Ep 117: Executive Function Skill #9 Impulse Control

In this eye-opening episode of our executive function series, I reveal the truth about impulse control - and why hitting snooze, interrupting people, or buying things you didn't plan to isn't about willpower or character flaws. Your brain just moves faster than your awareness can catch it.

📌 Key Topics:

• Why impulse control struggles happen so fast you don't catch them until AFTER
• How my husband and I ended up $90,000 in debt (and the system that finally worked)
• The difference between motivation problems and impulse control challenges
• Understanding emotional impulsivity: why reactions come before awareness
• The mistake of going straight from reacting to self-criticism (and what to do instead)
• Creating physical cues and systems that work WITH your ADHD brain

🗣️ Featured Quote: "Impulse control isn't about stopping impulses. It's about learning how to work with them. Sometimes the pause comes after the action. Then it moves to during, and eventually, sometimes it shows up before. Progress is better than perfection. One pause at a time."

💡 Strategy Breakdown:

• The shopping cart pause technique: add items, close the window, wait 1-2 days
• The fridge check-in system: turn standing there into a moment of awareness
• Physical cues for interrupting (inspired by first graders—yes, really!)
• Self-soothing BEFORE self-criticism so your nervous system can actually learn
• Pre-programming reactions by asking "who do I want to be in that moment?"
• Using reflection (not judgment) to build skills over time

🔬 The Science: Research shows people with ADHD are about 15 times more impatient, 8 times more likely to be quick to anger, and 10 times more likely to lose their temper. This isn't about character—it's emotional dysregulation that needs support, not shame.

🎯 Real Examples: Impulsive spending, emotional eating, task-switching at work, blurting things out, hitting snooze, and yelling at kids (and how I finally stopped).

🔑 Key Takeaway: Impulse control struggles are often mistaken for motivation problems. Most people listening are highly motivated—the issue is regulating behavior in the moment, especially when discomfort shows up. Awareness after the fact still counts. That's where change starts.

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#executivefunctions #adhd #impulsecontrol #adhdsupport #adhdstrategies #adhdcommunity #emotionalregulation #adhdawareness #neurodivergent #adhdtools

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Transcript

Hello Hello welcome back or welcome if you are new here. 

Today we’re continuing the Executive Function Skills Series, and this is number nine. We’re talking about impulse control.

Impulse control is one of those executive functions that shows up everywhere in real life with ADHD.

It’s our ability to pause, stop, think, and then make a choice, rather than reacting automatically.

And for many of us with ADHD, that pause can feel almost nonexistent. Things happen fast. Really fast.

Sometimes so fast that we don’t even realize what we’re doing until after it’s already happened.

So let’s talk about what impulse control issues can actually look like, because it’s not just one thing.

It can look like impulsive spending, eating when you’re not hungry, interrupting or blurting things out, hitting snooze when you promised yourself you wouldn’t, 

switching tasks constantly, or avoiding something uncomfortable by doing anything else. And the important thing to understand is that these aren’t character flaws.

They’re not moral failures. They’re not about willpower. They’re about speed. The problem with impulse control isn’t the impulse itself.

The problem is that we don’t pause.

We don’t stop long enough to ask, is this what I actually want, what’s the consequence of this, and is this aligned with my long-term goals.

And when that pause doesn’t happen, we often end up with outcomes we didn’t intend. Financial stress. Health issues. Unfinished projects. Relationship strain.

Or that familiar feeling of, why did I do that again. Impulse control isn’t about being perfect. It’s about creating space between feeling and action.

I really want to emphasize this part. Impulse control struggles happen fast. It’s not that we see the impulse and consciously ignore it.

A lot of times, we don’t catch it at all. We realize it after the fact. 

You start to build your awareness that way. Awareness is noticing what you’re thinking and feeling without immediately reacting to it.

That might sound simple, but it’s actually a huge skill. At first, awareness often comes after the behavior.

You notice what you felt once it’s already over. That still counts. That awareness is where change starts.

Sometimes you’re already standing in the fridge. The money is already spent. The words already came out of your mouth.

And what matters is that you didn’t choose that on purpose. Your brain moved faster than awareness could catch it.

That matters, because it removes shame. This isn’t about being emotionally immature. It’s about how quickly the ADHD brain fires.

That speed doesn’t just affect behavior. It affects emotions too.

Emotional reactions can happen just as fast as physical ones, sometimes before we even realize we’re having them.

That’s why emotional impulsivity is such a big part of impulse control for people with ADHD.

