7 Quotes About Living a Meaningful Life With ADHD

Ever had that feeling like you were just aimlessly drifting through life?

Like you were merely surviving rather than actually living?

Yup.

I know those feels.

I also know what helped pull me out of the abyss nearly every.single time.

Put simply, what helped me can be summed up in 2 words:

Viktor Frankl.

In this post, I will give you a brief biography of Viktor Frankl. Who, IMO, is among the most important existential/humanistic psychologists of the 20th century.

Then I will highlight 7 quotes from his bestselling 1946 book: Man’s Search For Meaning.

These 7 quotes are ones that, when put into practice, are guaranteed to bring more meaning, purpose, success, happiness, & personal autonomy/agency into any GAYDHDers life.

Who was Viktor Frankl, What is Meaning and Why Does it Matter?

Viktor Frankl’s Bio – The Elevator Version

Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1905, Viktor Emil Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher.

In 1942, right as Frankl’s marriage and career were both beginning to flourish, he was arrested by the Nazis. He was sent—along with his wife Tilly, his mother, father & 2 siblings—to Theresienstadt, the first of multiple concentration camps Frankl survived.

And by the end of WWII/The Holocaust, while he indeed did survive, sadly he was the only member of his family to do so.

In 1945, Viktor Frankl returned to academia. Where he spent the remainder of his career researching and writing about the development of a new wing of existential psychology he dubbed Logotherapy.

Logotherapy & The Psychology of Meaning

Like Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung before him, as well as his contemporary Alfred Alder, Frankl’s career was primarily dedicated to the development of a new school of psychiatric thought. Frankl’s being logotherapy.

In Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl broadly defines logotherapy as:

Logos is a Greek word which denotes “meaning.” Logotherapy… focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning.

And although Logotherapy as a term has fallen out of vogue in the 21st century, Viktor Frankl is still regarded as having helped birth interest in topics related to The Psychology of Meaning such as:

• the importance of meaning & purpose to a life well-lived
• the very real need humans have for autonomy & self-determination. Both at the individual & community levels.
• how narrative storytelling can help us heal from trauma. 

Side-note—> For those who want to dive deeper into existential and/or humanistic psychology, a few of my favourite researchers in the field are: Paul T.P. Wong, Michael Steger, Carol Ryff, & Crystal Park

So what?

For those reading this who are thinking “yeah yeah, meaning, purpose, yada yada yada. Sounds great. But what’s this gotta do with my daily struggles?”

Trust me.

I get it.

And yes.

It is true that there doesn’t seem to be much research on the explicit impact of meaning & purpose on ADHD. That said, there are boatloads of articles & book-chapters related to a host of “fellow traveller” conditions.

To name just a “few”, here’s 12 examples:

• Depression – 
  • Reason, Meaning, and Resilience in the Treatment of Depression: Logotherapy as a Bridge Between Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Positive Psychology, 
  • Suffering, Meaning and Hope: Shifting the Focus from Depression in Primary Care, & 
  • An investigation of the relationship between depression, meaning in life and adult hope
• Anxiety/Stress/Trauma – 
  • Commitment to a purpose in life- An antidote to the suffering by individuals with social anxiety disorder, 
  • Searching for and finding meaning following personal and collective traumas, & 
  • Relevance and Application of Logotherapy to Enhance Resilience to Stress and Trauma
• Grief – 
  • Expressive writing changes grief into meaning – a sequential explanatory design approach, 
  • From Sense-Making to Meaning-Making: Understanding and Supporting Survivors of Suicide, & 
  • LOSS, GRIEF, AND THE SEARCH FOR SIGNIFICANCE TOWARD A MODEL OF MEANING RECONSTRUCTION IN BEREAVEMENT
• Addiction – 
  • Addiction in existential positive psychology (EPP, PP2.0): from a critique of the brain disease model towards a meaning-centered approach, 
  • Associations Between Spirituality, Meaning in Life, and Depressive Disorders Among a Sample of Individuals in Treatment for Substance-Use Disorders, & 
  • Meaning in Life and Substance Use 

So.

With the above research as background.

