Executive Functioning , Ableism and the Myth of “Trying Harder”

You know the email needs to be answered. You know the laundry needs to be folded. You know you need to make the appointment, start the project, return the phone call. Sometimes you even want to do these things. And yet, somehow, you can’t seem to get from knowing you need to do something to actually doing it.

As an autistic therapist, I hear versions of this all the time. People come in believing they’re lazy, unmotivated, irresponsible, or somehow just bad at being an adult. They’ve often spent years trying harder, creating more systems, making more lists, and criticizing themselves when none of it seems to work the way it’s supposed to.

But it turns out what they’re describing isn’t a lack of caring or effort. It’s executive functioning challenges.

And understanding that difference can change the way we see ourselves. It can also help us recognize something bigger: how much of what we consider “normal” is shaped by ableist expectations—and how those expectations affect all of us.

What Is Executive Functioning?

Executive functioning is the brain's management system. It isn't about intelligence, motivation, or how much someone cares. It's the system that helps us start tasks, prioritize, estimate time, remember multiple steps, switch between activities, organize, and follow through. For many neurodivergent people, that system doesn't work consistently.

Imagine that every morning you had to consciously think through every single step of getting ready—how to get out of bed, brush your teeth, make breakfast, pack your bag, and leave the house—while everyone else seemed to have those tasks running automatically. That's what executive functioning challenges can feel like. Things that look simple from the outside require enormous mental effort, deplete our energy, and use more “spoons” than people realize.

Another way to think about it is like driving a car with a transmission that slips unpredictably. Sometimes you press the gas and everything works perfectly. Other times you press just as hard, and the car barely moves. The inconsistency is one of the hardest parts. People notice the days when everything works and assume it should always work that way, but they don't see how unpredictable the system really is.

The Myth of Trying Harder

If it were simply a matter of trying harder, we'd be the first people to solve it. Most of us have spent our entire lives trying harder. The problem isn't a lack of effort—it's that the brain processes that organize effort don't work reliably. We often spend far more energy accomplishing everyday tasks than people realize, yet still don't get the same results.

Over time, that kind of ongoing mismatch can lead to burnout, shutdown, or depression as the nervous system becomes overwhelmed—not because people stop caring, but because the system has been pushed past its capacity for too long.

Think about the last time you had the flu, were severely sleep deprived, or were under overwhelming stress. Your thinking slowed down. You forgot things. Starting tasks took more effort. You weren't lazy—you were working with a brain that wasn't functioning at full capacity. As Devon Price writes in Laziness Does Not Exist,what we call “laziness” is often exhaustion, overwhelm, or unmet support needs—not a character flaw. Executive functioning challenges can feel like that, except they're part of everyday life, even when we desperately want to do well.

And this isn't just a matter of mindset. Executive functioning has a neurological basis. The brain networks involved in attention, working memory, inhibition, planning, and getting ourselves to act are real, and research has shown differences in how these networks function in neurodivergent people. We also know that stress and a heightened state of arousal can make executive functioning harder to access.

And this matters because neurodivergent people can be taking in more information, processing more sensory input, navigating more social demands, and working harder to filter and adapt to the world around them. For people with highly sensitive nervous systems, that can mean spending much more of our day in a state of stress or arousal—even when nothing particularly dramatic is happening.

So when you're sitting there staring at the thing you need to do and thinking, “Why can't I just do this?”, you may be trying to access an already-challenging brain function while your nervous system is overloaded. Shaming yourself isn't going to make your brain suddenly produce a capacity that isn't available to you in that moment. In fact, stress can make executive functioning even harder.

Sometimes the first step isn't trying harder. It's creating the conditions that allow your brain and nervous system to access the things you're asking them to do.

What returns you to your baseline? A walk in nature? A hearty meal? Your special interests or hobbies? Maybe it’s 48 hours in bed. Sometimes it is for me!

But there are also times when it doesn't matter how much we rest. The demands and expectations of our lives may simply be beyond our capacity. We can regulate our nervous systems, take the weekend off, eat the meal, spend time in nature, and get eight hours of sleep—and still find that we're being asked to do more than our brains or bodies can sustainably give.

That's where we may need to make bigger changes. Maybe we need accommodations. Maybe we need to scale back our work, change how we spend our time, ask for more help, or let go of something we thought we were supposed to be able to do.

And sometimes we've placed those expectations on ourselves. We've absorbed the messages around us so deeply that we don't even realize we're asking ourselves to live at a pace or capacity that isn't actually sustainable for us.

Rest and regulation can help us access more capacity. But they can't make an impossible load possible. Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do isn't figure out how to tolerate more. It's change what we're asking of ourselves.

When the Expectations Are the Problem

When people respond to these struggles with shame, or judgment—as though we should simply be able to do what our disability makes difficult—that's ableism.

Ableism is woven so deeply into our culture that many of us don't even recognize it anymore. We've been taught that our worth is measured by our productivity, organization, punctuality, and ability to push through, regardless of what our bodies or brains are telling us.

This shame-based way of treating one another doesn't only affect people with disabilities. It affects everyone. It's the voice that tells you to get out of bed and go to work even when your body is screaming for rest. It's the belief that needing accommodations, slowing down, asking for help, or honoring your limits is a moral failure instead of a human reality.

Many modern workplaces and economic systems reward this mindset, valuing productivity over human well-being. Many of us learn to override our bodies and nervous systems because we've been taught that pushing through is virtuous and slowing down is weakness.

When we challenge ableism, we aren't lowering standards. We're recognizing that human beings have different bodies, different brains, different capacities, and different support needs. We're creating a world where people are valued not for how much they can produce, but because they are human.

Disability is not a separate category of people. It's part of the human experience. If we're fortunate enough to live long lives, most of us will experience disability in some form through aging, illness, injury, or changes in our bodies and minds. Ableism ultimately harms all of us because it teaches us to fear and devalue something that is an inevitable part of being human.

Personally, the more disabled I've become, the more I've discovered the beauty of being loved and cared for simply because I exist—not because I've earned it. I think that's one of the loveliest parts of being human, giving and receiving love and support.

For those of us who are disabled, there is profound healing in letting go of the belief that we must earn our worth by keeping up with a world that wasn't designed for our bodies or our brains.

Healing isn't finally becoming organized enough, productive enough, or efficient enough to satisfy everyone else's expectations. Healing is recognizing that our worth was never dependent on those things in the first place.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti wrote, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Perhaps it is no measure of health to expect ourselves to thrive in a culture that asks us to override our nervous systems, ignore our bodies, and measure our humanity by our productivity.

We don't need to become less disabled to be worthy of love and belonging.

We need a world that makes room for disabled people.

We need to stop apologizing for having human limits.

The next time you find yourself running late, forgetting something important, struggling to begin a task, or needing more rest than the people around you, remember this:

You are not failing at being human.

You are living in a world that often asks human beings to function like machines.

You don’t have to believe that lie anymore.