Jessica McCabe from the YouTube channel How to ADHD has a really great video on this. It’s called ADHD and Emotional Impulsivity: What You Need to Know.

It’s funny. It’s relatable.

And it does a great job of showing just how fast emotional reactions can happen before we’re even aware of what’s going on.

I really recommend checking it out after this. And you can see this same pattern show up in everyday moments.

A really common example of this is hitting the snooze button in the morning. This is such a clear impulse control moment.

In that moment, you’re not making a thoughtful decision about your day. You’re responding to an immediate impulse.

I want to be comfortable. I want to keep sleeping. I don’t want to deal with the day yet. The future benefit of getting up feels far away.

The immediate comfort of sleep feels very close. And this isn’t laziness.

This is the ADHD brain struggling with impulse control and future-oriented thinking at the same time.

Sometimes that impulse to go back to sleep isn’t even about being tired. It’s about avoiding stress. Avoiding a task. Or avoiding a feeling.

One of the biggest impulse control struggles I had was spending money. This started back in college.

Our student ID cards doubled as credit cards. Which honestly is a terrible idea for a college student without a fully developed brain.

If I wanted something, I bought it. If I thought about buying something, I bought it. That ranged from small things like food to big purchases like electronics.

My husband was the same way. If he wanted it, he got it. There was no pause. No reflection.

Between student loans and credit cards, we ended up about ninety thousand dollars in debt.

We made a massive change. We sold almost everything we owned. And we moved into a literal trailer. The kind you pull with a truck.

With our four-year-old son. That experience changed everything for me. Selling all of our stuff made it very clear.

The stuff wasn’t worth it. And more importantly, I realized something huge. My spending wasn’t about the purchases. It was about how I was feeling.

Sometimes I was chasing a good feeling. Sometimes I was avoiding a bad one. Once I understood that connection, I could start creating those feelings without spending money.

One really practical impulse-control tool I use with spending, especially online, is this. I put the item in the cart. And I leave it there.

Whether it’s Amazon or another site where I’m signed in, I’ll add things to the cart and then close the window. I’ll come back a day or two later.

Most of the time, the urge is gone. Now, I will say this has come back to bite me once. I put a rebounder, the little personal trampoline, in the cart on a whim.

My husband went in later and bought it. And when it arrived, I realized I didn’t actually want it.We didn’t return it because it was big.

And we ended up giving it to friends. My mistake was their gain. So yes, be careful if you share accounts.

But the bigger point is this. The cart becomes a pause. It gives your nervous system time to settle.

So you’re not deciding in the heat of the impulse. This is why systems matter more than willpower.

The exact same pattern showed up with food. I wasn’t eating because I was hungry. I was eating to avoid something.

An emotion. A task. A feeling I didn’t want to sit with. At first, I didn’t even catch it until after it happened. I was already eating. I was already standing in the fridge.

So instead of trying to stop the behavior immediately, I changed my approach. I turned the fridge into a cue.

Standing there became a moment to check in. Am I actually hungry? What am I feeling right now? What am I trying to avoid? What feeling am I trying to create?

If the answer wasn’t hunger, then the question became, how else can I meet this need.This one is huge for entrepreneurs and professionals. Task switching.

You sit down to work on something important. Then an email pops up. Or you remember something else. Or you think, I’ll just do this other task really quick.

That moment. That urge to switch. That’s impulse control. What you are looking for is relief. Novelty. A quick win.

Often we call these triggers.

But more often they’re emotions we haven’t named yet. Boredom. Frustration. Overwhelm. Discomfort.

Switching tasks becomes emotional regulation. And this might sound really familiar. You open your laptop to work on one thing.

Before you know it, you’re answering emails. Checking messages. Reorganizing files.

Or doing something that feels productive but isn’t actually the priority. You might even tell yourself, I’ll just do this real quick.

Then an hour later you’re wondering where the time went. That’s not a focus problem. That’s impulse control showing up in a work setting.

Another really common and often embarrassing impulse control struggle is blurting things out or interrupting.

This one can be especially painful for professionals and people in leadership roles. Thoughts come fast with ADHD. There’s often this urgency. If I don’t say this now, I’ll forget it.

So the impulse is, say it now. Internally, this often doesn’t feel calm at all. It can feel urgent. Like pressure in your body or your chest.

There’s often a thought like, if I don’t say this now, I’ll lose it. Or, this is important, I have to get it out. That urgency is part of the impulsivity.

It’s not about not respecting the other person. It’s about trying to manage that internal pressure.

When I was working in Arizona as a full time substitute teacher. I taught first grade for an extended period. The kids struggled with interrupting.

