reject it. Ouch. And as long as it's not finished, it can't fail. He can't fail. But it's like he's holding his breath underwater, thinking that if he never comes up for air, he'll never have to face whether he can actually swim.

And then there's Marta in the lost in the woods syndrome. Marta got so excited about launching a membership community. She announced it, got some founding members, and then realized, I have no idea how to actually run a community. So she started researching, community management best practices, engagement strategies, different membership platforms, content calendars. Three months later, she knows a whole lot about running communities in theory, but her community is dying on the vine because she's been so busy learning how to do it that she forgot to actually do it. She's drowning in information, and her members are now asking for refunds.

ecting his book. And Marta is: 1000

Can you feel me? You realize, oh, I don't actually know as much as I need to know, and you begin to doubt your original vision. Naturally, this is especially brutal if you start it impulsively because now you're facing all the planning you should have done up front. But instead of accepting that you need to course correct, you think you need to become an expert before you can continue. So you start researching, of course, you read blog posts, you buy courses. You join Facebook groups and ask for advice. You listen to all of the audio books and podcasts that are even remotely connected to this topic, and every piece of new information makes you question what you've already done.

Friends, this is where good projects go to die. Not because they were bad ideas, but because we lose faith in our ability to figure it out as we go. And if you think you know the difference between research and a rabbit hole, I want to challenge that. Because once we are in research mode, it becomes addictive. Dopamine is flowing, we're feeling so smart. Reading about how to do something feels productive, and it feels rewarding. Our brains really like it.

So here I got news for you, learning new frameworks is going to feel like progress but it isn't. Because you're not creating, you're consuming. And here's the truly insidious part, the more we research, the more inadequate our current work feels. We learn that the strategies we haven't even implemented are so much better than the ones we have, and approaches that we haven't tried are the best of the best. Well, guess what? Once this happens, your little old project starts looking quite shabby compared to all the possibilities you're now discovering.

If you haven't experienced this, I really want to question your ADHD diagnosis because I have been here too many times to count. When we reach this point, we start second guessing decisions we made months, maybe even years ago. Should I have used a different platform? Should I have chosen a different target audience? Should I just scrap everything and start over now that I know better? This is analysis paralysis in reverse. Instead of being stuck before you start, it's being stuck after you've started because you've convinced yourself that what you built ain't shit.

You want to hear more? We've also got the opinion seeking trap. Because once our confidence crashes, we have to start asking everyone and their sister for their opinion. Posting in Facebook groups, emailing the mentor who barely remembers you, having coffee meetings with anyone who will listen to your dilemma. But I got news for you, everyone has an opinion and they're all different. Some people will tell you just push through. Others will tell you it's obviously time to pivot, and someone will suggest a completely different approach.

Every person you ask is going to cause you to question your entire premise over and over and over in a multitude of ways. And here's the thing, all of these people mean well, but they're giving you advice based on their experience, their business model, their risk tolerance. None of them are inside your head, even if they have ADHD too. None of them understand your specific situation. And none of them are dealing with the consequences of your past decisions that are fucking your shit up now.

So please don't collect opinions like souvenirs, thinking that if you just get enough, the right answer will become obvious. Quite the contrary, the more input you get, the more confused you are. You do not get more clarity. And can we talk about what's actually happening here? I mean, the fear beneath the perfectionism. Because whether you're tweaking endlessly, researching obsessively, or seeking opinions consistently, you're avoiding the same thing. Finding out if your work is good enough for other people.

This fear is completely rational. Putting your work out there means risking rejection and worst of all, indifference. That really hurts, I mean, what if you launch and nobody cares? You've spent months on something and nobody wants it, these are legitimate fears. I will be the last person to tell you, don't go there, no one thinks that. You know what? They might.

But here's what perfectionism gets wrong. It assumes that if you can just somehow make your work good enough, you can avoid risks. My friend, you cannot, there is no amount of preparation that equals a guarantee of a positive reception. There is only one way to find out if your work resonates, and that is to put it in front of people. And the longer you wait, the more pressure you put on it to be perfect. So that it when it finally sees daylight, everybody wants it. This is failing before we even start.

But I got news for you, I got a solution. It's called the Completion Compass and here's how we're going to fix your problem. The completion compass is built around one core principle. Different kinds of stuck require different exit strategies. The first step is diagnosing what kind of stuck you're dealing with. Because the solution for perfectionistic tweaking is different from the solution for fear-based stalling, which is different from the solution for getting loss in research that's become a rabbit hole.

