Brené Brown, a researcher and author, has said, “You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story andhustle for your worthiness.”

Owning your stories, even those that include your ADHD is a key element of living a more connected and fulfilled life. By ‘owning,’ I mean speaking up about the aspects of yourself that make you unique without any expectations.

Owning your ADHD story isn’t easy, but it’s essential for both your personal growth and for enjoying meaningful connections with others. Embracing your ADHD story requires courage, vulnerability, and many leaps of faith, but when you reach that point, it is transformational.

So, what does it mean to “Own Your ADHD story?” In a nutshell, it means being honest with yourself about your life: the good, the bad, the ugly… and the ADHD in the following six ways:

1. Understand your ADHD. One of the quickest ways to take control of your life is to understand your ADHD, including your specific challenges and strengths. Recognizing how your ADHD affects you personally, along with understanding your unique strengths, interests, and talents, allows you to use these aspects to your advantage. If you’re uncertain, ask someone you trust who won’t judge you to share their perspective on your ADHD and the unique qualities you might not recognize in yourself.

2. Become self-aware. Having ADHD may mean you haven’t had the opportunity to spend time getting to know yourself. However, by recognizing your perspectives, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and desires for your life, you can choose to embrace or change them. Awareness empowers us to take control over our actions and reactions, putting you in the driver’s seat to create your life and your ADHD story from here onward.

3. Stop blaming and start growing. It’s easy to blame, especially since many of us with ADHD have faced experiences of being treated wrongly and unfairly. Whether this happened during your upbringing or in adulthood, someone else’s poor behavior cannot justify not living the life you desire. Blaming gives power to others or outside circumstances, which is the opposite of taking ownership of our lives.

And stop blaming yourself for past mistakes or actions you regret. You can’t change what you did, and holding onto them only holds you back, keeps you stuck in the past, and drains your precious energy and focus. Instead, learn and grow from these experiences and wipe the slate clean every day. Tomorrow is a new day. No one, not even you, can stop you from becoming the person you are meant to be or living the life you desire.

4. Make a decision. Someone once said that indecisiveness is a form of self-punishment. Do you know what you truly want in life? Not what your parents, boss, spouse, or children want for you or what you think you “should” want. Do you understand your desires? How do you want to live this one precious life?

To help you remember, think back to when you were a child. What did your heart most long to do? What made you happy? What filled you with joy? If the answers feel overwhelming or even scary, you’re close to your answer. Owning our lives means we make the decisions, and when we choose what we want and believe is possible, we set in motion the people and circumstances that help us achieve our dreams.

5. Become purposeful. Owning your life means being intentional about the choices you make. You set goals for yourself and develop daily habits that support the life you desire. Having ADHD can make it challenging to plan for the distant future. Still, it can also be beneficial because it encourages us to focus on being present, concentrating on what we can change today. For instance, take time to prepare for your day before the outside world overwhelms you. Mentally prepare yourself and decide how you want your day to unfold. Understanding what you want from your life requires creating a plan with specific, measurable goals that define your milestones of success. It’s surprising what we can overlook with our ADHD minds if we don’t remind ourselves! One of the most satisfying experiences is looking back over the month and seeing everything you checked off your list without even realizing it.

6. Be Authentically, Wonderfully You. Spending your life trying to be someone else or behaving in ways that aren’t true to yourself is exhausting, will never bring fulfillment, and is not how you want to live. Having ADHD means we have spent much of our lives trying to fit in. Even if this wasn’t already incredibly difficult, it rarely worked out the way we had hoped. Owning your life with ADHD is about understanding yourself—your values, what’s important, and what is meaningful to you. You can start by noticing when you are not being your true self and setting the intention to self-correct. Also, trust your intuition. People with ADHD often have strong intuition; you might just have forgotten how to use it to guide your life.

Owning our ADHD lives can seem overwhelming at first, but if you start small and remain consistently aware, you will begin to experience the peace that comes with these changes.

There is no better time to start than now. Own your ADHD life…you can do this!