Julie and Jel Legg delve into the topic of negative self-talk—those persistent, looping thoughts that can erode confidence and hold people back from trying new things. For those with ADHD, these internal narratives can be especially loud and deeply rooted, often shaped by years of misunderstanding, impulsivity, and self-doubt.
They explore how these thought patterns can quickly spiral into feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy. The conversation touches on the role of adult diagnosis in helping to reframe these thoughts, the importance of recognising unrealistic expectations, and the power of self-compassion. Together, they discuss ways to interrupt the loop of negative self-talk through mindfulness, perspective, community, and kindness.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Negative self-talk is common, and particularly intense for people with ADHD due to a mix of internal and external pressures.
- Understanding the ADHD brain brings clarity to these patterns and can open the door to self-compassion and change.
- Failure is not the same as giving up. Failing is a natural part of growth; giving up turns that failure into a permanent roadblock.
- Unrealistic expectations can sabotage joy. It’s okay to be good—not everything needs to be exceptional to be meaningful.
- Celebrate progress. Even small achievements are worth acknowledging. “Take the win” is a mindset worth adopting.
- Tools like mindfulness, reframing, and open conversations can help break the cycle of negative thinking.
- No one is alone in this. Whatever the thought or struggle, others are likely experiencing something similar—and connection can be a powerful antidote.
LINKS
- Julie Legg – The Missing Piece: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD
- Contact ADHDifference
TRANSCRIPT
JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.
JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.
JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In today’s episode we’ll be talking about negative self-talk and that’s something that comes up quite often for people with ADHD. It can lead to low self-esteem and anxiety and it’s these intrusive thoughts. Perhaps they’re on loop and they ruminate and basically they stem from ADHD traits. It might be overthinking things, just repercussions of impulsivity perhaps, those negative thoughts. And we talk ourselves down and basically that’s not particularly healthy and it can lead to avoiding new opportunities and experiences which ultimately can bring us variety and joy. So we’ll be talking about negative self-talk today.
JEL: Of course, everyone can have negative thoughts, negative feelings. Everyone is capable of talking themselves down and going into almost like a death spiral of negative thinking which can get you stuck in a loop that goes round and round and round. And then you almost can, in some situations, create the outcome as being a negative outcome because you thought yourself into that space. So I guess with ADHD we’re more prone to this sort of thing.
JULIE: Yeah. I think there’s… there’s external criticism comes into it as well. If someone told you once that you’re useless, that might be something you could cling on to for quite some time. And I think too, you know we’re both diagnosed as adults in our 50s, for a lifetime being undiagnosed I think some of those negative self-beliefs kind of stay with us for quite some time. And it was really only since diagnosis that we can really get our head around ADHD and how it can affect us. And really then just being able to rework those feelings, and flip the script, and see them in a different light which has been really, really helpful I think.
JEL: Speaking certainly for myself, I haven’t found myself in any negative spiralling thinking episodes since diagnosis. I can understand how I could choose to go into that space and I can understand a whole, whatever the situation, I can map out a whole process of negative thinking. There’s a fair bit of experience of it throughout life. And I could put myself into that and off we go like a roller coaster zipping down the big dipper. But since diagnosis, I don’t know why, I’ve just stopped doing it. It’s…
JULIE: I think you do know why. [Do I?] I know. I think it’s because we really now understand why we think the way we think and what we’re prone to do, perhaps. It’s we’re just a little bit more realistic when perhaps those thoughts come in and we’ll talk about it throughout the episode. You know, what do you do with those negative thoughts? So we… yeah, we’ve got a bit to cover today. But it’s absolutely natural to have positive and negative thoughts, and some of our negative thoughts might rise to the surface more often. And maybe in a strange way it’s almost quite comforting, you know what I mean, to live in this space of “Oh well.” You know it’s the feelings of “I’m not good enough” and “I’m always a failure” or “I’m useless at this” or “I’m no good” or “I’ll never get to be XYZ” or “I’ll never get to do ABC” you know. So that’s yeah, as I said before that’s not particularly healthy so we’ll be talking about various bits.