So I taught them something simple.

If they wanted to talk to me while I was speaking to another student or adult, they were to put their hand on the desk near me and wait.

No talking. Just hand on the desk. That physical action created a pause. And it worked. We still need that pause as adults.

Dr. Russell Barkley talks about this when he says we need to externalize what we can’t internalize.

For blurting or interrupting, that might look like holding a coin or small object in your pocket.

Turning it over in your hand while someone else is speaking. Or turning a ring on your hand. 

That physical cue becomes a reminder to pause. This isn’t about suppressing yourself. It’s about supporting your brain in real time.

You might be noticing a theme here. Different behaviors. Same nervous system pattern. Impulse control struggles are often mistaken for motivation problems.

This isn’t about not wanting to do the thing. Most people listening are highly motivated. They care deeply. The issue isn’t motivation.

It’s regulating behavior in the moment. Especially when discomfort shows up. You can be very motivated and still struggle with impulse control.

Reflection after the fact is huge. And it’s very different from judgment. Judgment sounds like, why do I always do this.

What’s wrong with me? Reflection sounds like, okay, that happened. What was going on? What could I try next time?

And there’s also such a thing as positive judgment. Hey, I noticed I caught it sooner. I paused longer this time. That matters.

This is also where self-soothing comes in. And a lot of people skip this step. Self-soothing doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook.

It means calming your nervous system after an impulsive moment. So your brain can actually learn from it.

When we go straight from reacting to self-criticism, the nervous system stays activated. And activated systems don’t build skills.

Regulation has to come before change. Researchers looked at seven symptoms of emotional impulsivity.

They compared a general community sample, a clinical sample, and people with ADHD. People with ADHD were about fifteen times more impatient.

Eight times more likely to be quick to anger. And ten times more likely to lose their temper. That’s not character.

That’s emotional dysregulation. And what often happens is we react. Then we beat ourselves up. Without ever getting to self-soothing.

If you’re hearing those numbers and feeling a little exposed or discouraged, I want to pause here. This doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It simply means your nervous system reacts quickly. And that quick reaction needs support, not shame.

Understanding this isn’t about excusing behavior. It’s about finally knowing where to put in the work to make change.

There’s one more place impulse control shows up that we really need to talk about. Relationships. In emotionally charged moments, impulsivity can look like yelling.

Snapping. Saying things you didn’t mean. Reacting before you realize it. I used to yell at my kids. And I hated it.

Eventually, I realized I was yelling almost entirely out of fear. Fear that I was parenting wrong.Fear that I was messing them up.

Yelling doesn’t make sense as a reaction to fear. Once I named what I was actually feeling, the behavior changed dramatically.

Once you identify the root emotion, almost always the reaction you had does not fit that emotion.

Meditation and mindfulness can help here too. Meditation isn’t about calming down or stopping thoughts.

It’s about practicing noticing what’s happening without immediately reacting to it. That practice helps create a tiny gap between emotion and reaction.

So the impulse doesn’t automatically run the show. 

I also want to say this, because this is my opinion based on experience. Developing awareness throughout your day can be just as powerful as meditation.

When you’re noticing your thoughts. Noticing your emotions. Without judgement. Noticing urges without reacting to them right away. 

That’s awareness practice happening in real time. You’re training your brain all day long to pause.

Pre-programming reactions helps as well.Asking yourself ahead of time, who do I want to be in that moment.

That helps your brain recognize the situation sooner next time.

Progress isn’t linear. Stress and exhaustion make impulse control harder.

That doesn’t mean you lost progress. It means you’re human. Again Dr. Barkley reminds us to externalize support.

Dr. Hallowell reminds us we have a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes.

Jessica McCabe reminds us to laugh while learning emotional brakes. And yes, the tickets she talks about are hilarious and I really hope they are something that happened. 

If you’re listening and thinking none of this is working yet, hear this. Awareness usually comes after the behavior before it ever comes before it.

Catching it afterward still counts. Reflecting still counts. Naming the feeling still counts.

Impulse control isn’t about stopping impulses. It’s about learning how to work with them. Sometimes the pause comes after the action.

Then it moves to during. And eventually, sometimes, it shows up before. Progress is better than perfection. One pause at a time.

If you are having challenges with impulse control I want to assure you that you can improve beyond what you might think is possible. 

Have you joined the email list yet? If not do it today. You will hear from me each week with an ADHD tip related to that week’s episode as well as all the free resources I offer. 

You can join at www.learntothrivewithadhd.com/weekly . I want to thank youl for your precious time and attention. I will see you  next week.