So here's the diagnosis. What stuck are you? This is how perfectionistic stuck looks like. If you keep finding just one more thing to improve, you're in it. The project is objectively good enough, but somehow doesn't feel perfect. You're avoiding the discomfort of calling something done. You know it could work as is deep down, but you're convinced it could work even better if this is you. Your exit strategy to this kind of stuck is setting completion criteria before you start your next project. You need external standards that are not dependent on how you feel about your work.

Feelings are very fickle and yet they are so convincing in the moment. We need to get the feels out of your fucking work. Fear stuck looks like this. You don't launch because you're terrified of rejection or failure. You keep researching best practices instead of testing your freaking approach. You would rather keep your work private than risk public feedback. And you are seeking guarantees that don't exist. So if this is you, your exit strategy is reframing the done as ready for learning instead of ready for judgment.

Feeling lost and stuck looks like this. You realize mid project you are literally in over your head. You are drowning in research and conflicting advice. You've lost confidence in your original vision and you're trying to become an expert instead of slaying as a practitioner. If this is you, your exit strategy is emergency reset protocols that get you back to building and creating instead of continuing to consume. Most people are dealing with some combination of these, but usually one is dominant. Figure out which one describes you most accurately right now and then use the appropriate strategy for that.

Now, setting completion criteria before you start is your protection against perfectionistic tweaking. So before you begin any project, you want to define what good enough to launch looks like. Not perfect, but good enough. And you want to do that before you start because once you start, you're going to fall back in your old patterns. Trust me. So for content and marketing projects, good enough means it clearly communicates your primary message and includes a next step for people who resonate with it. That's it, it doesn't need to cover every possible objection or include every possible piece of relevant information. It needs to clearly and simply serve its primary purpose. That's it.

Now, if you're looking at a product or service development, a new offer, for example a line extension. Good enough means it solves the core problem for your ideal customer. It doesn't need to solve every problem, every related problem, or include every possible feature. It needs to create value for the people it's designed to serve, period. For systems and process creation, good enough may mean it works better than what you had before. And while that may not sound very exciting or sexy, most inventions are working better than what we had before. They're not completely brand new and mind blowing. If what you create works better than what you had before, and it either saves people time or energy, that's a win.

It does not need to be the be all and end all ultimate solution. It needs to be an improvement that you can iterate on, and that's real value for real people. The key is writing these criteria down before you start. When you're thinking clearly and when you're not all up in your emotions when you're relating to this project, then when you're deep in the project and everything feels inadequate, you actually have some objective standards to hang your hat on. It's also important to recognize diminishing returns, because when we've crossed the line from improvement to procrastination, that's where we are. This usually happens when we're making changes that do not significantly impact the outcome or user experience.

I'm going to give you some warning signs because most of the time we don't see this. When you're editing the same section of what you've written for the third time. When you're changing things that work fine, but you don't feel that they're right, you're adding features or content that literally no one has asked for just because you thought of them, or you're optimizing details that 95% of your audience are never going to freaking notice. I refer to this as working for an A plus grade when a pass fail will do the job just fine. When you catch yourself doing this or anything like this, ask yourself, will the change that I'm making materially improve the outcome for my audience? Or does it just make me feel better about my work? If it's the latter, stop.

This is ego, procrastination, perfectionism, fear of rejection, and all manner of mental fuckery that's standing in your way, just stop. I love reframing done as ready for learning instead of ready for judgment. Because the fear of finishing also means the fear of it not being being good enough. So we tweak and tweak and tweak and tweak and after a while, your competitors are racing right past you and you never put it out there at all. You're not launching to success or failure. You're launching to learn.

Every launch is a test. Every piece of feedback is data. Every response, positive, negative and neutral, tells you something useful about what to do next time. This doesn't mean you should ever put out genuinely bad work. I think you know me well enough to know I would never recommend that. And I also know you'd never do it. What it does mean is that you put out work that's good enough to generate useful feedback, and then you use that feedback to make the next version better. The goal is not to avoid criticism, it's really impossible. It's to get useful criticism from the right people, not some randos who are never going to buy your product.

You can't get useful criticism from the right people until you put your work in front of actual humans. Now, what do we do about managing our rejection sensitivity in real time? Well, we need tools for managing the emotional side of launching. So first, define your worst case scenario. Specifically, what are you actually afraid will happen? That no one will buy? That someone will criticize your work? That you'll feel embarrassed? Name it precisely, write it down.

