Kristen Carter (0:05)

Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it's all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I'm your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let's chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I'll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point point A to point B.

Kristen Carter (0:34)

Hey, what's up?

Kristen Carter (0:35)

This is Kristen Carter and you're listening.

Kristen Carter (0:37)

To the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to be here with you today. This is my 299th episode. I'm a little bit freaking out about that 299 episodes I've been recording since 2018. If you've ever heard me tell the story of how I started this podcast. At the end of 2018, I was dying to start a podcast, trying to figure out how to do it, watching YouTube videos on how to start a podcast. And I recorded my first episode probably 72 times before I was brave enough to just throw it out there. I had no launch plan. I, half of me didn't want anyone to listen to it. The other half of me hoped that people would listen to it. But I kind of threw that first episode out into the darkness of the night at the end of 2018 and 5, 6, 7, however many years later, we are like, here we are. This is wild. So if you've been an og, like along for the ride for the whole time, I see you, I appreciate you and if you're new to the show, welcome. I hope that you love it. I hope that you find solace and community and a sense of like, not being alone. And make sure to check out the earlier episodes where I've interviewed basically all of the experts in the ADHD field. It's been such a wild ride for me to be able to chat with people like Dr. Russell Barkley and Dr. Ned Hallowell and Dr. Tamara Rosier. Like, who am I to be able to have face to face conversations with these people? It has been such a joy. And so I'm just really glad you're here. I'm taking a moment to reflect because this is a big deal. 300 episodes, almost like, dang, it's a lot for an ADHDer to handle and I have been persistent, inconsistent at times as anyone with ADHD is, but look what happens when you're persistent. I remember in those earlier episodes I certainly was not Able to put out an episode a week. I was recording on own. I was editing on my own. I was publishing on my own. I was doing every single administrative thing on my own, which, you know, as an ADHDer, like, I had no business doing any of that, and I was doing all of it. And I was not consistent. And I just want to encourage you that you don't have to be consistent to be successful. Instead of aiming for consistency, I just tried to be resilient, and I tried to be persistent. All I cared about was just, like, picking myself back up and trying again. And so there were weeks when my family would get sick. I had much littler kids at the time, and kiddos would get sick or my life would be in chaos, and I wouldn't be able to get an episode out that week. But I didn't let it stop me from just trying again the next week. I was really bad. I was really, really bad at recording episodes on my own. I would sit at my dining room table and I would, like, be on my phone and I'd be like, record an episode. Record an episode. But it was so hard. I was nervous, I was fearful. I wanted people to listen, but also I didn't want anybody to hear it because it's embarrassing, and what if I say something wrong and what if I get canceled? And so there was, like, a ton of fear and anxiety that came along with it. But I just had a passion to talk to adults with adhd. I wanted to create a community where adults with ADHD could feel so much less alone, could feel normal, that the experiences that we were going through could be normalized and that we would just know that, like, the way that our brains work, it's a little quirky, but that's okay. There are so many of us that think this way. There are so many of us that operate this way. And I think that I've really accomplished that, and I'm so proud of it. So whether you are an ordinary OG that you've been around forever or you're brand new to the show, thank you for being here. I really want this space to be a place where our way of thinking is normalized, where you feel like you're seen and you're valued for what you bring to the table, and that matters so much to me. So, hey, hit that subscribe button, okay? Give a little rating for the show. Show some love so that we can continue the work that we're doing. Because there are so many people with ADHD out there just feeling like they're broken. Feeling like they're stuck, feeling like they have no direction. And they need to know. They need to know that they're not broken, that they're okay. And we're the ones that are gonna tell them. We're the ones that are gonna help them to understand that. And you interacting with the show, that's what makes it grow. That's what tells the algorithm that it's worthwhile, and that's what allows for other ADHDers to find it. So today we're gonna talk about following through. And that's a perfect transition, if I do say so, because following through on this podcast was kind of a shit show at first, and it was inconsistent and it wasn't cute, and it was really hard, and I had to deal with a lot of things. And we're in the new year now, and I'm sure you are thinking about, what do you wanna accomplish this year? What do you want to get done? And ADHDers struggle so much with following through. I have conversations with adults with ADHD every single day. If you don't know, I'm an ADHD coach. I coach people from all over the world, and I've coached over 4,000 people. So that's not nothing like. I've had a lot of conversations with adults with adhd. And one of the themes that comes up over and over is, is we struggle to follow through. We want to accomplish something, we want to get it done, but we can't make ourselves do it. As Dr. Russell Barkley says, ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It's a disorder of not getting yourself to be able to do the things that, you know you want to do. And that is what's so frustrating. And that's why we feel so stalled out, and that's why we just feel like, my gosh, I just. