Ep 89: Executive Function Skills Series #7 Metacognition

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In this deep-dive episode of our executive function series, I share how to develop metacognition—your ability to think about your thinking—and the practical tools that helped me go from feeling mentally dragged around to becoming the conscious director of my own mind.

📌 Key Topics:

• My personal journey from feeling thoughts just "happened to me" to gaining control
• The untrained dog analogy and what it reveals about unmanaged minds
• Why so many ADHDers reach adulthood without realizing they can direct their thoughts
• The connection between metacognition and breaking autopilot patterns
• How awareness creates choice and stops emotional hijacking
• Building the skill that most ADHD books don't teach

🗣️ Featured Quote: "Your thoughts are not facts. They're stories your brain tells you, and it's okay to question them. Metacognition is simply your ability to notice and name what's going on in your brain. That awareness is what gives you choice."

💡 Strategy Breakdown:

• Master the brain dump technique to see what's actually happening in your head
• Use the C-T-F-A-R model to understand how thoughts create your feelings and actions
• Practice self-coaching to make conscious choices instead of reacting automatically
• Learn to get curious about your thoughts without judgment
• Develop emotional vocabulary using tools like the feelings wheel

🎯 Coming Up Next: Join us next week as we continue our executive function series with the final skill in this comprehensive journey.

🔑 Key Takeaway: Metacognition works like training a puppy—with practice and patience, you can teach your mind to work with you instead of against you. The goal isn't to control every thought, but to become aware enough to choose your response.

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Transcript

All right. Welcome back guys. This week we are on number seven in the executive function series, metacognition. This is your thinking about your thinking.

We've been learning how executive function skills help you manage your life. So think of metacognition as the quality control system. It helps you reflect. Pivot and problem solve. If that's been missing for you, you're not broken. It just means that no one taught you how to build this skill. So let's change that today.

As ADHDers, we can go into adulthood without realizing their thoughts aren't just happening to us. In this episode, I'll share tools that aren't in most A DHD books,Tools that helped myself and my clients slow things down, untangle mental clutter, notice patterns, challenge unhelpful stories, and make conscious choices. This skill is essential, and we do not learn this in school. We can't escape our minds. 

We can either train them to work with us or against us. Sometimes it's not even that our mind is fighting us, it's just untrained, like walking an untrained dog. So we live out in the country and my dog was never leash trained. She's part lab, part German, short hair and a hundred percent energy. And when I decided she needed to be leash trained, it was chaos.

She was used to running ahead, swimming in the canals, chasing birds, running through the fields, Doing her own thing.

The first time on a leash, she dragged me. She chose the direction, the speed. I was just along for the ride. She was so strong. I couldn't direct her or slow her down. That's what it can be like living with an unmanaged mind.

I believe my teenagers, when I asked them what they were thinking right before they got upset or did something impulsive, and they have no idea, I believe them because I was them. And I don't mean just as a teenager. I mean absolutely when I was a teenager, but this was well into adulthood until I learned about coaching, I felt my thoughts were just happening to me. I had no control.

By the way, we're gonna cover some detailed tools today, and if you want a simple way to practice this, I've put together a free self-coaching workbook and I'll tell you how to grab that at the end. So let's get into some tools that you can use to manage your mind. Tool number one, brain dump. If you've followed me for any time, you've heard me talk about brain dumps and for good reason, it's the.

Easiest way to see what's happening inside your head and start sorting things out and slowing things down. A brain dump is simply getting everything out of your head, no edits. It takes 10 to 20 minutes max. You'll get a mix of random thoughts, worries, judgments to-dos, thoughts about the future, present and past thoughts about yourself and others. So how do you do it? I'm giving you several ways so that you can find what works for you. 

You can write it out. Writing slows things down in a good way. It helps you clarify your thoughts. You can type it out. This lets you get a lot out quickly. I prefer typing on a keyboard, but your phone works too. 

talk it out. Use a voice to text app. I like Otter ai. If you're a verbal processor, this can help you uncover what's really going on. 

Just be sure to save the transcription, not the summary. Or if you have a coach like myself, my clients will often brain dump with me in a session and I'll capture everything and this allows them to sit back with their thoughts while I do the heavy lifting.

And again, don't edit yourself. Nothing you think is a problem. 

No one needs to see this. You can throw it away, you can rip it up, you can shred it, you can burn it afterwards if you want to. One time I was doing this and I was sitting on my bed and I was writing out everything, doing my brain dump, and my husband looks over my shoulder and he's, he's in shock and he is like, that's what you're thinking?

