A (0:00)

Hi, welcome to ADHD Friendly. I am Patti. I'm an ADHD and Executive Functions coach and I'm here to share some tips and tools to help you to struggle less and thrive more with your ADHD brain wiring. If you would like more support than I can offer in this podcast, I invite you to check out the ADHD Friendly membership more information@adhdfriendly.com where adders get more things done. All right, this is episode 220 which means it's a special 10 episode. Every 10 episodes we focus on something specifically related to thriving with adhd. And this year is. Or this year, well it is a new year. It's no exception. We're going to be celebrating something with a calendar today and then the main topic is before you set your goals, do this. So if you are a intention goal aim setter, I invite you to pause and check out this episode before setting long term goals. All right, let's start as we always do, with a celebration. And I am celebrating. I got a new desk calendar. I just printed a picture of it. It's actually 11 by 17. It's a full size desk blotter calendar. I use this to track my yoga and have been for years. If you follow this podcast, you know I save all of my my calendar sheets when I tear them off as that evidence that I can be consistent with my yoga routine. And this one I got because it has such pretty pictures. I I honestly I fell in love with it because of the snowy scene. But I'm also using it this year which is my additional celebration to track my walking as well as my yoga. I was doing it on two separate calendars which worked for me for years. I always say we have great systems until we don't. And for whatever reason this year that system stopped working. So I did not order a separate dry erase calendar to track my walking habit and decided to keep it right in front of me with my yoga. And I'm going to just notice how that works. So I'm doing them both on this very sparkly calendar. And what I really liked about this one and this is the yeah, I got it on Amazon. It was 23.95 for the 22 by 17 desk calendar. It has a little section for notes on the side which I really like because I resist writing on my calendar at all. But I would always love kind of put sticky note on it or something. But the sticky notes never stay because I it's literally on the surface of my desk. I'm always hitting with my arm and it just doesn't work. So I love that it has space for me to take notes on and it's very sparkly. So it's definitely pulling me in and I'm using it. So I'm hoping that that continues. But I want to celebrate progress and that I have a sparkly tool to kick off the new year. That is my celebration. Now for my tip for this episode and if you haven't yet gotten the support that you need to thrive with your ADHD brain more and struggle far less, I invite you to check out my membership Community at ADHD Friendly we are kicking off 2026 with my plan Act Thrive program today. If you're listening to this, on Wednesday, January 7th I am doing a live workshop at 2012 Eastern called Plan Big Start Small. We're going to do annual and semester planning. This program is all about planning. We're going to be focused on it throughout 2026. You can jump in anytime, but I invite you to check it out now and get started as we're all starting together next Wednesday the 14th. The workshop will be all about picking your one word theme for 2026. And then on the 21st I have another workshop called Plan Smarter Not Harder. We're going to be creating and about how to make an ADHD friendly planner and planning system. So I invite you to join the membership. It's only $95 a month. You can cancel anytime. You have access to all of the live events. All of the live webinars, all of the recorded webinars are in the library for you to go back and Visit. There are 30 of them. More than 30 in there now that you can go back and watch On Demand with topics with everything from boundaries to time management to planning to you name it, it's pretty much in there. Procrastination. There's just so much wealth of good information in there. And then of course I have my on demand courses. Build your personal owner's manual, your Palm as well as the ADHD Friendly Planning course and the year long four semester long course ADHD U Everything you want to know about ADHD and how to work with your brain at ADHD University or ADHD you that is a four semester year long course. All of the content, materials, worksheets are in there. Again only 95amonth. You if you're not positive this is for you, go on my website and sign up for my newsletter to get a link to sign up for a free 30 minute Q&A call. If you want to learn more. That's how you would do it. I hope to see you in the membership. That is my tip as we kick off 2026. It is just a fabulous community and I get up trying to help people with ADHD to work with their brains. And that's everything that I'm creating and putting out into the world is about that. So if you're looking for something that works for you, come on over, check it out, see if this is the thing that is exactly what you need at the right time, which is now. All right, now for our topic for this week. Before you set your goals for 2026, do this. So new years are sparkly. New beginnings are sparkly. It often comes with a boost of energy, a feeling of certainty. We've got motivation, we've got momentum. It feels like this is my year, right? And we often rush in because we feel that energy and we just start. But pausing is really key. It's also really hard with our brains. So giving our brains the gift of slowing down and identifying what is really important to us, what matters the most, so that we're not just fueled by that urgency or the sparkle or the outside external expectations. We're navigating from what's the most important thing in our lives. So our intentions, our aims or goals, whatever you call them, work best when we are coming from reflection and intention, not just spontaneously rushing in. So to do the pausing, I'm going to share