Thought Reframe
Worksheet

ADHD Executive Function Tools

Separate what your brain is telling you
from what the evidence actually shows.

Where This Tool Helps

ADHD brains generate thoughts faster than they can be evaluated. A passing worry about a missed deadline doesn't stay passing - it picks up speed, recruits related anxieties, and arrives as a conviction that everything is falling apart. The thought feels true because it arrived with intensity, not because evidence supports it.

This pattern has a name in CBT: cognitive distortion. But the ADHD version has a specific signature. It's not just that the thought is negative - it's that the thought arrives fully formed, at volume, and crowds out any competing perspective before you can weigh it. The speed itself feels like proof.

The worksheet on the next page slows that process down to a pace where you can actually examine what's happening. Writing the thought out, then placing evidence on both sides of it, forces the evaluation your brain skipped when the thought first hit.

How to Use This Worksheet

  1. Catch one specific negative thought - not a mood, not a theme, one sentence your brain actually produced. "I'm going to lose this client" is specific. "Everything is terrible" needs narrowing.
  2. Write the thought in the top section before doing anything else. Getting it out of your head and onto the page is the first intervention.
  3. Fill both evidence columns with equal effort. The "evidence for" column will fill faster because your brain has been rehearsing that case. The "evidence against" column requires you to actively search - that search is the point.
  4. Write your reframe as a more realistic version of the thought, not a positive one. "I might lose this client" becoming "I will definitely keep this client" is denial. "I missed one deliverable, the relationship is otherwise strong, and I can address it directly" is realistic.
1

Thought Reframe Worksheet

My Negative Thought
Evidence For My Thought
Evidence Against My Thought
How Can I Reframe This to a More Realistic Thought?
2

Before Your Next Session

Now that you can see it on paper:

Look at the two evidence columns side by side. Which one did your brain present as the full picture? What was missing from that version?

If this thought returns next week with the same intensity, what's one piece of evidence against it you could recall without needing the worksheet?

3

Tandem Coaching Partners

Credentialed coaches with real-world leadership experience,
partnering with executives and organizations
to unlock sustainable growth.

Consultation

tandemcoach.co/
contact-us

Email

info@tandemcoach.co

Phone

855 51 COACH

Challenge your thinking.
Discover your capabilities.
Act on them.

Dallas, TX  |  Houston, TX  |  Worldwide Virtual