If you're and adult diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), you likely become overwhelmed when dealing with the day-to-day tasks of every-day living. This can result in feelings of 'lack of achievement' in terms of those things that are important in your life and conjures up frustration that you are just not coping. In turn, this causes stress which results in additional frustration . . . after all, stress is caused by those things you don't achieve, not the things you do achieve. Your entire day is on turbo-charge as you constantly attempt to 'catch-up' AND this leaves you feeling disorganized, frustrated and discontent. Do you recognize any of these feelings? You'll be pleased to know there are some valuable strategies for dealing with and overcoming these feelings of helplessness.

Here are 8 important strategies for dealing with ADD:

1. Slow Down - You often live life on hyper drive, both mentally and physically. While this strategy requires discipline, it's essential that you force yourself to SLOW DOWN. When you experience those feeling of being out of control, tell yourself to STOP, think about what's happening and SLOW DOWN. It is possible!

2. Take Special Care Of You - You most likely have a tendency to put yourself last. You need to start to take very special care of yourself and think about what makes you feel good. After all, if you feel good, you are in a much better position to take care of others. It's a good idea to write down those things that you like to do and the people you enjoy doing them with.

3. Know Your Own ADD - ADD takes many forms and affects us all in many diverse ways. You cannot effectively manage ADD without a high level of awareness of the particular manner in which it impacts your life and the life of those you care about. Become aware of your specific behaviors . . . being aware is 50 percent of the battle in managing ADD.

4. Use Your Learning and Processing Methods - This strategy follows on from the previous one. Once you develop an awareness of specific behaviors, identify the ways in which you concentrate and learn. Identify those things you are passionate about because they are the things you will find easier to develop. Once you have established what works for you, both your personal and professional lives will become much simpler.

5. Concentrate on Your Strengths - Everybody has 'positive attributes': strengths, skills, knowledge, expertise and aptitude. Increasing the time you spend and the effort you make on these 'positives' will increase both your sense of self-worth and your contentment. Positive energy attracts positives!

6. Become an Optimist - It's easy to focus on the negative aspects of ADD. However you MUST constantly force yourself to focus on the good things about yourself. If you believe in the natural 'cause and affect' principle, you will require no convincing that when you focus on the positives, you attract positives. Positives energize you and people love being around positive people - it's all part of the 'law of attraction'.

7. Plan the Time to Plan - Set aside some time once a week to plan out the week ahead. Start off by identifying what's great in your life and how you can improve those tings. Then think about those things that annoy you and how you can (at least) minimize their impact on you. Write these things down and establish a quick plan of a few things you are going to commit to doing over the next seven days.

8. Take Challenges - This does necessarily mean speed-boat racing or skydiving! It suggests stepping out of your comfort zone and doing things that may be a little uncomfortable. Examples might include requesting that pay-rise, joining a gym, or signing up for that course you've been thinking about for years. If you don't take the challenge, you wont get the return.

While there are many challenges to those of us who have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, we tend to ignore the positives and the opportunities we have to overcome adversity. While we have identified 8 strategies for dealing with ADD, we are certain there are many more. When all is said and done, it all gets down to attitude AND attitude is a direct result of how you choose to think. It's your choice!