JEL: So there’s a big difference isn’t there between… you were mentioning earlier when before this chat, the difference between failure and negative thinking? [No, between failure and giving up.] Right, sorry. Yes, between failure and giving up there’s a huge difference between the two is failure is something which you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t fail, and if you didn’t fail a great many times in your life. And failure is what teaches us to try again. Giving up is when you consolidate that failure and turn that into a fixed outcome. And that’s it then. There’s no chance of overcoming that failure. One of the things I found myself doing a lot in the last couple of years is reading, constantly reading biographies and autobiographies of people of whom I think are very successful. And it’s not people who’ve made lots of money necessarily because that’s only one measure of success. It’s generally creatives, or engineers, or people who have had multiple careers. And particularly I’m fascinated by people who aren’t just famous for… for example I give a quote, Bruce Dickinson who’s a singer in a band called Iron Maiden. So he’s famous for that but what fascinates me about that, him sorry, is that he’s also a captain, a pilot, a captain, and worked for many years for some big airlines and flies some of the biggest planes in the world. And he’s also a successful Olympic fencer. He also brews beer and is prize-winning brewer, and on the list goes. And I think any one of those things is enough to hang your coat on and say “Wow I did well in life.” Each one of them is fascinating. But he’s managed three, four, five different things in life in parallel. And I love reading about people who are successful because it always gives me inspiration and not to give up. I’m never going to be as successful as the people I read about however in their stories it’s not all about success success success, one thing building on another leading to another. In fact, the most interesting part about reading about these people is the failure they have along the way, and often degrees of negative thinking that creep in because they’re human like the rest of us. And to the extent to which they allow that negative thinking to result in failure and they don’t go on to become successful at more than one thing. And that’s where the lesson is to learn. The more you read about people who have done very well in life, the more you can learn how they deal with negative thinking and they don’t get locked into spirals of negative thinking. And they’re often taking bigger risks than you and I are likely to take and they’re right on the edge and yet they keep going. But they do acknowledge failure and it’s how they deal with it.
JULIE: It’s interesting too when we talk about failure and success, and this all it does tie in with negative thinking, our expectations as ADHDers can be extreme. If we start a hobby, we want to be the best at it and we’ll buy all of the most expensive professional tools or items that we need in order to do our hobbies at its greatest level. And if we don’t succeed to our highest level, we’re likely to stop the project, put in a cupboard, and no longer proceed with it. But it’s interesting. We still might learn to paint but we might not have enough quality artwork to go and have an exhibition. But it doesn’t… you know and that negativity, we’ve really got to have a good talking to ourselves. Our expectations can be too high and too harsh. When we can accept what we do do well and rejoice and celebrate those wins, the fact that you’ve finished a piece of art even if the world never gets to see it. That’s a celebration. And that negative self-talk could come in saying “Oh well I’m useless. I’ll never do it again.” And that’s such a shame when that potentially can bring you joy and it can help express your innermost thoughts and there’s a whole upside. So it’s almost some of our negative thoughts we do need to reframe.
JEL: Yeah and just to finish off thinking about the books I read, I mean they’re quite, quite eclectic. They can go from books about famous musicians to, at the moment I’m reading about Brunell who’s the Britain’s… a few years ago voted as the greatest Britain ever. Brunell was an engineer that built railways and ships and all sorts of things back in the mid-1800s. So we’re talking about someone a very long time ago. And one of the key things that comes through, and I do not for one moment suggest a diagnosis for any of these people, but if you read books of people who are very successful they have an energy and an approach to life which I could at least say is akin to ADHD. At least akin to it and that’s not to suggest any of them have ADHD. But I recognize in them the traits that I call ADHD in me. I recognize it and there is a relentless energy they have. And they do fail a lot but they do acknowledge negative thinking at times. Even Brunell who we only know about through diaries that he wrote and letters, not really personal diaries but letters he would confide in with friends, and we’re talking the mid-1800s here. You can see a sense it’s not pure arrogance. There is a sense of negative thinking that can come in but it’s tapered and tempered to a degree and then up the next day for a relentless day of work to move forward with a new project, some of which failed spectacularly. I just think it’s really inspiring too. I would really advise go read other people’s stories because you know, in 400 pages you may find an entire life condensed to 400 pages, there is the chance to take away something from that, I think. And get a bit of perspective on your own spiralling negative thinking which I’ve definitely had and I don’t have anymore. Being a creative, we’ve spoken quite often in these podcasts about ADHD and the link with ADHD and being a creative. Whether a musician, actor, sculptor, whatever. And we are very much on the edge, on the edge of the plank of criticism and the ability to self-spiral in negative thinking when we fail in our endeavours or are criticized. We’re very sensitive to that sort of thing. And one of the ways as a musician and a producer and a writer and so on, in that area, I deal with it is I just take the simple fact that 99.9% of people who do what I do have no commercial success and are therefore technically failures. And so we fall into that because you don’t, haven’t heard of us, and you… we’re not on the radio, and we’re not in your record stores if they have such a thing as record stores still. But you from that you would, as a musician, as a creator, you’d have very good reasons to get into a negative spiral and say “It’s not worth it. I give up.” Well, what are you giving up? I mean are you giving up the sense that you’re ever going to be a super famous rockstar? Well, be pragmatic and realistic, probably a fair thing to give up. But are you also then giving up your creative outlet, the thing that defines you, the thing that gives you huge amounts of joy? So giving up and failure really you have to have a really hard think about it because I would never give up music now. I would, even though technically I’m a failure, I would never give it up because I’m not a failure in my mind, and what I do. You know it’s the joy I get from it and the sense of who I am is so important. And the earlier in life I think you can grab that understanding it’s one of the things to help you not keep going into negative spirals and particularly from careers, creativity. If you want to be… for instance, if you want to be a doctor and you love medicine and you’re doing okay and you failed to become a doctor because you don’t make those final exams. You’re just not cutting it as a doctor. You can step back and go “Well maybe I’d be a very good nurse.” You know there are always steps between zero and hero, and finding those steps where you actually do really well is not a failure to be something else, is success from where you started.
