New Year’s Resolution’s and ADHD

A Practical Guide for Professionals in Their 40s and 50s

At the start of last year, I was still building my coaching practice. Over the course of the year, the practice didn’t just stabilise, it filled. I’m now running a waiting list, something that felt a long way off twelve months earlier. More importantly, the constant background anxiety around money and momentum has quietened.

On the surface, things had looked fine for a while. I was working, clients were coming, and the work felt meaningful. Underneath, though, there was a steady internal hum. Thinking about capacity. About whether I was focusing on the right things. About whether I should be doing more. Many professionals with ADHD will recognise this state well. Achieving on the outside, but carrying a quiet sense of unease inside.

What changed over the year wasn’t a new productivity system or more willpower. It was something quieter, and far more powerful. I got clearer about who I wanted to be, and I began organising my time and energy around that.

New Years Resolutions and ADHD: Why “Who You Want to Be” Matters

Situation

For a professional in midlife with ADHD, January can carry emotional weight. There’s relief that the year has turned, mixed with an unspoken pressure that this year will finally be the one where things fall into place. You write resolutions with genuine hope. And then the weeks fill up. Other people’s expectations take priority. Your own goals quietly slip down the list.

Not because they don’t matter, but because everything else feels more urgent.

Problem

Traditional New Year’s resolutions are outcome-based. Be more organised. Grow the business. Improve wellbeing. They assume a brain that thrives on consistency, delayed rewards and detailed planning.

ADHD brains don’t work like that. Executive functions such as task initiation and sustained motivation are closely linked to dopamine signalling, and in ADHD that system works differently. Goals that feel abstract, uncertain or distant don’t generate the same internal pull. This isn’t laziness or lack of commitment. It’s a neurobiological reality.

When a goal doesn’t connect to identity or meaning, motivation drains away, even when the goal itself is important.

Implications

Over time, this creates a quiet erosion of self-trust. Each resolution that fails to gain traction can feel like personal evidence that you “should be able to do this by now”.

Professionals in their 40s or 50s often carry this privately. Outwardly competent, inwardly tired. Constantly adapting to demands that aren’t aligned with how their brain actually functions.

Eventually, many people stop setting meaningful goals altogether, not because they’ve given up, but because they’re protecting themselves from disappointment.

The Better Approach

Start With Who You Want to Be, Not What You Want to Do

One of the most powerful shifts is asking a different question:

Who do I want to be in six to twelve months?
How does that version of me think about work, time, energy, rest and responsibility?

Professionals often skip this step and jump straight to tasks. That feels productive, but it rarely sticks. ADHD brains need emotional clarity and identity alignment before action becomes sustainable.

Once you’re clear about who you’re becoming, decisions start to organise themselves. Opportunities, requests and ideas are filtered through that identity. Some things naturally fall away. Others gain momentum.

With my practice, the shift came when I stopped thinking purely in terms of targets and started thinking about the kind of practitioner I wanted to be. Someone working to their strengths. Someone with boundaries that protected their energy. Someone not living in constant fight-or-flight around money. From there, decisions became simpler and more coherent.

Obstacles and Dopamine

Why Early Distractions Can Become Barriers

There’s an important nuance here.

When your brain encounters an obstacle or challenge, it can produce dopamine, not because the task is rewarding, but because the novelty or emotional charge is stimulating. Obstacles can feel urgent, dramatic or compelling. That stimulation can pull your attention away from what actually matters.

Engaging with obstacles too early often builds invisible barriers to progress. Your energy gets spent analysing problems rather than moving forward.

If obstacles pop into your mind:

• Briefly list them
• Resist the urge to solve them immediately
• Deal with them one at a time, when the time is right

This prevents getting lost in the forest of obstacles and abandoning your core direction.

Build a Rich Mental Picture

For ADHD brains, vision needs to be felt, not just understood.

Spend time building a detailed mental picture of who you are becoming:

• How do you experience yourself at work when things go wrong?
• How do you recover at the end of a demanding day?
• What no longer drains you in the same way?
• What do you trust yourself with now that you didn’t before?

This isn’t daydreaming. It’s creating an internal reference point that pulls you forward when motivation dips.

Don’t Get Buried in Detailed Plans

Here’s a coaching truth that matters:

“The best battle plans never survive the first shot.”

Highly capable professionals often default to detailed planning. It feels reassuring. But for ADHD brains, too much detail drains energy and creates rigidity.

What works better is:

• a high-level plan with time frames
• only the first few steps mapped out
• space for opportunities you can’t yet foresee

Direction matters more than detail.

Ring-Fence 30 Minutes a Day for Yourself

If there’s one practical commitment that makes the biggest difference, it’s this.

Thirty minutes a day, protected and non-negotiable, devoted solely to becoming more of who you want to be. Not fixing yourself. Not catching up. Investing forward.

Put it in your diary. Treat it with the same respect you give to other people’s commitments. Without deliberate protection, your time will always be claimed by someone else’s priorities.

Consistency beats intensity.

Start Small: One Winnable Step

(The “Salami” Approach)

Choose one manageable task that moves you forward. Then break it down into the smallest possible steps.

Completion builds momentum. Momentum builds trust. Trust makes the next step easier.

You don’t need to map the whole journey. Just the next slice.

Why Coaching Helps

All of this is simple, but it’s not always easy to do alone.

Coaching provides a space where:

• your identity and values are taken seriously
• unhelpful self-talk is gently challenged with evidence
• plans are shaped around how your brain actually works
• progress is measured in alignment, not just output

Professionals I work with often say,
“I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how to support my brain to do it.”

A Quiet Invitation

If you recognise yourself here, you don’t need to overhaul your life or prove anything. You may simply need space to think clearly, define who you want to be next, and move towards that in a way that’s sustainable.

If that sounds useful, you’re warmly invited to book a free discovery call. No pressure. No fixing. Just a thoughtful conversation about where you are and where you want to be.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (FOR BUSY READERS)

Who this is for:

Professionals in their 40s and 50s with ADHD who are outwardly competent but inwardly exhausted, and frustrated that traditional New Year’s resolutions don’t stick.

Core message:

Lasting change doesn’t come from trying harder or planning more. It comes from getting clear about who you want to be, then organising time, energy and decisions around that identity.

Key insights:

• ADHD brains struggle with abstract, outcome-based goals due to dopamine differences
• Engaging with obstacles too early can hijack motivation and stall progress
• A rich mental picture of your future self creates emotional pull
• Detailed plans drain energy; high-level direction sustains momentum
• Ring-fencing 30 minutes a day for yourself is transformative when protected
• Small, winnable steps build trust and consistency over time

Bottom line:

You don’t need to fix yourself. You need strategies that work with your brain, and protected space to become more of who you want to be.

Click here to book a discovery call, and find out how ADHD coaching can help you achieve your New Year’s Resolutions!

See here for ADHD Imposter Syndrome: 7 Ways to Turn Self-Doubt into Strength.