And I said, yep. And if you don't wanna know, don't look. Your mind can seem dark sometimes, but that's okay. It's just a temporary state. You are not your thoughts. 

step one circle. Once it's all out circle, or you could underline the thoughts that stand out. These are worth exploring deeper.

You can bring them to coaching if you have a coach, or you can keep going with the self-coaching that I'm gonna teach you today. So step two, cancel. Sometimes just seeing a thought on paper makes you realize this doesn't really matter. Great, cancel it. 

But here's one warning, don't cancel too quickly. If you're someone who dismisses yourself easily, skip this step for now, because ignoring a thought does not make it go away. It's like putting raw meat in a box on a shelf. It looks fine until it rots and leaks everywhere, and it stinks. 

So be honest. If you're canceling from clarity, great. If not, leave the thought or you could use the next tool and this is a bit of a bonus tool. It comes naturally to you definitely use it, but if it doesn't just continue with the rest of what I offer you here. So the and strategy. I have a few clients who do this often, and you have to be careful because being dismissive of yourself will keep you stuck. We can use our intelligence against ourselves.

Maybe you've read a lot of personal develop books or you just have a strong, logical brain and you know, the thought that you're having is not ideal or isn't logical and here's an example. You might be thinking I'm a bad friend. And you try to dismiss it by saying, well, I know I'm a good friend in a lot of ways, or other people are worse friends sometimes, or I might just be being hard on myself. 

That sounds really supportive, but the problem is you're still thinking you're a bad friend. The belief has not gone anywhere Even lovingly, you bury what you're actually thinking instead of canceling or arguing with the thought we use. And you say, I'm a bad friend and a good friend.

I'm a bad friend, and there are worse friends, the, and lets you hold both. It keeps the real thought that you're thinking and satisfies the part of your brain that wants to counter it. So don't bury it. Acknowledge it so we can loosen its grip. Step three, get curious.

Let's get curious about our thoughts. No judgment, just curiosity. Ask, is this true? Why am I thinking this? Is this my business or someone else's? That's thanks to Byron and Katie. She likes to say, there's my business, your business and God's business. Meaning the only business she needs to worry about is her own thoughts are not facts.

They're stories your brain tells you, and it's okay to question them. Ask yourself, which of these thoughts feel emotionally heavy and which you're causing 

stress. This isn't a one and done exercise. You can return to it anytime your mind feels full or extra busy or you're feeling overwhelmed. And yes, you might say, Mandy, my brain is always busy.

Same here. I just did a brain dump yesterday. 

But have you noticed that there are times when it's a problem that your brain is busy and there are times when it's not that nuance matters, and that's why having a coach can be helpful. Someone who can help you spot the patterns and uncover the beliefs beneath them. So metacognition is simply your ability to notice.

And name what's going on in your brain. That awareness is what gives you choice. So before we move into the next tool, let's pause and look at a few common signs that metacognition might be underdeveloped. You act on autopilot and then ask, why did I do that? You feel emotionally hijacked and you don't notice until hours later.

You keep repeating patterns. Even when you know better, you struggle to course correct mid task or midday. If any of that feels familiar, it's not a personal failing, it just means that this skill is worth building. Now let's plug into a framework that helps you map out what's happening and where you can step in with intention.

This is self coaching and we're gonna use the C-T-F-A-R model. When I first learned this, I understood it conceptually, but I didn't know how to use it. So don't overthink it. Just follow the process and practice. So here's the model. C is for circumstance, T is for thought. F is for feeling A for actions and R for results.

This is nothing new. This is actually just the facts of life, but you may not be aware of it yet to say simply your thoughts, create your feelings, which make you take or not take certain actions, which get you the results that you get. Once you learn this, you'll start seeing it everywhere in your life, in books and in movies.

It's just how life works. 

Let's do a real life example together. We're gonna talk about insurance. The circumstance is you got an email from the dentist that says the insurance won't pay. Thoughts. I hate calling the insurance company. This will take forever. What if they don't pay? I don't have time for this. So you're having lots of thoughts about this, and let's go with, I don't have time for this.

Feeling is overwhelmed. The actions that I would take is complaint about it. Avoid the email, skip the time. I plan to call, procrastinate, ruminate. And the result is I don't make time for it. And it doesn't happen for weeks or months. This, is how an unintentional model would run from that thought of, I don't have time for this.

You're going to feel overwhelmed and you're going to take the actions of the ruminating and avoiding and the procrastinating, right? And then you're gonna get that result of putting that thing off that we've all dealt with. And now you can see why you did that, because you were having some sort of thought that was causing you to take the actions making you procrastinate. So now it all can make sense, right? You don't have to blame yourself, you don't have to beat yourself up.