JULIE: I agree and I think you know, there are many, many ways we can have negative thoughts. And it can be something you know, we’re talking big things here at the moment, careers and achievements and really high expectations of ourselves. But they can creep in on a daily basis. Burning dinner. “I’m a useless cook. What’s the point? I shouldn’t even bother trying. I can’t even follow a recipe. I stink at cooking meals.” That could be a negative thought on repeat. And so you go for highly processed [ready meals] ready meals or something instead. But come on you know, you’ve got to give yourself a break. Everybody has their incidents in the kitchen or otherwise. You might negatively reflect on a car accident. “I’m a useless driver. I’m no good at this. I can never be there on time. What’s the point?” and kind of give up. Now we really do, as I said, need to reframe these things. In the kitchen it’s okay if you can’t follow a recipe. It’s something that you… too much salt? You’ll know for next time to put less salt in. You know that’s really simplifying it but we’ve got to just stop and have some self-compassion I think, and celebrate the micro wins. No, we’re not the artist with an exhibition but damn it I’m really proud of what I’ve done today on my canvas and I’m going to, might even put it on my wall. But if not, I will put it in a box of glorious things that I’ve done, you know. Just reframing things. And I think relationships too. There are plenty of people I’ve spoken to or know of that have given up hope. They’re middle-aged, they’ve given up hope on ever having a relationship. “No. What’s the point. That they’ll only… they’ll walk out on me. That’s the way it always, you know, that’s what always happens.” And I think reframing that and having a look at your own life, and the upsides, and having that self-compassion will help you go a long way.
JEL: Relationships is a very good one to chat about. Just before saying something about that, the other night you put too much salt into a meal. [Yeah I did.] Probably once a week we end up with a meal that’s got too much salt. That’s not a failure because Jules is an absolute foodie and creates the most beautiful food, it’s amazing. But why do we put too much salt into a meal? Why do we cut a piece of wood wrong? Why do we do all these silly things on a daily basis? Usually because we’re rushing. Well, that’s our ADHD. We don’t stop and think for a second. But I’ve only have had two minor car accidents in my life, minor ones, not injuries, just silly ones. And they were both caused by rushing and not thinking in that split second. But the… when you have a minor accident, especially standing in the middle of a roundabout exchanging details, you think “Oh this is ridiculous.” The opportunity for negative thinking and spiralling is massive because you suddenly lose all this confidence that you’re a safe driver. If you can have a silly little prang like that by looking the wrong way for a split second, a minor, minor prang, then how can you trust yourself to hurtle down a motorway at 120 km an hour? In Britain. not New Zealand folks, 100 in New Zealand. But how can you trust yourself? And so the negative spiral of thinking, you lose your confidence. That can happen to anyone but I guess with ADHD where you could likely to be impulsive and more prone to making these impulsive wee decisions, the confidence can be knocked quite quickly. But what can you do? You can simply… you can’t stop having a small accident occasionally every few years hopefully, you can but you can’t. You can’t stop putting too much salt in a meal but you do need to get things into perspective.
