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Hi, welcome to ADHD Friendly. I am Patty, a professionally certified ADHD coach, and I'm here to share some information to help you work with your ADHD brain to struggle less and thrive more. This is episode 232, and today I am celebrating my little seeds that I got from the library. They're growing. I've got a picture I'm going to share. Then I am going to share a tip about a workshop I'm offering. And then I have my product of the week. This comes out April 1st. And my product of the week, Becca, is a bathing suit. And then we'll dive into our main topic, which is conscientiousness and adhd. Why following through feels so hard. So this is another topic I kind of came across and I thought, I wonder if that's an ADHD correlation, if there was research done with conscientiousness and adhd. And there has been, so I'm going to share that. All right. But as always, let's start with our celebration. My seeds are growing. So in an earlier episode I shared, I went to my library seed lot. Seed launch, seed library launch, the end of January, and I immediately came home. I think on February 1st, I planted all of those little seeds and a lot of them are growing. So if you're listening to this, check out my YouTube channel, ADHD Friendly. So I would say little less than a third of them are growing. Yeah. Are those the snaps or the. The. These are the. The snap peas. Is that a thing? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Look at that. I know. So I'm like kind of. I'm just so excited to have any growth. I don't know if they'll survive when I transplant them, if they'll continue to live long enough for me. I still got a couple of months to get them on the ground. Yeah. As there's snow outside, but it's been very sparkly to watch them and see. So far, so good. So I want to. I want to celebrate that I've been able to grow anything out of a seed when I used to kill even full grown plants. Oh, no. That's really impressive. So that was fun. I didn't purchase anything this week, but my product of the week, believe it or not, is a Sam's Club bathing suit that I got. I've shared. I've started swimming laps. Yes. And I needed another, like, I needed at least one other bathing suit to kind of change out because it's just too slow and it's too much maintenance to keep up with washing the bathing suit. Make sure it's dry, making sure it's ready. So I bought this Betsy Johnson Women's Core One Piece Swimsuit from Sam's Club. Available in five colors and six sizes from Extra Small to Extra Extra Large. 19.98. Bought it delivered, had never tried anything on. And it's perfect to swim in. It's flattering. It has like a nice, like, you can kind of see. I'm gonna hold up a picture of it has, like little gathers on the side. I've not used the little sarong thing, but it does come with that. The one comment that I saw. So if you. If you look, you'll Notice there's only 17 reviews and it has 3.4 out of 5, which isn't amazing. But with only 17 reviews. I read the review, the comments, and they were really about, like, if you're super tall. Apparently it didn't fit a couple of people really well. Oh, if you're very large up top. Oh, it was another thing that, that, that I don't have that challenge. So those were the two comments that I saw that that led. But all of the other ratings for people that it fit their body style, they really liked it. I love mine. I. Comfortable, comfortable, Easy to swim in. Love it. I like the little gold accent. I have to say they feel a little fancy. It's like little beads. They're really cute. And so it feels like it dresses it up a little bit. And so I. I have loved it. And for about $19.98, I went back and I'm really debating getting this little blue guy. It's like blue with, like little, like, almost like little gingham kind of like, pattern on it. It's super, super cute. Yeah. They have white. I would not wear white because I don't. I don't tan anymore. I used to look really good in a white bathing suit, but I am now avoiding this on at all costs. But I just thought, okay, I'm going to share that information because it's $19.99 at Sam's Club. And knowing Sam's at their prices, they sell things out quickly. So I just wanted to share that. Okay, now for my tip of the week. So my tip is I am offering a workshop April 15th that is called the first step Lab. We are cracking task initiation. So we're going to break through the planning and get to the doing. The thing that stops so much of us is that bridge the gap between. I really am intending to do it at this time. I'm gonna do it and then we don't do it right. So we're gonna close that gap and learn simple strategies that help our ADHD brain to take that first step and begin. So Again, it's Wednesday, April 15th, which is two weeks from today, and it'll be at 1pm Eastern Time. It'll be a one hour Zoom workshop. The workshop fee is $39 for the hour and it includes the workshop itself. You'll get a practical worksheet and if you want to replay it, you'll get access to the recording. If you can't attend live for any reason, you'll Anybody that registers will have access to the recording. So register with the link in the show notes in this episode 232 if you're interested, check it out. Hope to see you there. That's my tip. How to get you started. All right, now for our main topic this week, and it's conscientiousness and adhd. So I was reading an article on my reading day. This was one of my reading day finds about conscientiousness. And I became increasingly uncomfortable reading it because it was talking about how people that have strong it's a personality trait that's measured in, you know, a lot of the personality assessments and people with high conscientiousness are on time, pay attention to detail, they're thoughtful. There are a lot of things that those of us with ADHD believe is important, but we struggle to show up consistently. We, we might really struggle to be that conscientious person. So I thought, I wonder if that is reflected because I think of it as a personality trait. It's who you are. So I think if you're struggling with that because of your brain wiring, that