Why Habits Don't Stick for Neurodivergent Adults
Learn why common habit advice doesn’t work for neurodivergent brains and what to do instead.
TL;DR
Most habit advice assumes strong executive function skills. If you have ADHD, autism, or both, that advice skips steps you actually need.
Put your cue where the first step happens. A sticky note on the fridge only works if the calendar is on the fridge.
Make the first step so small you'd be silly not to do it. For my client, week one was just opening the calendar app.
Use a time window instead of a set time, so a missed minute doesn't feel like failure.
Build one habit a month. That's 12 new habits in a year.
A few months ago, my client Emily came to a session frustrated and defeated.
She'd mixed up two meeting dates at work. Again. Her coworkers complained that she wasn't trying hard enough, and her boss scheduled a one-on-one to talk about the importance of being on time.
Emily is AuDHD, meaning she has both autism and ADHD. Like many people I work with, she’d tried to build a calendar habit for years, but nothing ever stuck.
She set up cues around her, but after a few days her brain stopped noticing them.
She tried checking her calendar as soon as she got to the office, but she'd get pulled in different directions before she reached her desk.
She tried checking it before she left work, but on exhausting days she'd just go home.
She'd tried all the tricks in Atomic Habits, one of the most popular books on habit formation, but nothing was working
So we did what we always do in coaching. We slowed down and looked at where things were actually breaking down.
In this article, we dive into why common habit advice doesn’t work for neurodivergent brains and a new approach to building habits if you have ADHD or are AuDHD.
Let’s dive in.
Why Habit Advice Fails AuDHD Brains
Books like Atomic Habits by James Clear have great ideas for both neurodivergent and neurotypical people, but they assume you have strong executive functions. They assume you can direct your focus on purpose for long stretches, and that you can start a new habit because you know a reward is waiting.
With ADHD or AuDHD, the brain's reward system works differently. In a neurotypical brain, the boost of dopamine from finishing a task can be enough to get you started next time. In a neurodivergent brain, that boost often isn't enough to get you over the hump of starting.
Executive function skills are the mental skills that help you plan, remember, start tasks, and manage your emotions along the way. When we looked closer at Emily’s calendar mix-ups, three skill gaps continued to get in the way:
Working memory
Working memory allows you to hold information in mind while using that information. Doing mental math is a common example of using our working memory.
Emily was trying to remember their entire day without looking at a calendar. They thought they could remember which meetings were at certain times but consistently mixed things up.
Planning
Planning is a complex executive function skill. People with strong planning skills can map out their day, know what they need to bring, how long it takes to travel, and predict obstacles that might throw off their plan.
Mixing up dates didn’t mean Emily was less intelligent. It was a cue to build a system that catches her attention no matter what she was doing.
Emotional regulation
Sometimes the hardest part isn't the mistake. It's the shame spiral that comes next and lasts for days.
Emily and I practiced reframing her inner dialogue so one missed meeting didn't turn into a week of beating themselves up.
3 Mistakes Neurodivergent People Make When Building Habits
According to James Clear, habit formation comes from four steps: cue, craving, response, reward. In a neurodivergent brain, these steps are still required, but the way we go about creating them needs to fit the way our brains work.
The three most common mistakes I see neurodivergent people make are:
1. Putting the cue somewhere other than the first step
A sticky note on the fridge is a good idea if your calendar is also on the fridge. But if the note sends you somewhere else, you're asking your attention to be very strong.
You walk away from the fridge, see a jacket on the chair, and put it away. Then you realize you need something from the closet. Before you know it, the calendar check is completely forgotten.
2. Trying to change everything at once
When you feel behind, it's natural to want a huge change. But when you try to add a bunch of habits at the same time, you usually end up building zero in the long run.
Focus on one habit for one month. After that, consider adding another. If you did that all year, you'd build 12 new habits. That's huge.
