A (0:00)

Foreign. You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Xena. Hello, my beautiful friend. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Navigating Adult adhd. And if you're listening to this in real ish time, happy 2026. If you're not, and it's like, August, you're like, what? I always think about that. Oh, my gosh. All right. Today's episode is an mvp. This is an episode I actually recorded a year ago. And this is my first time choosing to reshare an episode because I have had so many people comment on this episode specifically and how they recognized how they have set shame based goals their entire life and say things like, oh, it's no wonder I've never achieved that. It makes so much sense now. Yeah. So I want to reshare this because whether or not you are a person who actively sets goals at the beginning of a new year or not, you will still have things that you want to change about yourself. And very often, Right. Those of us with ADHD set this from a very negative, shame based place, which, trust me, makes so much sense given the amount of negative messages and negative feedback we've had growing up in a world that is not just designed for our brains. Growing up in a neurotypical world. Right. We know the stat. By age 10, a child with ADHD has heard 20,000 more criticisms than their peers. Okay. Studies have shown this compound that to the the age you are today, to the age you were when you were diagnosed, it is no wonder our internal narrative can be pretty harsh. But when we set goals from that place, damn, it ain't pretty. Okay. As I go on to explain in this episode, so, my friend, whether or not you listened to this a year ago when it came out, I really want to encourage you to listen to it as I have. I re listened. Trust me, I needed to hear it too. And when I am working with somebody one on one and they're setting goals, I always say, hey, go and listen to this episode, because it changes the way in which we set those goals and the way in which we approach them. This. This is so valuable. All right. So happy listening, my beautiful, beautiful friend. Let's go. So, my friends, how many times have you set the same New Year's resolution only to give up within a matter of weeks? Maybe you've just completely given up setting goals now. For me, throughout my late teens and right through my 20s, that goal for me was always to lose weight. Every single time it was to lose weight, lose Weight, Lose weight, right? And as I got older, it really shifted into save money or make more money. Okay? So for probably 10 years, I kept setting those same goals over and over and over again and never following through. Can you relate to that? Is there a goal that you have set over and over and over again? Maybe it's make more money. Could be write a book, start or grow your own business. Maybe it's stop yelling at the kids or be a better parent. Maybe like I said, you've even just given up on setting goals altogether because you're like, what's the point, right? If you never follow through, why set them? My friend, this episode is for you. I hear from so many of us adults with ADHD who tell me that they just don't trust themselves because they never do what they say they're going to do. They just can't make themselves follow through. And that breaks my heart. And it's also one of the hallmark signs of adhd, right? It's when our intentions don't match our actions, right? That is classic adhd. When what we intend to do or what we would like to do, our intentions don't match our actions, okay? It's classic adhd. So you are not alone. And I promise you can actually become someone who follows through. Now, when I say that, I don't mean following through perfectly 100% of the time, right? This is not what it looks like. No, but we can follow through, right? I'm an example of that. And no doubt you will know other people with ADHD who are also examples of that. So why is it then that we struggle to actually follow through on the goals that we set? Okay? I am going to share with you the number one reason why, and then I'm going to give you three steps for what you can do to actually become somebody who does follow through. All right? So the number one reason that we adults with adhd, right, the number one reason why we don't follow through on our goals is. Is because they are shame based goals. All right, here's what I mean by this. So I'll use myself as an example. Every time January 1st would roll around, I would set that same goal of losing 10 kilos, right? That's roughly 22 pounds for my overseas friends. And I would have that goal, lose 10 kilos. And it was because I thought I should be skinnier. If I was skinny, then I would be more attractive, I would be more confident, I'd be more likable, I would feel happier. Like I thought that I wasn't good enough at the weight I was. I thought I was overweight, that I was, you know, unlikable, undateable, unattractive, like fat, ugly, all of these things. I was telling myself things like, you look fat in that and you shouldn't be eating that. You're disgusting. You need to lose