it's not that you don't value that. It's that your brain isn't supporting you to show up the way that you really want to. And I would imagine that that would make you feel very I think of it as being dislike. I'm not showing up the way I want to show up in the world. And so ADHD brain wiring makes the consistency hard. We are often described as consistently inconsistent. So we're only consistent at being inconsistent, which is kind of frustrating. But conscientiousness is about consistently doing things. So it's finishing things, following through. They're all the things that we really struggle with. So it's not because we don't care, but it's because of our impacted executive function skills. It makes the conscientious behavior more difficult to consistently do. So what's An ADHD brain to do. What do we do? What do we do? First? We shift our perspective from. It's an executive function challenge, not a character trait weakness. Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is not about you not wanting to show up as a conscientious human being. It's about your brain not supporting you consistently to show up that way. But there are strategies we can explore here. So, like with anything I share, take what works for you, leave the rest behind. But there might be something in here that helps you to be a bit more consistent if conscientiousness is important to you and you feel like it's not showing up the way you want it to. So the first is make what you're trying to do visible. Make it that visible. External concrete. We want to have post it note prompts. We want to have checklists. We want to have step by step templates to avoid missing steps. My brain will skip reading things, and I'm like, totally sure I hit every single thing. And then I'll go back and reread it and realize I went from one to three. Oh, and totally missed. And totally missed number two. And I'm frustrated because I'm like, it's not working. I did everything it said, and it's just that I missed it. It's not that I didn't care enough to read number two. My brain didn't even process number two. Right. So for me, that's more of a spacing thing where I have to make sure the. The distance. Yeah. Between what I'm doing isn't too cramped because I'm more likely to skip if the words are close together than I am if they're a little more spacious. So it's even customizing what you're doing. So if somebody hands you a checklist and it's like single spaced, really tight, that might be hard to follow, or the lines are really long and it's tight. It's like I'll end up going to the next line before I even finish the sentence. And I'm like, that didn't make any sense. Now I'm wasting effort having to go back and figure out why. So think about visible external concrete and making sure that what it is visibly is working for your brain, showing up the way that your brain needs to process it. Number two, shrink the size. So we tend to be all or nothing in our brain wiring. So conscientiousness, I think, is one of those areas that can really like. We want to show up as our ideal self 100% every single time. Let's shrink that down that expectation and make what you're trying to do stupid small. So I always think of it as I want to be the person that remembers people's birthdays, that always sends them a card that ideally would get a gift, the perfect gift that I, you know, I remember they like this thing, and then I saw this thing and I got the thing and, oh, look how thoughtful I am and how conscientious I am to pull this all together. If I acknowledge their birthday, because I am terrible at remembering birthdays. That is a win for me. That is my. That's good enough. So I make it stupid small. It's something I can succeed with instead of setting myself up to be this level, which is kind of a perfect, idealized person that I'm going to really. I'm not even going to be able to do it, but I. I would really struggle to try to do it, and then I'm. I'm not going to be able to, to sustain it. So if you're trying to do something on time, make it really, really small so that you can do the thing you're trying to do. Number three, lean into body doubling accountability, that external support to help you do the thing you're trying to do. So if you're trying to clean up and tidy more and, you know, kind of be a person that does their chores. Plan it during a phone call so you're talking to somebody else. Plan it when somebody else is in the space you're tidying so that you're chatting with them while you're doing it. So it's giving you something to support your effort and your energy instead of just you trying to push yourself to do it. Take before and after picks is another thing. I'll have people, like, text me, like, are you willing to text me when you get there? And, you know, just kind of like, let me know you made it. And then it's that I got here. Like, I'd like, hey, I've had, like, students take a picture of, like, their hand on, like, the library door and they're like, I'm gone. And I'm like, it's like so cool because it's this, like, double win. It's like they got there and they get to use the accountability that they asked for to turn it into a double win. So lean into that number four, track your wins and bonus points. Do it visually, so keep a success list calendar, something that lets you see the wins to build up momentum and keep it going. That's where we get more consistency for ourselves. Consistency and conscientiousness is really supporting a positive self image. So if we're able to do something small enough that we can do it more consistently, it's automatically going to boost how we're seeing ourselves and how we're coming and presenting ourselves to the world. So conscientiousness is really just about thinking about the organization, the planning and the reliability that you can sustain and allowing yourself to start from there instead of trying to start here. If you're here in your executive function levels, meet yourself where you are and then build and that's where you're going to be more consistent. In real life, this looks like doing things in the ways that work for your brain, not the ways that work for everybody