ADHD and the Wall of Awful: When Starting Feels Harder Than It Should
Have you ever looked at something that should take 10 minutes and thought:
“Why can’t I just do this?”
You know how to do it. You may even want to do it. But somehow, you can't seem to start.
You put it off. You do something else. You think about it again. You feel guilty. Then the task starts to feel even harder.
For people with ADHD, this experience can have less to do with laziness or not caring and more to do with the emotional weight that has accumulated around the task.
ADHD coach and educator Brendan Mahan developed the concept of the Wall of Awful to describe this experience. He describes it as the emotional barrier that develops from repeated failures and negative experiences, making it harder to initiate tasks or take risks. (Brendan Mahan)
What Is the Wall of Awful?
Imagine that every difficult experience adds another brick to a wall.
You forgot the assignment.
You missed the deadline.
Your parent criticized you.
Your teacher called you careless.
Your boss reminded you again.
Your partner got frustrated.
You promised yourself you'd do better—and didn't.
Each experience can leave behind guilt, disappointment, frustration, anxiety, shame, or fear of failing again. Mahan describes these accumulated emotions as the bricks that build the Wall of Awful. (Brendan Mahan)
Eventually, you aren't just facing the task.
You're facing everything the task has come to represent.
Why a Simple Task Can Feel So Difficult
Consider an email you've been avoiding.
On paper, it might take five minutes.
But emotionally, it might represent:
“I'm already behind.”
“They're probably annoyed with me.”
“I should have answered this days ago.”
“Why do I keep doing this?”
“I'm going to have to explain myself.”
So when you look at the email, your brain isn't necessarily responding to an email.
It's responding to the entire wall surrounding it.
Avoiding it provides temporary relief.
But then the email remains unanswered, another negative experience gets added, and the wall gets a little taller.
Avoidance can protect you from the uncomfortable feeling in the moment while making the next attempt harder.
The Wall Isn't a Character Flaw
This is an important distinction.
If you repeatedly struggle with something, it's easy to develop an explanation based on character:
“I'm lazy.”
“I'm irresponsible.”
“I don't care enough.”
“I'm just bad at adulting.”
But executive functioning difficulties can make planning, organizing, initiating, shifting attention, and following through genuinely difficult.
And repeated difficulty can create an emotional response to those difficulties.
So sometimes the problem isn't simply:
“I don't know how to do this.”
It's:
“I know how to do this, but I have so much emotional baggage attached to doing it that starting feels overwhelming.”
The Wall Can Show Up Everywhere
The Wall of Awful isn't limited to work or school.
You might experience it with:
Answering emails
Paying bills
Cleaning your home
Making appointments
Exercising
Starting a project
Having a difficult conversation
Returning someone's call
Asking for help
Managing paperwork
Following through on something you've already promised
Sometimes it can even show up in relationships.
If you've repeatedly been criticized for forgetting something, you may avoid the conversation because you already expect disappointment.
If you've repeatedly struggled with organization, you may avoid looking at your finances because you anticipate feeling ashamed.
The task itself may be manageable.
The emotional history attached to the task is what makes it feel enormous.
How Do You Get Through the Wall?
The first step is recognizing that you're dealing with a wall at all.
Instead of:
“Why am I being so lazy?”
Try:
“What am I feeling about this task?”
Maybe you're embarrassed.
Maybe you're afraid you'll fail again.
Maybe you're overwhelmed.
Maybe you're anticipating criticism.
Maybe you're already disappointed in yourself.
Naming what is happening can help you stop treating the emotional reaction as evidence that something is wrong with you.
Then make the task smaller.
Don't focus on “clean the house.”
Focus on “clear the kitchen counter for five minutes.”
Don't focus on “fix my finances.”
Focus on “open the bank account.”
Don't focus on “answer all my emails.”
Focus on “answer one.”
You're not trying to climb the entire wall at once.
You're looking for a place to start.
Rebuilding Trust in Yourself
One of the most important parts of this work is creating new experiences.
If you've spent years telling yourself:
“I never follow through.”
then every small experience of following through matters.
Not because you need to prove your worth.
But because you're building a different history.
You planned something—and did it.
You started before you felt ready.
You asked for help.
You finished one small task.
You recovered after getting off track instead of giving up completely.
Over time, those experiences can become new bricks—but this time, they're building something different:
evidence that you are capable of responding differently.
You Are Not Your Wall
The Wall of Awful can make a task feel like a judgment about who you are.
It isn't.
Having ADHD doesn't mean you're lazy, careless, unmotivated, or incapable.
It means you may need to approach certain challenges differently—and sometimes the emotional history surrounding those challenges needs attention too.
The goal isn't to shame yourself into becoming more organized.
It's to understand what is getting in the way, develop the skills and structure you need, and make it easier to try again.
Sometimes the first step isn't climbing the wall.
It's realizing that there is a wall there in the first place.
