🍬➡️🔥 Cheap dopamine vs. earned dopamine

Hi lovely people. 🌿 I've been sitting with something during the ADHD Focus Reset and I had to share it.

So much of what we call "productivity" is really about what kind of dopamine we're running on.

Cheap dopamine 🍬 is the quick hit. The scroll, the snack, the wine, the new app, the shiny tab. Fast, loud, and gone in a blink. And here's the part our ADHD brains know too well: it so often leaves a little shame or guilt trailing behind it. A dip. A "why did I do that again?" 😞

Earned dopamine 🔥 is the slower, quieter kind. The walk you didn't feel like taking. The five minutes you gave the scary task. The thing you finished. It doesn't spike as hard, but it lasts, and it leaves pride instead of shame. That's the good stuff. That's the fuel that builds a life.

The Focus Reset, to me, is really a **dopamine detox.** 🧹 We're not punishing ourselves. We're clearing out the cheap hits so our brains can actually *feel* the earned ones again. So intentional productivity stops feeling like grinding and starts feeling like coming home to ourselves.

Jim said it beautifully in his post on starting tasks (linking it below 👇 as a wee reminder, it's worth a re-read). His Layer 5, the Dopamine Dip, is exactly this: push through the boring middle just a little, and the better dopamine comes back. 🫶

🔗 https://www.skool.com/adhd/how-to-actually-start-tasks-when-your-adhd-brain-wont-let-you?p=5e89b7ed

👉 A gentle challenge: today, catch ONE cheap-dopamine reach and swap it for an earned one. Five minutes. That's all. Then notice how you feel after. Different, isn't it?

Mine was a "yum yum - I love chips and dip" - so instead, I went and picked load of the mandarins from the tree - for some neighbours with three young boys, and had one myself for that bit of sweetness, nothing like the sweetness of sharing an abundance of fruit for a young family.

With love and a steadier kind of buzz, A Big thank you to Jim for launching some new segments to a already great program.

Debz 💛

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🍬➡️🔥 Cheap dopamine vs. earned dopamine