else. Research shows that adults with ADHD have lower conscientiousness ratings kind of across the board, which I thought isn't all that surprising. I was disappointed, to be honest, but I wasn't all that surprised. Right. But again, it's linked to our executive functions and our inattention. So in real life we'll forget steps like I mentioned. We'll start strong and then not finish that whole circle challenge. Things fall through the cracks. We'll forget an appointment. Yeah. We'll drop off on tasks before we're finished with them. We won't return phone calls or texts or maybe like we so many times we'll request a refill of a medication and not get to the pharmacy in the five day window before they reshelve it. And then you've got to start the whole process over again. So it's not about knowing what to do, it's about doing what we know. And my motto with my kids, this was so again, before I knew that the whole house was filled with adhd. I just knew they would like walk up the stairs and if somebody, you know, dropped a napkin or something, they would just keep going. What's not mine? I didn't drop it. And I, we were, my kids were really into the movie Robots at the time. Love that, right? It's such a great movie. Robin Williams, come on. So good. But the character, Bigwell. Yeah, his motto was see you need, fill a need. And I used to go around, I was going, see you need, fill a need. It's not about did you do it or is it yours all the time if it's there, if you don't pick it up, who will? And it's just that we all live in the same place, so just see any feeling aid. So my fifth Tip is reduce friction for your future self. So save notes for what works for you in your calendar. If you're like, refilling medication or whatever, put waste baskets around the house. So if, you know, like, I'm not picking up that napkin because I'm not going all the way back in the kitchen to throw it away, put them. Easy access. They think of that. When I take my dogs for a walk, if I have to take and carry the little poop bag with their poop in it for the whole walk, I'm not doing it. But if you have little places, I can drop it pretty quickly. No resistance whatsoever. So think about what would allow you to show up more the way that you want to show up. And what does that structure look like? It often is as simple as just getting a few extra trash cans. Like it, Whatever. The thing is to give you a really easy fix. Create a launch or a landing pad by the entryway so you have a place that you're dropping your wallet, your keys, and that's where they live. Yeah. So you're not scrambling. And then in your head, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be late again. It's like, no, here are my things. This is where I get them from. Yeah. Good systems are what support conscientiousness. So it's not about taking and overhauling everything in your life. It's about noticing from where I am right now, this is the thing that consistently gets in my way that I want to make myself a plan to lessen it. So I'm consistently showing up more in the way that I want to remember. Lower conscientiousness. And ADHD is about executive function, weaknesses, Support systems and self awareness will support us to show up more the way that we intend to as our best self, more consistently. All right, Wasn't that interesting? I found that so interesting. All right, so this is the book of the week. Time. This was such a good one, guys. The Correspondent. This is by Virginia Evans. This was a book club book. I gave this guy four and a half out of five stars. I have to tell you, I started listening to it at first. I could not figure out what was going on. Yeah, I had the book because every book club, like, they'll have the books there for us to use. And I, I picked up the book and I realized the entire book is written in correspondence. Their letters. Oh, and the main character corresponds with a lot of different people. So there's many different people, different dates. Yes. And then there's responses. For my brain, it was Impossible for me to follow an audio. There were people in my book club that listened to it, and they said once they got into the pattern because they're different voices, they're voicing the different people, it was. They got into it. I. Names aren't my thing. Right. I did much better with the physical book, but I really didn't think I would like it. When I first saw the format, I was like, oh my gosh, is the entire, like. I literally. I was like, is the whole book just one letter after another? It is, but I ended up loving it. So it took me a little, you know, maybe like 10 pages or so to get into the flow of it. Right. And then I was off and running. So. The story follows an older woman who spends a few mornings each week keeping up, keeping up with her lifelong habit of correspondence. She writes to friends, neighbors for doctors, even some very famous authors who sometimes even write back, which I found fascinating. It's not a true story, but it was really enjoyable. She writes to George Lucas at one point, too. It's cool, it's warm, it's funny, it's engaging. I, again, I recommend the physical book from my experience, but there were people in a book club that loved the audio, but, you know, just do what works for you. I just loved following the different characters through the letters. I found it a really interesting way to tell a story and they really kept you engaged, which was really like a talented writing. Yeah, I. I haven't. I don't remember reading a book structured this way. I'm sure I have maybe at some point, but it was very cool. So again, I gave it a four and a half out of five. And now my quote of the week. This is from Jane Austen. And she said, nothing is so delightful as a letter from a friend. Oh, I know. If memory serves, April is national letting Letter Writing Month. I, a few years ago, started a letter writing campaign with some people I dropped off with in my life. I picked three people and I still correspond with. So that's been really fun. So just wanted to share that since we're talking about writing letters in the correspondence. That's it for this episode. Until next time. Tally ho.