It can be difficult to identify what you want when much of your attention goes toward meeting expectations, avoiding criticism, or keeping daily life moving.
Values offer a way to consider how you want to live and relate to people. They can inform decisions about time, work, relationships, and support. They do not remove the practical limits you are living with.
Lived Experience: When Other People's Expectations Come First
Some ADHD women describe agreeing before checking their own preference, choosing what appears acceptable, or losing touch with what feels interesting or meaningful.
This can develop through repeated correction, unequal expectations, or environments where disagreement carries a cost. You may also be exhausted or have had little opportunity to reflect.
You do not have to find one hidden, permanent “true self.” Preferences and priorities can change as you learn more about yourself.
Separate Values From Rules and Goals
A value is a direction you want to bring to your actions, such as fairness, curiosity, honesty, connection, or autonomy.
A goal is a specific outcome. A rule tells you what you believe you must do.
For example:
- Value: I want reciprocal relationships.
- Goal: I will talk with my friend about how we make plans.
- Rule to examine: I must always be available or I am a bad friend.
You can keep a value while changing the goal or questioning the rule.
Ask What You Would Choose
Choose one current decision and consider:
- What matters to me here?
- Which expectations come from other people?
- What consequences or constraints are real?
- What do my time, energy, finances, health, and support allow?
- What is one available action that fits?
There may be competing values. Connection and solitude can both matter. Financial stability may limit whether you can change jobs. A decision made under constraint is not evidence that you have failed to live by your values.
Make the Action Small and Supported
If you value connection but find messages difficult, try a short voice note or an agreed time to catch up.
If you value curiosity, give yourself an accessible way to explore an interest without turning it into another obligation.
If you value fairness, discuss who owns a recurring household task, including noticing and planning it.
Meaning can make an action more appealing. You may still need a reminder, help starting, fewer steps, or a change in expectations. Caring deeply about something does not guarantee reliable executive functioning.
Autonomy Includes Choosing What to Share
Living by your values does not require disclosing ADHD, expressing every opinion, or dropping every masking strategy in every setting.
Ask where you have room for more choice and which relationships can support it. Privacy and selective disclosure can also be deliberate decisions.
A Brief Check-In
Complete whichever sentence is useful:
- “I keep doing this because I am afraid that…”
- “What I would like more room for is…”
- “A limit I need to recognize is…”
- “One supported choice I can make now is…”
Write, speak, or think through your response. You do not need a long journal entry.
These are reflection prompts, not a diagnostic test or a proven treatment for ADHD. Choosing by your values can help clarify a decision; it does not establish that ADHD will disappear or that executive functioning will improve.
Related Pages
ADHD Women and Self-Silencing: Reclaiming Your Voice