Episode 1

Hello friends, welcome to the Connected Divergents Podcast. I'm Tina. I'm an ADHD coach. And I've been a coach for the last few years helping people figure out how to work with their brain, with their ADHD brain and with their executive dysfunction, instead of feeling like they're always fighting against it.

Today, I really want to talk about how to build and create sustainable habits when you have ADHD. This is one thing that I'm gonna be talking about a lot on this podcast, but it's something that I'm very passionate about. And I've thought a lot about for myself, because it's something that I have always struggled with, for my whole life.

As long as I can remember, I have tried to do things the neurotypical way, which would be to say, Okay, I want to exercise. Once, you know, once a day, I want to go on a run three times a week. Obviously, if you can tell a lot of what I'm talking about has been rooted in diet, culture and wellness culture. But from a super young age, I would try to say, Okay, I'm going to study this every day, I'm gonna learn Spanish by practicing 30 minutes a day, even for cleaning my house. All, maybe I will vacuum on Monday, wash my sheets on Tuesday, clean the bathrooms on Wednesday and dust on Thursday, do laundry Friday, things like that. Were in my brain. I was creating these rules to follow.

Okay, I will do this, I'm going to make this commitment, I'm going to say that I'm going to do this and follow through, I'm going to do it. And a lot of my feelings of self trust, or lack thereof, rooted in that. Oh, I said I would do this. And here I am, again, not doing that thing, not using this planner that I spent this money on hearing him again, I'm in the same place that I was. So this means that I can't trust myself. And that was a really hard place to be.

And it was even harder, because I would shame myself and beat myself up to try to motivate myself to get back on the wagon. Okay, I got this gym membership, and I'm spending money on it. And I have to go to the gym, I have to use this. And if I didn't, there will be a time where I woke up one morning and didn't go and felt tired and wanted to sleep in. It would feel like I broke my streak. And I could never get the streak back. The level of energy and effort that it would take for me to get back on the train was so hard. And then I would shame myself. And then I would beat myself up as a way to try to motivate myself into doing the thing.

But surprise, shaming ourselves doesn't work, beating ourselves up doesn't work. There may have been a period of time in our life where it did work. But it's brief and sustainable habits cannot be created by shaming ourselves and beating ourselves up. It's not sustainable. It's not going to last in the long run.

And so with that, how we change this, how we do things differently in creating sustainable habits, neurotypical culture, loves the idea of consistency. Oh, you need to be consistent. Oh, you need to post on Instagram three times a day every day, neurotypical productivity, culture loves rigidity, and rules. But ADHD brains do not love rigidity, and who do not like rules.

And so with that, we have to do things differently. We have to think differently, we have to use different systems and tools and mindsets and perspectives that are very, very different from what we typically see from our peers, from our friends, from our family, or even on popular culture, what is it called? The media, news articles and things like that. The typical productivity books and self help books, we have to do things very differently.

And so a mindset that I want to offer you is one of valuing persistence over consistency. And so what I'm saying is that it is a choice to decide whether we care to value consistency of showing up every day or doing this thing three times a week. Or we can choose to value persistence, and being the kind of person that comes back to doing the things that you want to care to and love to do time and time again.

And I'm going to tell you that valuing persistence over consistency is going to help you 100 times more then trying to create these roles and the rigidity ever will. Persistence. Persistence means that you are going to come back to doing the things that you want to do. Persistence means that it's okay. If there's a day that you're not feeling it. That's okay, there's room for that. That makes sense. Of course, there's maybe a day that you want to rest. Of course, maybe there's a day that you're hanging out with your friend, and there isn't really an opportunity to do that thing. That's okay. Persistence means that we have the opportunity that we care to come back to doing those things. And it doesn't matter if it's a day, if it's a week, if it's a month, if it's a year, that is all okay.

Because when we zoom out on our lives, and we see the big picture, those little moments aren't going to matter very much. What's gonna matter so much more is all of the times that we came back, all the times that we kept trying, all the times that we showed herself that it's safe to do less on purpose, because it means that we're still doing the thing that we want to encourage you in love to do.

And so with that, that brings me to my next kind of segue that I want to talk about, which is truly our brains, our ADHD brains love to think in all or nothing thoughts. We like to be zero or 100, we either are doing it every single day, or we're not doing it at all. And with that, we've gotten a lifetime of practice, a lifetime of practice in all or nothing thinking of if I'm going to do this, it has to be like this, oh, if I do it less, that's not good enough, that doesn't count. That doesn't mean anything.

And I'm saying that it is an intentional practice to show ourselves that it is safe to do less on purpose, it is safe for us to, you know, maybe we want to vacuum, but maybe it's not about vacuuming the entire house, maybe we just vacuum one room. And that's it. Maybe we want to spend time outside, maybe we want to go for a run. But that day going on a run feels exhausting. So we make it safe to do less. And we go on a walk instead for just a quick 10 minute walk. And that's it.

Maybe if you're somebody that likes going to the gym, maybe that looks like showing yourself, it's safe to do less by doing less intensity, or reducing your weight that you're lifting, or just having a cardio day and not doing any lifting at all. All of that is showing our brains that it is safe to do less on purpose.

And in this we are breaking away from all-or-nothing thinking in our nervous system. Our nervous system thinks that was a dangerous experience. Let me make sure that that never happens again. And so then we never go back to the gym for months and months and months or we avoid the thing or eat quote unquote procrastinate but really what's going on? On his, our unconscious mind knows, hey, this wasn't safe. Hey, this wasn't fun. Hey, this is a really bad time. Let's avoid this at all costs.

So what I'm saying is that what we need to do is make sure that we create positive emotional memories and positive experiences as much as possible around the things that we want to do. And there has to be way way, way more positive vibes and positive experiences and positive memories than negative ones for sure. It is an energetic balance here.

Those are some of my thoughts on how to create sustainable habits when you have ADHD. I hope this podcast was helpful. I hope it was useful. Please subscribe, please rate this podcast and if you don't follow me already, my instagram handle is @comfortandkindness. And you can find me on there.

Alright, take care. Bye!


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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur dignissim neque metus, non porttitor purus cursus non. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Duis faucibus lacus sed nulla congue congue. Morbi a ligula lobortis, maximus orci in, egestas dui. Duis fringilla ut nunc vitae vulputate.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur dignissim neque metus, non porttitor purus cursus non. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Duis faucibus lacus sed nulla congue congue. Morbi a ligula lobortis, maximus orci in, egestas dui. Duis fringilla ut nunc vitae vulputate.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur dignissim neque metus, non porttitor purus cursus non. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Duis faucibus lacus sed nulla congue congue. Morbi a ligula lobortis, maximus orci in, egestas dui. Duis fringilla ut nunc vitae vulputate.