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Having recently explored Aron Croft's 5-day, Conquer ADHD Overwhelm Challenge, a free course for individuals with ADHD, my interest was sparked by Aron's presence at the Crush Your ADHD summit (Check out my review of the event here). Intrigued by the promise of practical strategies for ADHD individuals, I decided to delve into the course and share some key takeaways from my experience.
Who is Aron Croft?
Aron is now a successful ADHD coach and entrepreneur. Before achieving success, he faced challenges common to many people with ADHD, struggling with school, marriage, and work. However, Aron believed he could be successful. With relentless determination and grit, he figured out a path to help himself and built a successful career at Deloitte, KPMG, and Motorola. Due to his passion for helping others, he decided to share his formula for success through his courses with other ADHD individuals so they can overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. He is now the owner of hiddenadhd.com, where he features stories of successful course graduates who have transformed their lives.
What is the Course About?
For me, Aron's 5-day course is a transformative journey, drawing from his personal experiences of overcoming failure and achieving remarkable success. Over the five 90-minute daily sessions, he shared his framework, including the 3S Motivational Model—Soon, Some, and Stakes, the concept of a 2-hour workweek, and other pivotal strategies. These components, coupled with his realization of how overstimulation and eroding self-confidence impact ADHD individuals, are now encapsulated in a comprehensive course designed to help others break away from their current status quo.
What Did I Think of the Course?
Participating in the course, I marveled at Aron's ability to turn his life around and now support others as an ADHD coach. His incorporation of modern concepts from influential business books, along with testimonials from previous course takers, solidifies the course as a valuable resource for ADHD individuals seeking a proven system and framework for success.
Now, 2 weeks after I took this course, here are some takeaways after some reflection on the course:
Takeaway 1: The 3S Motivation Model is Crucial for Success
Aron's 3S model consists of 3 components: Soon, Someone, and Stakes, to help anyone get things done. "Soon" involves setting specific and achievable timelines for tasks, ideally within the day according to Aron, creating a sense of urgency. "Someone" incorporates the element of accountability by involving another person, either live or virtually via a virtual body double session, recognizing the power of external support. Finally, "Stakes" introduces consequences or rewards tied to task completion, providing a tangible incentive. Together, these three components form a holistic motivational framework, offering a practical and effective way to engage and motivate individuals, particularly those with ADHD, to overcome challenges and accomplish goals.
After his course, I tried out his model during our weekly check-in and found it helped improve task completion. When my ADHD spouse shared a task he wants to complete within the week, I guided him to identify the 3S. Even though the task is not following Aron's recommendation of within the day, we were able to come to an agreement on which day he will complete the task. Once an agreement is reached, we write it out on our weekly whiteboard so he can have a visual cue to create urgency, especially when we are on the day of when the task is listed.
Takeaway 2: Non-ADHD Spouse's Role in Creating a Positive Environment
Creating a positive environment is pivotal for task completion for ADHD spouses. Aron strongly believes one should own one's destiny; hence, he spent a bit of time talking and advocating the need for individuals with ADHD to create a positive environment so that they own their destiny instead of having others dictate their destiny. With that said, non-ADHD spouses have a large influence over ADHD spouses. Therefore, when we can be part of that positive environment, it helps ADHD spouses accomplish the task or a goal faster. One of the biggest things non-ADHD spouses can do to help create that positive environment is help our ADHD spouses connect the dots because we are much better and faster at it. For example, my spouse need to complete a 100-page report ,but he is not a formatting whiz. He sees formatting as a big challenge and sees it is hard to complete because he can't see what sequence he should do it in. He was willing todedicate 15 minutes each day to format the report but couldn't see the path of getting to his goal. Therefore, my support is helping him identify a specific task that he could do and complete each day, like grammar checking, checking for proper indentation, and praising him when each day's specific task is completed. Each day's success helps my ADHD spouse creates a positive environment and get him to stay motivated to achieve his goal.
Over a 2-week period, he was able to completely format his report and allow him to submit it for peer review.
Takeaway 3: Great Examples of Stakes
When you read ADHD couples' books or articles, they also talk about using positive and negative consequences to help incentivize ADHD spouses for getting things done. The truth is, we need some examples to help us unlock options that we could use in our marriage and those books and articles often lack sufficient examples to learn from. I was glad that Aron shared a few additional options, like dreaded chores, financial incentives, visual tracking, and community commitments, as options we could leverage. In one example, he shared someone taking a $100 bill as the stake, and he would burn the $100 dollar bill if he didn't complete a task. While I might not want to burn a $100 bill, it certainly opened up new ideas for me to try. For example, instead of burning a $100 bill, I came up with the idea of who buys lunch or dinner if a task is completed before or after a deadline. This motivation helped my ADHD spouse to get things and get a treat from me.
Conclusion
Aron Croft's 5-day challenge is a great introductory course to his framework to help others to get more done and achieve the success they are looking for in life. If you are looking for a system to be more productive, check out his next 5-day challenge.
Aron Croft' 5-day Conquer ADHD Overwhelm Challenge Registration: Here