Then ask yourself, can I survive that outcome? Not am I going to be happy with it, am I going to be comfortable with it, but can I survive that outcome? Almost always the answer is yes. It might be disappointing, it might be uncomfortable. It will not destroy you, you are not that fragile, really. Next, find the smallest possible test. Instead of launching to your entire audience, launch to one person. Instead of putting it on your website, send it to one friend. Instead of announcing it publicly, share it in a small group. By reducing the stakes while still giving you real feedback from real people, you are learning.

Now, let's talk about emergency protocols for when we hit mid project panic. This is when we realize we are really lost. Confidence has crashed and we are desperately in need of an emergency reset protocol. I'm going to share one with you that has five steps. Are you ready? Step one, stop consuming new information immediately. Close the browser, close all the tabs, put away the books, unsubscribe from those Facebook groups. You're not allowed to learn anything new until you've used what you already know. And let me tell you, this is a free podcast that thousands of people listen to, but this piece of advice I give my private coaching clients. Stop consuming new information, you are not allowed to learn anything new until you've used what you already know. This right there is a game changer.

You ready for step two? Okay, write down everything you already know about your topic. I'm not kidding. You know more than you think. Before you decided you needed to become an expert, you had enough knowledge to start this project. That knowledge, my friend, is still valid. In fact, once you're in the midst of writing down everything that you already know, you're going to start cursing my name and you're going to stop because there's so much of it.

Okay, here's step three, pick one source to follow for this project. Not three, not five. 1, choose the approach that most resonates with you and commit to following it to completion. You can explore other approaches on your next project. Step 4, set a deadline on your research. This is another piece of advice I give to my private coaching clients. If you absolutely must gather more information, give yourself a maximum of two days. Set a timer if you have to, get an accountability partner. If you are really worried that you're going to exceed those two days.

But let me tell you, when the deadline hits, you move forward with whatever you've learned. Period. And step five, get back to building. Please stop learning and start doing. Even if your next step feels imperfect or frankly, inadequate, take it anyway. Action will restore your confidence faster than more research will. And let me say that again for the folks in the back, action will restore your confidence faster than more research ever will.

Now here's something most productivity advice gets wrong. Are you ready? Not everything needs to be completed. Some projects should be abandoned, some should be paused, and some should be released in their current state, even if they don't seem done. This is what I call the art of strategic incompletion. And it basically means consciously choosing not to finish something because you finally learned that the original version doesn't serve your current goals.

Now this can happen when we drag something out for months or years because we can't bear to finish it. And by the time we get anywhere near the finish line, we're like, I don't even want this anymore. This is different from giving up out of frustration or fear, by the way. This is a deliberate decision making based on changed priorities. The key is distinguishing between self protective incompletion and strategic incompletion. So ask yourself, am I stopping because it's not the right project anymore or because I'm afraid it's not good enough and you really gotta trust your intuition and self-awareness to know which one it is?

Now, when do you get help and when do you push through? That's another important question. Because sometimes you're stuck because you lack essential knowledge or skills. I always say we have to have the will, the skill, the mindset, and all three matter. So if you're stuck because you literally don't have essential skill, what do you do? Do you need to learn to get over it yourself or do you need to get help? Here's how I feel about it. If missing knowledge is central to what you're building, like understanding your target market or knowing how to deliver your core service, you probably need to learn it yourself. Now, if the missing knowledge is, let's say, operational, like how to set up an email sequence or how to design a website, then I think you should consider hiring someone or finding a collaborator instead of trying to become an expert yourself.

This is something that delayed me so much in the first few years of my business. I literally felt like I needed to learn how to do every freaking thing on my own. I needed to learn how to be a website developer. I needed to learn how to master email marketing and social media marketing. I thought I was even going to edit my own podcast. Good God. For those things, do you really need to learn how to do everything yourself or would it make more sense for you to hire someone to do it for you or do it with you? Don't let operational challenges derail your core project. Please, please, please get help with the stuff that is so far from your zone of genius that no amount of time you spend on is ever going to turn out a result that's half as good as what you can pay someone to do for you.

Now can we talk about some real world applications? Because I really want you to see how these smart stopping tools look like in different scenarios that I see with my clients and that you're probably facing right now. For example online course development. Instead of adding more modules, redoing existing content, or researching every possible teaching method, Smart Stopping looks like teaching your core curriculum to a small beta group, getting feedback on what's most valuable, and then launching with that exact content, you can add more modules later based on what actual students request. Because oftentimes your beta students are different than your future students.