weight. I was shaming myself into losing weight. Other shame based goals that I will often hear are, I need to stop yelling at the kids to be a better parent. Why? Because I'm not doing a very good job. I shouldn't be yelling so much. I should, you know, shouldn't take my shit out on them. Or I want to save money this year because I spend way too much and I'm never going to be able to buy a house if I keep living like this. It's embarrassing how much money I just waste on crap, right? Notice how all of these have that tone of like beating yourself up. They got that tone of like, well, I'm not good enough how I am now, like I'm wrong or I'm bad or I'm unacceptable in some way, so I have to change, right? When we set our goals from that negative based place that shame placed, it is not a positive starting point. It's not even a neutral starting point. Okay? You've probably heard me say this before. If you've listened to the episode and if you haven't, hi, welcome. We're so happy you're here. But I'll often say you can't hate your way to happiness, okay? Trust me, I tried. I tried real fucking hard for years. But you can't, you just can't hate your way to happiness, right? You can't hate your way to achieving any goal that you have. Here's what we know from psychology, okay? This is what we know from psychology. And you know, I often talk about how I teach and coach using a cognitive behavioral therapy type type model. It's a psychology based model, right? And it literally demonstrates this. But what we know from psychology is our thoughts, right? What we think create our feelings, right? Our thoughts determine how we feel, right? Thoughts create feelings and feelings drive all of our actions. Okay? Again, our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive all of our actions. All right? So if you're feeling shame, shame is driving your actions, right? Negative emotions don't drive positive actions. All right? So when I think I should lose weight because I've gotten really fat, right? When I used to think that I would feel shame, right? I don't feel good about that. I feel ashamed and what do I do when I feel ashamed? What are the actions I take? I would often hide, I would withdraw, right? I wouldn't go to social things because I didn't think I had anything to wear. I didn't want to be seen or I didn't like the way I looked. I would often eat or drink to numb feeling the way I did and try and feel better. I would beat myself up, tell myself I look terrible in everything that I wear, that I'm disgusting, that I should be able to get my shit together, I shouldn't be eating so much. All of these things, right? Those are the things I do when I'm shaming myself. Shame is not a positive fuel to create positive actions, right? And fuel being the emotion, right? Shame is not a positive emotion to create positive actions. So Brene Brown, I'm a huge fan of her. Brene Brown taught the world that the difference between shame and guilt is this. So guilt is I did something bad, right? When we feel guilty, right? The equivalent is I did something bad. Whereas that feeling of shame, shame is I am bad. There's something wrong with me. I am bad, right? Shame is a lot like a bruise. Speaking of which, I have this huge bruise on the back of my leg, right? Like halfway between my butt and the crease of my knee, right? Right. I've got this giant black bruise. I have no idea how I got it. Such a common thing for ADHD is because we often have difficulty with spatial awareness. I can't remember what that's called. It's like one of our senses anyway. And we often bang into things and I'm pretty sure I just banged into the side of the bed or something like that. Anyway, giant bruise. Back to what I say, shame is like a bruise, okay? If you keep pushing, doesn't heal, it gets worse. Okay? So if we have a shame based goal, right? And we just keep fueling it with shame pushing us, you know, shaming ourselves, shaming ourselves, shaming ourself. It does not heal, it doesn't get better, it gets worse. I actually teach a model inside ADHD home that I use with myself most days, right? And with, you know, everybody that I work with and support. And it actually shows you exactly why you aren't taking action and exactly how to change that. Again, like a psychology based model, right? So I want to demonstrate this shame based approach in a different way. So let's say that you are going to teach a child to ride a bike, right? If you have small children, picture one of your children or otherwise like Nieces, nephews or some, you know, best friend's kid, whatever, right? Let's say you're going to teach that young kid to ride a bike. Now I'm going to give you two scenarios, so A and B. So person A, right? You take this kid to a really big parking lot and you take the training wheels off the bike and you walk them through what's going to happen and you know, tell them what to do. And then they get on the bike and they start pedaling and you start saying, yay, you're doing so well, keep going. And they fall off, right? And you help them, you say, it's okay, you're doing