3. Locking the habit to an exact time
If you plan to do something at 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 comes and goes, it's easy to feel like you already failed. Once it feels like a failure, it's tempting to skip the whole thing. A window of time gives you room to be human, which is exactly what my client and I built.
How I Helped my AuDHD Client Build a Calendar Habit
Here's how Emily and I adapted James Clear's four laws of behavior change, plus one extra step that made the biggest difference.
Make it obvious
We changed their phone wallpaper to a photo of her dog. Her calendar lives on their phone, so the cue shows up right where the first step happens. See the dog, tap the calendar app.
Make it attractive
Emily drinks tea every morning. It's a ritual she loves. We knew the payoff of checking a calendar wouldn't be enough on its own, so we tied the new habit to something she already enjoy. Tea and a calendar check.
Make it easy
We made the first step so simple she’d be silly not to do it. For the first week, the habit was just opening the calendar app. Not adding events. Not rescheduling. Not time blocking. Just opening it.
After a few days of that, we added the next step, like time blocking one task for the day.
We also used a flexible window. Anytime between 8 and 11 a.m. counts.
Make it satisfying
Every week, Emily picks a new dog photo for their wallpaper. It keeps the cue fresh so her brain doesn't tune it out, and it's a fun creative outlet too.
Set an A goal and a B goal
At the end of our session, when we discussed a micro goal for the week, something shifted. Emily got quiet. I could sense something was off.
When I asked what came up, she said, "I'm scared this will become another broken promise to myself."
This moment was HUGE. It opened the door to work on another executive function skill: goal-directed persistence. That's the ability to keep moving toward a goal even when it feels hard or uncertain.
So we set two goals:
A goal: Set the dog wallpaper and check the calendar once between 8 and 11 a.m. before our next session.
B goal: Find and save the dog photo for later.
The B goal is the floor. On a hard week, hitting it still counts. That's how a new habit avoids becoming another broken promise.
Start Smaller Than Feels Reasonable
If habits never seem to stick for you, it's probably not a willpower problem. Most habit advice was built for brains with strong executive function skills. With ADHD, autism, or both, you need to adjust it.
Put your cue where the first step happens.
Tie the new habit to something you already enjoy.
Make the first step almost too small to count. Give yourself a window instead of a deadline.
And set a B goal so a hard week doesn't wipe out your progress.
Success doesn't always start with reaching some big goal. Often, it starts with a simple step forward that builds momentum.
If you want to learn how to build a habit over the next 30 days, I encourage you to apply for our coaching program here.
In service,
Eric
FAQs
Why doesn’t habit advice like Atomic Habits work for ADHD or autistic brains?
Books like Atomic Habits assume strong executive function — the ability to direct focus for long stretches and stay motivated by a future reward. ADHD and autistic brains process reward differently, so the dopamine boost from finishing a task often isn’t enough to drive the next attempt. The four-step cue, craving, response, reward framework still applies, but each step needs to be built differently to work with a neurodivergent brain.
What’s the most common mistake neurodivergent people make when building a new habit?
Placing the cue somewhere other than where the first step actually happens. A sticky note on the fridge only works if the habit itself happens at the fridge; otherwise it asks your attention to carry you from the cue to an unrelated location, which is easy to lose along the way. Other common mistakes include trying to build several habits at once and locking a habit to an exact time instead of a flexible window.
How small should the first step of a new habit be?
Small enough that skipping it feels silly. In the example in this post, the first week of a calendar habit was just opening the calendar app — no scheduling, no time blocking. Starting that small lowers the barrier enough to build consistency, and additional steps get added only once the first one is automatic.
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About the Author
Eric Kaufmann is an Educational Therapist, Certified Executive Function Coach, and speaker. He is the Co-founder of UpSkill Specialists, an executive function coaching company that helps adults and workplace teams overcome disorganization, procrastination, and productivity roadblocks.
Want to learn more about 1:1 coaching? Click here.
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