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm not reaching my potential. So today we're going to talk about the four things that every ADHDer needs to understand, needs to learn, needs to do before they can even start to follow through. And these are the things that most traditional productivity courses, they leave out. And this is what's so, like, frustrating about being an ADHD human in the world, is that you. You maybe sign up for a course or you sign up a program or you download an app or you, like, do whatever all the normies are doing, and you think, this is going to work for me. But the problem is that most of these typical productivity courses leave out the very basics that The ADHD needs. So they're created by neurotypicals for neurotypicals. And they assume that you, just like all humans, have figured these things out before you've even purchased the planner or before you've even purchased the course. And so what I like to tell my clients is like, those programs were never gonna work for you. And it's not your fault that they don't work for you. They just were never going to because they leave out four things. They assume that you already have a clear vision. They assume that you already have a good enough why they assume that you've already built up as an adult, a willingness to say no. And the last thing they leave out, the fact that you're really gonna need an emotional regulation toolkit. So those are the four things that we're gonna talk about today. A clear vision, a good enough why, a willingness to say no, and an emotional regulation toolkit. Those are the four things that every human with ADHD needs to just like have, like possess before you even start the process of following through, before you even start the process of a productivity program, new shiny planner or whatever it is. Okay, so we're going to go through it today. First, a clear vision adhd. I know, I know, I know, I know you, and I know that a clear vision is very difficult for you to acquire. And there are so many executive functioning skills that are working against you. So if you're new to the pod, if you've never really heard about executive functioning before, essentially, essentially ADHD affects the frontal lobe. And the frontal lobe is where all of the executive functions are housed. And executive functions are the skills that essentially they allow you to function and be an adult. And to varying degrees, these skills are impaired for someone with adhd. For you, for me, these skills are impaired. They can be improved, but they don't develop naturally like they do in typical adult. And so the skills, the executive functioning skills that really hinder us from having a clear vision include organization, prioritization, planning. Like, that's a cluster of skills that we can't, we can't really organize what we want. We can't really think through and put it into order. We can't really understand like what's most important to us and what can go. Prioritization is just like the theme of following through, being able to prioritize and know no, this is what is most important and then let everything else go. That is one of the key skills. And guess who sucks at it. Me. And probably you if you have adhd. Additionally, besides that cluster of skills, visual working memory for someone with adhd, is very much impaired. And maybe you've never even heard of visual working memory, but it's a really important skill. It's the ability to picture something in your mind's eye. Many, many, many people with ADHD are not able to visualize. You're not able to picture what the future might look like, to hold in your mind a picture of where you want to go. And I mean, it's just really annoying that neurotypicals, most of them, do this just very, very naturally. And this is why so many neurotypical people, you just kind of watch them decide what they want to do and then go after it systematically. It's because they can see it in their mind's eye, they can hold it there, and they just like work toward that vision. Well, that is usually a skill that is impaired for us ADHDers. Next up, we have self reflection. That is also very much impaired for us ADHDers. And so without organization, prioritization, planning, visual working memory, or self reflection, how the hell is someone with ADHD supposed to develop a clear vision? And that is like the foundation of how we're going to follow through. However, are we going to follow through if we don't have a clear vision in the first place? And so don't despair. First of all, just take a breath. It's okay. This is something that we can develop. It's just not something that we are born with naturally. We ADHDers struggle so much to, like, see into the future because of that visual working memory. And additionally, we're like in survival mode. We're trying to manage the dumpster fire. That is the chaos of our life. So sitting down and self reflecting and thinking about who we