It's just a model of thinking that was running automatically and it's not your fault, but now you have the awareness of it. Now that we've revealed the default pattern, we have a choice. Do I wanna keep thinking that? Do I wanna take different actions? If so, what thought or feeling would support that?

So that's the power of awareness. You can even rerun the model for each thought that you had. Every version may lead to different feelings and different actions, and that's how we peel back the layers. I do wanna say something about one of the thoughts there.

Did you notice it was a question? So when you have thoughts that are questions, I think the question was, what if they don't pay? Then you need to answer that question. We're not gonna put questions in the model. We're only going to put answers. So what if they don't pay? What does that make you think?

Maybe you think, I can't afford this. Maybe you think this is gonna cut into my budget. Maybe you think it's gonna be a lot of money. And how does that make you feel? So you see that, how that works. You can't just leave it as a question, you have to answer the question.

Here's how to use the model yourself. Here's the breakdown circumstance. These are pure facts, they're neutral. No opinions or emotions. Instead of the kitchen is a disaster. Say Dishes in the sink. Items on the counter. Crumbs on the floor. Thought. What are you thinking about the circumstance? Pick the strongest one to start with feeling.

How does that thought make you feel? 

If that is hard for you, you can use a feelings wheel. I actually put one in the workbook. It helps you pinpoint emotions more precisely. When I was first starting with this work, I had a very, very limited emotional vocabulary, and the feelings wheel really helped me. And what it does is it branches out from simpler emotions to more complicated emotions.

So action. What are you doing or not doing because of that feeling result being, what outcome is that action creating?Most of the time, your result will reinforce your original thought. 

An easy way to think of this is when you think you can't. You can't, but we don't think about everything that goes in between. Why we can't is the I can't, that we're thinking, making us feel defeated, and then we are. Taking or not taking certain actions because of feeling defeated. and you don't have to take a top down approach with this either. You can plug in from anywhere. How are you feeling? Maybe you're feeling anxious. What are you thinking that's making you feel anxious? What actions are you taking are not taking because of that thought and that feeling.

To fill in the circumstance, what are you anxious about, and then what results are you getting from all of it? So you can kind of plug in anywhere you want, or you could plug in at the thought, or you could look at the actions that you're taking or not taking, and put those in and really kind of delve into why that's going on.

What are you thinking that's making you not take or take action in those ways?

Now, let's flip it around. Let's use the same C-T-F-A-R structure, but with intention. Start by asking what do I feel? What result do I want? What actions would support that? And then ask what thought would help me feel that way? This isn't about repeating affirmations that you don't believe.

The new thought has to be something that you actually do believe your brain will call bull cap on you. You cannot just slap a pretty thought on. It definitely needs to be believable for this work to work.

Cleaning my barn. If you've been around long, you've heard this is a constant problem. So you guys might have that garage or that spare bedroom that collects things. For me, it's the barn and when I think about cleaning the barn, it's dusty. It's sometimes hot out there. It's kind of a stinky job that I don't wanna do.

So let's go through an intentional model that would help me be more motivated to clean out that barn.

Okay, so Circumstance Barn has trash, unwanted items and out of place items. Old thought, I don't wanna clean it. It's going to take forever. New thought. I can clean the barn up a little. That feels true to me. I could clean it up a little, and that makes me feel capable.

And then I'm gonna tackle it in small chunks. Maybe I'll just go in there and just get a trash bag full of trash. Maybe I'll go get a box of unwanted items so that we can get 'em to the donation center. Maybe I'll ask for help. 

Maybe I'll body double with someone. I've even done it online. I have taken my laptop out to the barn with me, and I worked with someone on focusmate.com and got it cleaned up in less than an hour. So I've done this, I know it's possible, and the result is I'll follow through on a plan to clean up the barn.

Incrementally. So this time the model supports your goal. You're not forcing yourself, you're guiding yourself. These tools are how you start building metacognition each time you use them. You are practicing awareness, reflection, and mental flexibility, and that's what metacognition is all about. And these are just a few tools.

if you want support practicing this, let's work together. Book a free consultation at www. Learn to thrive with adhd.com/services,

If you're ready now to explore this on your own, definitely go and download the Self-coaching workbook at www dot. Learn to thrive with self-coaching.

I personally needed a coach to fully apply these tools, but I was also making progress before that and so can you. This work is worth doing, and if you give it 10 minutes most days, you'll be amazed at the changes. It's worth the tiny amount of effort and time that it takes. Tell me if you do this or what you learned from this episode in the comments.

If you're on YouTube or if you're on the podcast, go to my website. Www dot, learn to thrive with adhd.com and pick your favorite social to get in touch with me. Thank you my friends. I will see you next week.