So if you scrap everything based on beta students feedback, you might be back at the drawing board sooner than you think. How about content marketing? Well, instead of rewriting the same blog post five times or researching every possible angle before you publish it, Smart Stopping looks like this. Publishing it when your main point is clear and actionable, even if there are three more things you could add, there always will be. Your audience will tell you what they want to know more about, I promise. With product development, instead of adding features that nobody asked you for, or trying to solve every possible version, every possible problem in version one, Smart Stopping looks like this.

Release when your product solves the core problem well, then iterate based on future feedback. Perfect is the enemy of done. For website creation, instead of tweaking your copy or your graphics endlessly, or trying to address every possible objection in your FAQ or homepage, Smart Stopping looks like this. Going live when your site clearly explains what you do and how people can work with you. You can optimize later based on actual user behavior, not imagined objections and concerns. For service offerings, instead of creating detailed packages for every possible scenario before you've worked with any clients, you'd be amazed how often I see this.

Smart Stopping looks like this, define one clear offer, deliver it to three clients, then refine based on that experience. Real clients will teach you more than theoretical planning ever can. And I'm going to repeat that because this one is critical. Your real clients will teach you far more than theoretical planning ever will. You see the pattern here? It's always the same, stop when you can test your core assumption with real people, everything else can be improved based on actual feedback.

Now let's do some troubleshooting around Smart Stopping. What if I launch too early and it reflects poorly on my brand? Your brand is built over time by delivering consistent value, not by having a perfect launch. People respect honesty and improvement far more than they do perfection. And I'll tell you one of the ways I know this. Because I had a botched launch and I had the audacity to create a podcast episode. To this day, it is still one of my most frequently downloaded episodes. Because people wanted to, you know, laugh behind my back at my launch, at my failed launch? No, because it was so important to hear someone they actually, actually respect and admire talk about not getting it right.

Or how about this one? Yeah, but what if someone criticizes me? They probably will. But you can use that information to make it better. Criticism from people who have actually experienced your work is so valuable and infinitely more valuable than theoretical perfection, which teaches us nothing. Or how about this one? What if no one buys? No one engages, no one responds. You get nothing but crickets. Well, guess what? As cringe as that is, as embarrassing as that is, as bruised around the ego that feels you've learned something important about your market or your offer, that information is worth much more than months and months and months of additional tweaking. But I know I can make it better. I just need more time.

You know what? Don't do that to yourself. The truth is, you can always make it better. The question is whether better justifies the delay in putting it out in front of real people. I promise you good enough. Plus real world feedback gets you to excellence far faster than prolonged perfectionism. So here's what we've covered in this episode. Stopping smart means recognizing which type of stuck you're dealing with and using the appropriate exit strategy. Set completion criteria before you start. Reframe launching as learning, not judgment. Use emergency protocols when you're stuck in research.

And remember, strategic incompletion can sometimes be your smartest choice. The goal is not perfect work. It's work that's good enough to generate useful feedback from real people, not imaginary ones. So now you've learned in the last two episodes to start strong and stop smart. But business isn't just about individual projects. It's usually about moving between multiple priorities, recovering from interruptions, and managing the constant context switching that just comes with entrepreneurship.

So that's what we're going to cover in the final episode of this trilogy, how to transition between projects without losing your momentum, how to get back up to speed after life interrupts your flow, and how to manage multiple priorities without losing your freaking mind. But before we get there, I need to ask for your help again. Help me help you. Last week you told me about your biggest starting challenges, and this week I bet you know where I'm going.

I need to know when you get stuck in a project, what does that actually look like for you? Are you tweaking endlessly? Are you avoiding launching because of fear? Or are you drowning in research because you got in over your head? Or maybe it's something else altogether that I haven't thought of. There's a 30 second survey in the show notes. Your answers are directly shaping the comprehensive toolkit I'm building for you for this series.

By the way, did I mention it's free? You're not just listening to advice, you're helping create solutions for the exact challenges that we face as entrepreneurs with ADHD. So I want to thank you for listening and if this episode has helped you recognize where you're getting stuck, will you share it with another entrepreneur who's having the same problem and is in the spin cycle for far too long? Next week we're going to finish up and I will tell you how to get your hands on the complete toolkit that you have been helping me build.