are and what we want and where we're going, it can feel overwhelming, it can feel impossible. And also it kind of feels like, irrelevant. Like, why am I gonna sit down and try to think about, like, my feelings and what I want in life when my life is on fire? Like, I need to put the fire out first. And I get you. I totally get that. But what happens then is we just kind of live in this cycle of only taking care of what's right in front of us and never really knowing where we want to go in the future. So instead of having a clear vision, like a location that we can easily type into our gps. I don't know why I did this, like, keyboard. I don't ever type on the keyboard for my gps, but that's fine. Instead of Typing in the location of the GPS to get us where I want to go. It's murky. Like, if you're like me the way that I used to be, I could have like flashes. I could see flashes of where I wanted to go. I could see flashes of like, what could be. And I would have brief moments of clarity. But. But most of the time it was just muddy because I was so engrossed in the day to day survival of all of the chaos that I was living in. I just never really knew where I was going. I was just like running in circles. Like the spin cycle of the washing machine. Typical productivity courses or planners, or like just even people out there, like on Instagram putting up like the inspirational quotes, they just all assume that the user or the consumer knows where they want to go. And most typical adults do, I think. Right. But a system that's gonna work for someone with ADHD needs to start way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way back at the very beginning. Helping you to determine your destination in the first place. Helping you to know what you want and why you want it. Helping you to understand your values and like, what's actually meaningful to you so that you're not just like throwing anything and everything on your to do list. Because when we throw anything and everything on our to do list and then we shame ourselves and beat ourselves for not beat ourselves up for not following through, and we just get paralyzed and overwhelmed and we don't really do anything. So a clear vision is an understanding of where you're going. That's number one on the list. All right, next up, if an ADHDer is gonna follow through ever, we need to have a good enough why. And at first when I was like thinking through this and like writing this all out, I was thinking I wrote down a meaningful why. We need to have a meaningful why. That sounds so, like, important. But the truth is it really just can't be a meaningful why. Because the question then is like, meaningful to who? Because we ADHDers have grown up feeling like we always do things wrong, we are wrong, everything about us is wrong. And so a lot of times we overcompensate for this. And we tend to be people pleasers. And so in my experience, I've noticed that a lot of our whys are often connected to what other people expect from us. They're often connected to what other people want from us. So a meaningful why really isn't the right approach. Because we really need to question. Meaningful to who? It's just not the right Word. What I want to know is, is your why good enough to get you out of bed in the morning? Is your why good enough to keep you working even when it gets hard, even when it gets scary? Is your why so compelling to you that even when you fail, and you will, you're willing to try again and again? If I go back to myself in 2018, God bless that version of me who didn't know what she was doing, who started a podcast with her little blue snowball Yeti mic in her dining room, just being like, I think I can maybe say something meaningful and gather adults with adhd. That was a really, really good enough why for me. And it kept me going. It was like, somebody needs to be here for these people for me. Like, I wanted someone there for me. I didn't feel like that person was there. And so I was like, I think I could. I think I could be that. I think I could be that not just for myself, but for other people. That was a good enough why? It wasn't someone else's expectation of me. No one else said to me, oh, my gosh, you should totally start a podcast for adults with adhd. No one said that to me, actually. When I, like, I didn't want to tell anyone that I was doing. It was so embarrassing to me. When Greg would occasionally be like, oh, Kristen started a podcast, I would be like, do not tell people. Then I started, I was like, stop it. But my internal why was good enough. It kept me going, it kept me persistent, it kept me resilient. So is your why meaningful to you? It has to be good enough for you. So many of us allow other people's expectations and desires for our lives to wind up on our task list, on our to do list, on our vision board. But we've got to build autonomy here. We've got to build, like, an individualism when it comes to our why, what we want and why we want it. Most people with ADHD are actually allergic to doing things just because. And, like, you already know that because all of those items on your to do list that are just like, oh, it would be, like, really good if I just did that because other people do it. You're not doing them. You're not doing them because you're allergic, like, literally. I just want you to think of it as, like, an allergy. Someone with ADHD is allergic to doing things just because. And so if you feel a full body resistance to doing the tasks on your to do list, it's very possible that you're simply Just not aligned with