a few steps to help you choose fewer but more impactful goals that will actually fit your life. So I'm going to share some tips. I encourage you pick the ones that feel most sparkly or most helpful. Don't try to do them all. It's not about all or nothing. It's about progress and finding something that works for you. So here's my first tip. Do a wins review. So look at what worked in the last year. Maybe you arrived more consistently on time. Maybe you were better at writing things down so you wouldn't forget them. Whatever it is note would work for you. Capture those wins. It's an important piece of planning going forward because you'll get a sense of what really did work for you and where you were able to move the needle in your direction. Number two, do a survival review. So where did you persevere despite challenges? Where did things get really hard but you kept going? Notice where you were able to dig deep and continue moving forward even in the face of adversity. That's really important to be aware of, where you were able to push through. What was it about the circumstances or the thing that you're working towards that allowed you to keep going. Number three, notice what drained or energized you. I love to flip through my calendar and literally just note the different appointments, the different events that happened over the year and whether or not they were an energy builder or an energy drainer. You will see patterns over the year if you give yourself permission to look back and see what that was. That maybe group work energized you or maybe group work drained you, or maybe there was a project that got you really excited or certain appointments that you always looked forward to or you dreaded. Just noting that can again help you to go forward with more intention. Number four, notice what you're carrying that isn't yours. And by that I mean what expectations are you holding on to that feel like shoulds to you? They're not coming from you, they're not internally driven, they're coming from the outside. Maybe you are working hard for a promotion that you don't really want or care about. Or maybe you are investing your money into something that isn't aligned with your values. So notice what you're continuing to hold on to that isn't serving you. Number five, do a capacity reality check. And by this I mean notice where your limits are. I met with a student earlier this morning who had a goal of working during a break in in his coursework and you know, kind of had this like I'm going to get up at 6am and I'm going to do these different things. And, and the more we talked about it I was like, well so what does that look like in, in real life when you go to implement that? Then the reality was they weren't going to get up at 6am when they didn't have to for a class. So it's adjusting our expectations so we're able to meet them and succeed, not expecting ourselves to go and run a mile every morning at 5am if we know we're not going to do that or we know we're not going to be able to do it more than once. So what's sustainable for you so that you can succeed and make progress so you're not setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. Number six, choose a focus or a theme word for the year. Let it help you filter your goals. As I mentioned a minute ago, we're doing that next week in the membership if that interests you. Check out the membership. I create the structure to let you do these things instead of just thinking about them or putting them on a list. But a theme word can really help ground you like a touchstone throughout the year, help bring you back with your noticing that you're wavering off course. Or maybe something that comes across your dashboard and you're not sure whether or not you should take it on. Maybe you use your theme word to explore and make that decision a little bit more easily. Number seven Ask your future self one question. So the question might be a year from now, what would make life feel lighter or you know, customize the question for you? I always like to think a year from now, what will I wish I had done? Or what would I be celebrating, like really happy that I chose to to take on or to remove from my life. But ask yourself a question that your future self is put in a position to answer so you're supporting your future self by asking it. Just a reminder as we wrap up that's that's all of my tips is just before setting your goals for 2026, pause and reflect first, then choose so you're prioritizing with fewer, better fit goals that are going to lead to more follow through and more successes. That's it. All right now finally for the book of the week. This week it is Night of the Seven Kingdoms. This is the George R.R. martin book that they are currently making into. I believe it's. Yeah, it's HBO original series coming out soon. I wrote a one word summary of it follows a traveling knight named Dunk and his young squire Egg. If you've watched Game of Thrones, you might recognize that name as they move around Westeros and discover what it means to be a good knight. This I gave a 4.5 out of 5. Really, really good. Really enjoyed it. It takes place about 100 years before game of Thrones picks up so it has some familiar names, some even familiar characters that you already have maybe heard about. So really easy to get into. If you're a Game of Thrones fan. I highly recommend that one. And as always I will finish this episode with a quote. And this is from Jonathan Lockwood. Huey, I don't know who he is, but Jonathan, thank you for this. He said celebrate endings for they precede new beginnings. Love that. All right, that's it guys. Really quick, short, sweet one. Just wanted to kick off the new year with a few tips. This episode 220 celebrating setting goals by pausing first and paying attention to what your priorities are. So you're setting yourself up for success. Here's to a great 2026. Hope to see you at ADHD friendly and back here for next week's episode. Until that time, tally ho.