Here are my 7 favourite ADHD-friendly quotes by Viktor Frankl about finding meaning & purpose in our lives.

1. No Matter How Dire Our Circumstances, We Can Choose Our Own Attitude & Mindset

 

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

ADHD-specific application:

• On a blank piece of paper (or index card/sticky note/etc), write out a slogan like “Remember. I may not be able to change my current situation. But as Viktor Frankl reminds me, no matter the circumstances, it is ALWAYS possible to change my mindset.”
• Then tuck that paper away somewhere that is both safe and readily accessible. Like your backpack, wallet or purse.
• Finally, the next time you find yr ADHD symptoms are getting in yr own way, pull that paper out, & reflect on the slogan.
• Ask yrself: “Am I holding onto any limiting beliefs about this situation? How can I shift my perspective or attitude in this moment?”

2. Acceptance is Often The First Step Of Any Personal (Growth) Journey

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

ADHD-specific application:

• Remember. There is no “cure” for ADHD. I mean why would there be? Broken things need cures & fixing. And we’re not broken just because we’re neurodivergent.
• So take this as a lesson to start working with your ADHD, rather than against it.
• For a concrete example, see my post How I made putting away my laundry easier on my ADHD brain

3. The One Tool to Help Ease Your Burdens

 

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

ADHD-specific application:

• Take a handful of index cards and write down your deepest-held values. Those reasons you get up in the morning. The principles you wish to embody.
• Then, whenever you are struggling to: a) get started on a task or project, b) continue, and/or c) remember why yr even working on this thing in the first place, you can pull out those index cards and quickly remind yrself of yr why.

Want more info on the importance of values to a life well-lived? Check out the wing of clinical psychology called Acceptance & Commitment Therapy

Still not sure what I mean by values? Here’s a list of 400-ish from the blog Live Bold and Bloom to get you started lol: The Ultimate List of 400 Personal Values

4. In a Profoundly Sick & Dysfunctional Society Like Ours, It Is Simply Not Possible to Be 100% Healthy.

 

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

ADHD-specific application:

• Take this quote (or the headline for this section) and write it out in big, bold letters. Then hang it on yr wall, where you can see it everyday.
• Then, when life inevitably throws crap at you, and you find yrself “comparing and despairing,” you can look to yr wall and remind yrself that yr doing the best you can with the resources you have.

5. A Slightly Different Take on the Old Adage “Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional”

 

 

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

ADHD-specific application:

• Same advice here as in quote #3 above (aka always be connecting to yr values)

6. A Reminder That You Don’t Get to Have a Meaningful, Purpose-Filled Life Without Acquiring At Least Some Bruises, Scrapes, & Scars.

 

 

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

ADHD-specific application:

• When I’m emotionally struggling with something (aka when I’m hyperfocused on all my failings), it’s often because I’m falling into a perfectionistic-mindset.
• What tends to snap me out of that funk is reminding myself of the all-to-human struggles of my personal heroes.
• A couple quick examples:
  • Martin Luther King Jr. & James Baldwin both suffered from intense depression.
  • Mother Theresa was a very complicated human.
  • Bill Wilson—one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous—struggled with depression & died of emphysema because he never quit smoking.

P.S. Does this method of remembering-that-everyone-struggles resonate with you? If yes, then maybe you could start yr own file folder (either physical or digital) to collect stories of yr heroes. Feel free to steal from my list to get started 🙂

7. On The Importance of Setting (and then Strategically Ignoring) Goals

 

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

ADHD-specific application:

• Put reminders of yr goals everywhere around you to keep the future close to mind.
• But then focus on developing processes, routines, rituals, habits, that will help you reach yr goals

Over to you now

Here’s my challenge to you.

Take one of the 7 ADHD-specific applications of Viktor Frankl’s quotes and try implementing it. Then when that starts to feel like it’s on cruise-control, come back to this article and try implementing a second application. Then when that second one starts to feel like it’s on cruise control…well you get the idea.

Also, please help me spread the word about the brilliance of Viktor Frankl by sharing these quotes on social media.

And speaking of these quotes, lemme know—in the comments or via email—which of these 7 quotes resonates most with you.