those tasks. They're not aligned with who you are and what you want. And so I just wanna say cross those things off your list. Like, don't even do them. Whew. Okay, next up. So, number one, we need a clear vision. Number two, we need a good enough why. Number three, if an ADHDer is going to follow through, they've got to develop a willingness to say no. Because you might have a clear vision and you might have a good enough why. A why that will get you out of bed in the morning and really propel you and move you forward. But it's not enough because you've got to develop a tolerance and a willingness to say no to everything else. That is not that vision. And here's the symptom of ADHD that's really gonna interfere. It's impulsivity. Impulsivity is your ability to, like, regulate your impulses and slow down and give yourself a moment to think, think and reflect before you say yes to something that someone else asks you to be. Another thing that's going to hinder you is your inability to understand the concept of time. That is going to bite you right in the ass over and over, I promise you. This is called time blindness. There are a bunch of executive functioning skills that go into our inability to understand the concept of time. It's not just like we're late. It's like we don't understand how time works. And so you're always, always, always going to overestimate how much time you have. I'm sorry, you're gonna. You gotta count on that. You're always gonna be, like, optimistic about how much you can get done. A lot of us, myself included, live in a fantasy world when it comes to time. And I need my team at work who are neurotypical. I need my husband who is neurotypical. I need my best friend who is neurotypical. I need them to tell me, no, what are you thinking? You're not gonna be able to do all of that. Or I go to Greg and I say, what time should I leave for this event? I don't know. It seems to me that 30 minutes is plenty of time. What do you think? And he's like, no, sweetheart, you're gonna need a full hour asking the normies in my life about time, about how much I can manage within time, about what time I need to, like, that is how I survive. Because, like, time and me, we not friends. And so here's the thing. Once you know where you want to go and you know why you want to go there. You've got to develop a willingness to say no. And your impulsivity and your time blindness are going to work against you here. But. But here's what is true. Most everything that is clamoring for your attention is just noise. That's all it is. It's just noise. It's like the bake sale and the volunteer form. Like, right now, it's not the New Year. I'm in the Christmas season, and Operation Christmas Child is a thing, and people are just clamoring for our attention. So it's just like Operation Christmas Child and compassion and angels. It's like there's just so much noise. And just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it, doesn't mean we have to do it, doesn't mean we're obligated to do it. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. And so what I am just like, begging you to do is to first develop a clear vision and to really have, like, a why that is good enough to get you out of bed in the morning and to be resilient and keep working at it. And then thirdly, say no to everything else. Say no, thank you. No, I don't want to do that. No, I'm not going to volunteer for that. No, I'm not going to participate in that. No, I don't want to go to that thing. Saying no is one of the best skills that an adult, let alone an adult with adhd, but adult in general can develop. And here's another aspect of saying no is even something that you've already committed to quit. Could you. Could you just quit it? I know that we have, like, so much baggage when it comes to quitting, and we tell ourselves that we're not reliable and we have so much, like, childhood trauma from, like, not, not finishing what we started and blah, blah, blah. But here's something that I've learned. Quitting is actually for winners. When you know something is not aligned, when you know something is not moving you toward your goal, when you know something is not a part of your vision, quit it. I promise you, you will gain clarity, you will gain time, you'll gain capacity, and you will be able to move yourself closer and closer and closer to your destination. Quitting is actually for winners. I'm curious what you think about that. Like, what do you think? How do you feel when I say quitting is for winners? Could you just quit the stuff that you don't even want to do? That you got strong, armed into saying yes to or that you said yes to when you living in a fantasy of, like, how much time you had, but then you started actually living in the reality of your life and you're like, oh, my gosh, I don't actually have time for this. And moving toward my goal. When I started the podcast and I started my coaching program and I just started, like, really moving in the direction of supporting adults with adhd, I quit everything else. And I was the best. It was. It was the best. Honestly, it was the very best. Because what it allowed me to do was move slowly and steadily toward my goal of supporting as many adults with ADHD as possible. And it allowed me to have more capacity. Because when our entire life is just full, full, full, full, full, we are drained. Emotionally, physically, spiritually drained. And to be able to have more capacity to focus on what matters most, it's a gift. Okay, no more on that. Let's move on. If an adhder is gonna follow