JULIE: And learn, don’t you? Because you know there’s the old saying if you’ve always done “If we always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” And so if you’re on a cycle of things without learning you will keep repeating what you’re doing. And so maybe this cycle of negative thoughts is because you just need to pause and stop and just have a look at the situation. “Am I really useless? No. I stuffed up once.” It does… you know, it’s all right. Everybody does it. Give yourself a break. What can I do next time to help me not have that incident again or, you know? And so we must learn from our experiences and even though our ADHD traits may be shining brightly and can be challenging at times it doesn’t mean that we throw it all in the air and go “That’s it. I give up.”
JEL: Okay yes. Segue back to relationships, we hear this a lot from people we meet who perhaps have reached middle age, have had a string of relationships throughout life. Some last years, some have been marriages. All now over. They’re single and they’re quite determined they’re never going to have a relationship again. Quite determined they’ll never marry again and that’s that. If someone’s in that position where they’re determined they’ve never been happier. They’re now single and they’ve never been happier and they love life, that’s a success. Great. Fantastic. No negative thinking is really causing that life to be lived less well than it could be. But if they’re not happy but they’ve just simply given up, well yeah it’s been a… technically their entire life of relationships you could say all end in failure. They’ve ended in failure but they’ve not been failures, they’re all learnings. And sometimes that person will say “Oh my ex-partner, they’re happy now with someone.” Well you know I’ve been in this situation myself as a typical adult of my age and I never ever, ever gave up on the idea of finding love. I never gave up on the idea of having a successful relationship. So that… if I had, I would have gone into a negative spiral of thinking and I… and the outcome would have been determined, predetermined by as a result. And it’s not just negative thinking. It ironically, thinking is a precursor to action and positive thinking can do the same thing. You can’t live all day long by positive thinking alone. If it doesn’t translate into action then you’re just waiting for fate and you know the ‘great powers to be’ out there to make something happen for you. But you need to be a little bit more proactive than that. So yeah, not giving up is really important and recognizing the difference between negative thinking which leads to giving up and being stuck in a situation of then your own making is not the same as failure. Failure is what’s happened in the past. Negative thinking is what’s in the present and going forward.
JULIE: I think a way too, it’s about balance isn’t it. You said we can’t think about positive thoughts 100% of the day, that’s true. And there maybe can be a disproportionate percentage of negative thoughts creeping in, more so potentially with ADHD. And maybe we just need to re-calibrate that balance. Again if we are finding ourselves in these negative thinking loops just to stop and go now let’s find some positives out of it, you know. And, or in the situation, and yeah just try to balance it and put it into perspective. Because we often… I’m really good at, or I think I’m good at, body… reading body language and sometimes I don’t get it right. Sometimes through lack of information I will fill in the gaps and think that I know what’s happening when that might not be true. And so I might see someone and go “Ah their body language it looks like they’re being, they’re very quiet and got their arms crossed they look bored or they’re annoyed with me in some way or form. It must be me. What am I doing?” Whereas I might completely have that wrong. They could be tired. They could be you know, for whatever it may be. So let’s not jump to conclusions.
JEL: So we’re talking about this negative spiral of thinking. This negative thinking that can spiral and yeah but also you can have positive thinking that can spiral in an unhealthy way. So if you take the extreme opposite, and we ADHD or focus folks can do this. We can go from one extreme to another. If you step into a space where it’s all positive thinking and the universe will manifest… manifest is a word that’s around a lot at the moment. There’s a bit of a movement where it’s all about manifesting through positive thinking. Well positive think is good but you can’t manifest your entire successful life just by that alone. You still at some point have to go and engage physically in the world and do something about it. You still have to take risks. You still have to risk failure. You still have to fail. So I think it’s just as unhealthy in some ways to have to go down to an endless spiral of positive thinking without actually having action and deeds to do something about it.
JULIE: Yeah. So what can one do when, for whatever reason, one is in a loop of this negative self-talk and it’s inhibiting to a point that it’s inhibiting us trying something new, a new experience or a new opportunity? So it might be applying for a job, or a pay rise. It might be having the confidence to speak at a friend’s wedding confidently, find a new social group. This negative talk is inhibiting us going forward. What can one do about that?
