ADHD & Unhelpful Drive Mechanisms: Rejection & Approval

In this milestone Episode 20 of Integrating ADHD, Cameron reflects on what it takes to keep showing up, doing the work, and creating meaningful change—especially when rejection and approval quietly become the engines driving our behavior. Drawing from recent teaching, coaching conversations, and his own lived experience, Cam explores why rejection sensitivity and the need for approval, while deeply understandable in ADHD, can become unreliable and costly drive mechanisms over time. The episode weaves together insights from neurodiversity research, including rejection sensitive dysphoria, hostile attribution bias, and emerging language around autonomy and motivation, alongside Glasser’s Choice Theory and Barkley's four circuits framework. Through client stories and personal reflection, Cam invites listeners to consider what happens when fear of rejection pulls us away from risk, while the desire for approval pulls us toward people-pleasing, over-functioning, and consensus-seeking. Ultimately, this conversation is about integration—learning how to plug back into who you are and why you’re doing the work, so rejection and approval no longer run the show as you move toward impact, meaning, and purpose.