When doing all the things gets in the way of actually living your life.
A client recently mentioned something she’d come across called “The Wall of Awful”, a concept developed by ADHD coach Brendan Mahan. I hadn’t read his work. It was simply the name that caught my attention.
As we were talking, a very detailed picture started forming in my brain. Now, maybe it’s my generation. Maybe it was my wayward youth. But if you know, you know.
My brain went straight to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.
I could see this enormous wall of white bricks looming overhead. And there I was, this tiny little ant of a human, standing at the bottom, looking up. I could practically feel the overwhelm. The frustration. The freeze.
And my immediate reaction?
What the fuck?
How the fuck am I supposed to get past that? What the actual fuck am I supposed to do with an entire wall?
And that image became the starting point for something I’ve been calling The Wall of WTF.
Not a replacement for the Wall of Awful. Just my own way of exploring what happens when everything we’re carrying starts to feel impossibly big.
Because that’s what happens, isn’t it? We look at the entire wall. Every responsibility. Every expectation. Everything we think we should be doing. And we’re standing there wondering where the hell we’re supposed to start.
But here’s the thing. We don’t have to deal with the entire wall.
We only have to deal with one brick.
And sometimes the first brick isn’t something you need to do. It’s something you need to stop believing about yourself.
Where the hell did all these bricks come from?
Life has a way of handing us bricks.
A crappy night’s sleep. Stress at work. Family responsibilities. Not enough recovery. The laundry that’s been sitting there for three days.
Then come the expectations.
Exercise more. Eat more vegetables. Get eight hours of sleep. Be productive. Be organized. Drink enough water. Manage your stress.
Oh, and don’t forget to be grateful while you’re doing all of it!
And somewhere in there, you’re supposed to find time to enjoy your life.
Actually enjoy living your life.
Not just showing up everywhere you’re supposed to show up, doing all the things you’re supposed to do, and being the person you think everybody expects you to be.
Are you happy? Or are you just busy doing all the things?
Because our lives are too fucking short to spend every waking moment meeting expectations. None of us is promised tomorrow.
Some bricks are practical. Some are emotional. And some are things we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that we don’t even question them anymore.
I’m lazy. I have no willpower. I never stick to anything. Why can’t I just do what everyone else seems to do?
Those bricks can be particularly heavy.
Whose fucking bricks are these, anyway?
Here’s a question we don’t ask ourselves nearly often enough:
Does this brick even belong to me?
Some expectations came from our families, workplaces, social media, diet culture, or somebody who always seems to have an opinion about what we should be doing. And sometimes we’ve carried them for so long that we’ve mistaken them for our own priorities.
We show up for people because we’re supposed to. We say yes because that’s what a good friend, partner, parent, or employee would do. And sometimes we’re so busy trying to show up the right way that we forget to show up as ourselves.
That’s exhausting.
Maybe you want to move your body more. Does that mean you need a 5 a.m. workout six days a week? Maybe you want to eat more vegetables. Does that require seventeen containers of aspirational vegetables in your fridge?
Perhaps spinach in a smoothie would do just fine.
And sometimes the expectations are heavier. You’re trying to look after your family, do your job, manage a household, and somehow do all of it perfectly.
Then somebody comes along with an opinion about how you should be doing it better.
Another. Fucking. Brick.
Responsibility and judgment are not the same thing.
Some responsibilities are real. But the expectation that we must handle every one of them perfectly, all the time? That’s a different brick.
Sometimes we need to lower the fucking bar.
And the expectations that belong to somebody else?
They can keep their fucking bricks.
Not every brick is glass
Remember those glass balls and rubber balls we talked about in the last article? Some things genuinely need our attention. Others can bounce.
Same with our bricks.
Some responsibilities have real consequences if we ignore them. But not every brick is glass, and not every brick needs to be dealt with today.
Our capacity changes. Sleep, stress, recovery, mental load, physical health… they all influence what we have available to give.
For those of us with ADHD, knowing what needs to be done and being able to get started aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Yet we keep judging ourselves against what we could accomplish on our very best day. And when we can’t reproduce it, we call it failure.
Maybe the question isn’t, “Why can’t I do everything?” Maybe it’s, “What actually needs my attention today?”
Find your volume button
Ever notice how we turn down the car radio when we’re looking for an address or trying to find a parking spot?
The music hasn’t changed. But somehow, turning down the volume makes it easier to see where we’re going.
Our walls can work the same way.
Some bricks are screaming louder than others. But just because they’re loud doesn’t mean they’re urgent.
Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is find our volume button.
Maybe that’s asking for professional support, using an appropriate medication, changing our environment, reducing commitments, getting help, or setting a boundary.
What’s your non-negotiable? What do you actually need? What are you prepared to say no to?
Sometimes turning down the noise around one problem creates enough capacity to address something else. It doesn’t mean everything is fixed. It means we have a little room to think.
You don’t get brownie points for making shit harder than it has to be.
And sometimes turning down the volume is what makes the next brick visible.
Let’s play Jenga
Instead of trying to knock down the entire wall, what if we treated it like a giant game of Jenga?
Choose one brick.
And here’s where we can make things unnecessarily complicated.
Which brick is the right one? Which one will make the biggest difference? What’s the best strategy?
Congratulations! You’ve just added another fucking brick.
What if we started with the easiest one?
An easy win. Something manageable. Something that gives us a little success and perhaps enough capacity to consider the next thing.
Maybe it’s putting your workout clothes beside the bed. Adding spinach to a smoothie. Saying no to something you don’t have the capacity for.
Or maybe it’s recognizing that missing a workout doesn’t make you lazy, ordering takeout isn’t a moral failure, and needing rest doesn’t make you weak.
Sometimes the first brick is simply realizing that there are bricks, and that you have some ability to move them.
That’s self-awareness. And sometimes that’s the biggest win of all.
There will always be bricks
Life isn’t going to stop handing us bricks.
There will be stressful weeks, poor sleep, family emergencies, unexpected expenses, and days when our brains refuse to cooperate.
Sometimes we’ll make progress and then find ourselves staring at a few new rows. That doesn’t mean we’re back at the beginning.
The goal was never to make the wall disappear completely.
Remember that enormous wall we started with? The one towering over our tiny little ant of a human?
What if we could get it down to knee height?
There are still bricks. But now we can see over them. Maybe step over them. Maybe move one when we need to.
And sometimes we can leave the damn thing alone because it’s not getting in our way today.
Bring down the wall
Picture your own Wall of WTF.
What’s written on those bricks?
Sleep? Stress? Perfectionism? Shame? People-pleasing? Expectations? A vegetable drawer full of good intentions?
Which brick could you make a little smaller today?
And does it even belong to you?
Because maybe today isn’t about perfection.
Did everybody make it home alive? Kids good? Pets good? You’re still standing?
Okay. Successful day. Move on. Next.
Some of those bricks can wait.
You don’t have to become better at climbing the wall. You just need to make it small enough that it stops getting in your way.
One brick at a time.
And if some of those bricks belong to other people? They can come collect them.