through, first you need a clear vision. Then you need a good enough why, A why that's gonna get you out of the bed in the morning. Then you're gonna need to develop a tolerance to manage the discomfort of saying no. And lastly, if an adhder is gonna follow through, they've got to have or develop an emotional regulation toolkit. Now, this is a huge part of following through that no one that I know talks about. Like, we truly just don't understand what a big role emotions play in our ability to take action and follow through. Now, all of the experts in psychology, they know, they tell us that action is taken from emotion. Emotion is what fuels action. So if you have a clear vision, which is like the location in your gps, and you have a good enough why, and you're able to say no to all of the detours along the way. Do you see where we're going here? It's very cute, but you don't have gas in your fuel tank. You're not going to go anywhere. It doesn't matter. The vision, the why, the ability to say no, none of that matters if you can't overcome fear, depression, frustration, or the anxiety of doing something new, right? And so this is why every single adhder who wants to accomplish anything in their life needs an emotional regulation toolkit. You have to have the skills, or at least develop the skills to be able to feel and process and move through all of the negative emotions that come with sticking to a plan, being resilient, following through, doing it, even when you don't feel like it. Doing it even when you've had a fight with your spouse or your kid, doing it when you're scared. It's the huge one thing that typical productivity courses leave out. And this is one of the main reasons why they rarely work for adults with adhd, because I didn't mention this yet, but emotional dysregulation is one of the symptoms of adhd. We feel our emotions real big. Most of us don't know what to do with them, so we spend so much time in resistance. We spend so much time trying to run away from the way that we're feeling. And instead, what we need to be able to do is take a breath and allow that emotion to just exist. And I know it sounds disgusting. It is the grossest thing that I ever have to talk about. I'm so sorry. But it's being able to tolerate feeling and emotion. It's one of the most necessary skills that adults with ADHD must develop if we're gonna do anything with our lives. And so any system or planner or app or whatever course that just allows you to do your own thing, it must include learning how to identify what you're feeling and allow it to be in your body and help it to move through you so it doesn't hijack your whole day. The reason why I'm talking about this is because all of us want to learn how to follow through. And there are so many courses out there that talk about following through or talk about like, you know, this is the five steps to getting to your goal and blah, blah, blah. But like, I want you to see the red flags and I want you to poke holes in what you see out there. Because if you're looking at a productivity course or if you're telling yourself, like, I need to follow through on my list, but you don't understand how to manage your emotions, I want you to back up and start with that. Begin to learn how to identify that you're feeling something and allow it to be in your body and name it and help it to move through you so that it doesn't hijack your whole day. Because, I mean, how many of you have had a fight with your spouse or a fight with your kid, and all of a sudden your whole day is ruined. You can't get a thing done. And so those of us with adhd, we're really prone to emotional dysregulation. And if we don't have a toolkit on hand to be able to self soothe those emotions, we're not gonna be able to get anything done. Now. This might come by you seeking out some trauma informed therapy. This might come from you joining my coaching program where I have an entire course on emotional regulation. This might come from some other way. There are free YouTube video and I have many episodes on my podcast that talk about emotional regulation. But I implore you to prioritize this if you want to follow through. Because what we do, and I know you do this because I've done it and I've supported clients who do it, we put 700 things on our to do list. Most of it doesn't even belong there. None of it is really aligned with where we really want to go. And then we beat ourselves up. We shame ourselves for not doing it. Meanwhile we are paralyzed with fear. We're stuck on the couch. We are just like in paralysis and yet in so much shame for not doing the things that we're telling ourselves we should do. My friend, this is not the way. This is not the way, I assure you. And so if you want to be someone who knows how to follow through, you've got to develop the four things that we've talked about today. You need to have a clear vision. You need to have a good enough why, you need to be able to say no and just tolerate the guilt that comes with it. You will feel guilty. That's fine. Do it anyway. And then lastly you need to develop the skills to self soothe and regulate your emotions. I beg you to before you start anything with productivity, first develop these very fundamental skills. If you want my help with it, I would love for you to join my program focused in it. I have courses on emotional regulation on productivity and a brand new course on how to follow through that includes much more in depth on all of what we talked about today. So you can go to ihaveadhd.com focus to learn more about that.