JEL: Well I like the phrase ‘take the win.’ And every… I see life and everything about it is like a rung of a ladder and you start always on the bottom of the bottom rung, right at the bottom in whatever it is. You’re a young baby, a child and everything in life, whether it’s experience, knowledge, success, career, relationships, you name it, it’s… There is a top and you try to go as high as you can and if you set your goals too high you may not make it. But if you don’t look back down that and see how far you’ve come, you’re not taking the win. Every step take the win. And sometimes you know the goal you’re going for to be better at something or do something doesn’t pan out but you’re still better now than you were perhaps a year ago, or 10 years ago. The thinking thinking thinking is a precursor to action. So if you’ve got to take an action of some kind, even if that action leads to another failure, getting out of the loops of negative thinking it’s easier, it’s always easier said than done, we have to acknowledge that. But if you’re not counting the blessings, if you’re not looking at the success and how you… Today I have a spiral of negative thinking. Let’s say “Today I have a spiral negative thinking. I’m no good at this career. I don’t know why I chose it. It’s not working out.” Well hang on. Now look at someone who is thinking about the same career as you who hasn’t even taken the first step on the first day. Do you have any advice for them? Are you better than…? Of course you are. You’ve been in the career 5 years. Are you the best are you as good as the top person at the top? No. But that’s okay. You can’t be the… you know, just when you think you’re the best there’s someone else behind you who’s going to be better than you. That’s not the point in life. That’s not where all the happiness lays. You’re somewhere in the middle, okay. So maybe you’ve reached the peak of where you’re going to get in that career. Maybe you’ve reached the peak of what you are but that’s not why would that spiral into negative thinking? Can’t you celebrate being where you’re at? And it’s… and then turn your passion and to something else?
JULIE: And it’s okay being good at something, it’s okay. You don’t need to be exceptional. And you know, it’s all right. It’s we… just this self-compassion I think is really important.
JEL: I do come back to these autobiographies of people who are very successful at multiple things, but they’re not in each of them actually the very very best in the world. They’re not at the top of the game and everything. And during their lives they’ve acknowledged at various points they’ve had to stop doing something they were very good at and very successful at. They worked very hard to get there but they’ve had to stop doing it due to age, injury, or they’ve just found another passion to go to. So in each of them you could argue they’re the best but they’re not the best. They’re just very good at what they do. There’s always someone who’s earned more than them, who’s had more hit records, who’s won more medals. There’s someone better than them but it’s acknowledging that. I hope that makes sense. You know, if you’re trying to be the very best at something that’s not always the healthiest mindset to have. Just being good at something can be good in itself. It’s how do you take the satisfaction from what you are and count how, you know, count the blessings of how far you’ve got. Take the win.
JULIE: Negative self-talk. I think if you’re finding yourself in this loop, practicing mindfulness I know, I know people talk about it but actually it’s this distraction is really good. First of all, you’ve got to get out of the loop before you can actually look at it from another angle you know. So extracting yourself from that loop. And so mindfulness is just it’s not necessarily about meditation because I find that really difficult to sit still for you know more than 30 seconds but just letting thoughts flow through you and acknowledging them but don’t feel like you have to solve them right there and then. It’s okay. And listen to the birds and feel the grass under your toes and just appreciate the now without having to solve everything at every you know waking moment. So that’s very good but also too if, you know, some say negative self-talk can be horrendous leading to depression and, you know, terrible terrible outcomes. Don’t be afraid of seeking support too from professionals. Therapists, and psychiatrists, and psychologists can help. Whether it’s counsellor or talking to your neighbour, talking to like-minded others who understand your situation or can have kind listening ears and just listen. And I think a lot of the time is we just need to get it out. And once it’s out then we can sort of put some perspective on things.
JEL: I do think no matter what your reasons for negative spiralling thinking, speed spiralling negative thinking, I don’t, whatever your reasons, I have to say they’re like unlikely to be unique. And so my first port of call would be to suggest find, first acknowledge there is someone else in the same situation as you and probably quite a few people. And so whatever that situation you’re likely to find support amongst them. Or even if you don’t have a physical contact with them or an actual engagement with them, you can acknowledge they exist.
JULIE: So we’ve been talking about negative self-talk today. It’s you know, it’s really important to get off that hamster wheel if that cycle is speeding up and not having healthy positive outcomes for you. So we’ve talked about mindfulness, and challenging those negative thoughts and reframing them, flipping the script as they say, taking the small wins, practicing self-compassion, and seeking support as well.
JEL: Yeah you’re probably not in the end, whatever your situation, is probably not completely unique. There’s probably other people going through exactly the same thing. And I think that would be a good way to help. I think spiralling into this really negative thinking is often driven by the sense of being the only one facing a certain type of problem, loneliness and you’re not having the support around you. So just reaching out or finding other people in a similar situation, it’s just seems to me to be a really good way of helping you put the brakes on that thinking and not go too far.
JULIE: Definitely. So good luck. Thanks for listening.