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

As an autistic therapist, I spend a lot of time helping people untangle the shame they've carried for years because they believed they were lazy, unmotivated, careless, or just "bad at being an adult." The reality is often something very different: executive functioning challenges. And when we misunderstand those challenges, we don't just hurt neurodivergent people—we reinforce a culture that teaches all of us our worth depends on how much we can produce.

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.

That's why being late, forgetting things, or seeming disorganized isn't about not caring. It's not a character flaw or a lack of respect. There's a gap between what we intend to do and what our brain is able to organize and execute in that moment.

The desire is there.

The effort is there.

The caring is there.

The ability to consistently translate those things into action is the part that's disabled.

Ableism & Productivity Culture

When people respond to these struggles with frustration, 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.

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.