Cynicism

We know that those with ADHD tend to have a negative bias when it comes to the concept of success. We can be very poor at recognising, embracing, celebrating and owning our own successes, but we can be very good at recognising and owning our failures. We can dismiss our successes by saying that it was coincidental:

“You know, it just so happened that this, this and this happened that allowed me to be successful.” 

“Like, on this one occasion...it was some kind of fluke.”

“I was part of a team. They did the thing, I was just along for the ride.”

Our default setting is often to automatically ‘dish dirt’ on our successes, but for our failures, we tend to rush to take ownership, to say, you know, “it was all me, I screwed up”. We lean towards owning failure and dismissing the ownership of success. 

I was coaching a client this morning and the subject of cynicism came up. We touched on the issue. Later, I realised that cynicism can be the rocket fuel that keeps this negative confirmation feedback loop going. It just makes things so much worse when it comes to the negative bias stuff. 

So I started digging around, looking at strategies for managing cynicism because cynicism impacts self esteem. It impacts our ability to get stuff done, to visualise success. If we expect to fail, we minimise our disappointment by reducing expectations. 

Cynicism helps us to fulfil those expectations of not succeeding or not fulfilling available potential. And it’s even worse when coupled with perfectionism, particularly if the expectations or the standards that we are attempting to obtain are unrealistic. We are then trapped in a negative feedback loop between perfectionism on the one hand, which can freeze us from getting started, and increases the amount of effort required to achieve our goals, and cynicism on the other, that limits our potential for success. 

None of this enhances our executive functioning. 

None of this enhances our ability to succeed. 

We are not manifesting success, we are instead manifesting a reduction in our ability to succeed.

Success is built upon the shoulders of not succeeding. We learn through not succeeding. We reach success through not succeeding. Like success, not succeeding moves us forward. 

We learn, we adapt, we evolve, we reassess. 

We learn what we are, and could be, capable of. Therefore, not succeeding is part of the pathway towards fulfilling our potential.

I have often flagged up the links between executive functioning challenges and emotions. When we are using our weaker executive functions, it usually doesn’t make us feel positive emotions. Our emotional state is not pulling us forward with interest, motivation, confidence or excitement.

Cynicism is an accelerator to the feedback loops that reduce our performance. Cynicism is the source of what can be a self perpetuating prophecy. It plays into negative, low arousal emotional states, reducing our motivation and inhibiting our ability to get started, sustain effort and complete the task successfully. 

Cynicism is also self defeating, because the very nature of it means it prevents us from seeing alternative possibilities. It stops us from reframing our approach into a glass-half-full or a what’s-the-best-that-can-happen approach, that would keep us open to the possibility that the outcome can be better than the expectation. 

Cynicism is, I think, the antithesis of hope.

Want to know more about this subject? Start with this article and see where it takes you.