really good, let's try again. Like, I'll hold the handlebars, I'll walk next to you, I'll catch you when you fall. You can do this. And they have another go and they fall off. Like, it's okay, you're doing such a good job. You got a little bit further that time. Like you're getting really good at the pedaling. Remember to put your feet down. Like, let's go again. What do you say? Should we go again? Right? And you're really supportive and encouraging and loving, right? And that's how you approach helping them to learn to ride this bike. Then we're gonna go to option B, okay? And you take this kid to a parking lot and you get the bike out the car. You're like, hurry up, come on. Like, are we gonna do this? Like, what are you fucking around for? Like, get on the bike, hurry up. And just, just ride. And they fall off and you go, come on, what's taking you so long? It's not that friggin difficult. Get on with it. Get up. Stop crying. Stop whining. Hurry up. Right? Push pedal. Come on. Oh God, this is so painful. Hurry up. I want to go home. I've had enough. Like, I'm so over it. You're just, you're useless. Like, you're just useless. You can't even do this right? So there's two totally different scenarios, okay? It's pretty obvious which one of those is like the shame based approach, right? And option B. That shame based approach is often how we approach ourselves, we, when it comes to our goals, right? Our, our equivalent of riding the bike, okay? Shame based goals are often about proving our self worth. They often have this element of like morality attached. I will be a better human if I do this. I will be good enough in some way or acceptable, more acceptable if I do this, if I achieve this thing. Right. And you know what? That often surrounded and should statements. Speaking of which, I can't remember exactly what happened. I was in the kitchen before and I said something to my partner and he goes, yeah, you should do that. Like, I told him I was gonna, I don't know, record a podcast or whatever, and he's like, you should do that. And I just looked at him and I went, you should. I just hate, like, I hate being shoulded on. Like, it's the word I hate the most in the English, like in the language, right? Anyway, should statements often surround shame based goals, right? Like I should be doing more and like, I shouldn't look this way. I shouldn't, you know, be taking so long. I should shouldn't like, ugh, that word, it's disgusting. We just need to delete that from the language right now. Again, my friend, if you have been approaching your goals this way, oh, you are not alone. This is how most of us have been doing it, okay? And as adults with adhd, right? So many people in our lives have shamed us for the things that they think we need to change or do differently, right? I remember being shamed by my family. Not like just a couple of specific people, not all of them, right? But I just remember being shamed for my weight as a teenager specifically, and even like into my 20s, like there were some shameful things said, right? And I was also shamed by one member of my family specifically for spending too much money, for not saving and for, for spending so much money on travel, right? You shouldn't be doing that. Like, you know, how much money have you saved? Like, you know, why are you spending money on shit? Where's all your money? Like, just like real shamey kind of yuck, right? So we often hear things from other people around us in our lives, like, you know, you should exercise more, you should eat healthier, you should save more money. You should just work harder, you should just try harder. Fuck, I hate that one, don't you? Right? And that, of course, that adds to that internal narrative, right? And it kind of feeds this idea that we're just not good enough and that we need a change, right? So a lot of other people have kind of fed us this and we've started to believe it, right? And this again, breaks my heart. But when we use this shame to fuel our goals, of course we inevitably don't follow through, right? Of course we don't, because it feels terrible. We then when we don't follow through, what happens is we use it as evidence that we are a person who just doesn't follow through, right? Like, it becomes part of our identity. I never follow through, right? I never stick to a healthy routine. I just don't have what it takes, right? Like, we start to think it's. It's just who we are and we tell ourselves these stories, right? And it just becomes part of our identity, who we think we are. And of course, that makes it even harder to achieve our goals, to make the changes that we want to make in our lives. But our goals, they shouldn't be punishments, right? Oh, I said should. Did you hear it? Let me rephrase that. Our goals are not punishments. And if it feels like a punishment, then there is an element of shame, like hooked in there. So let's go back for a minute to that story of learning to ride a bike. Okay? So what does person A do when they help the child to ride a bike and actually enjoy riding? They provide a safe, encouraging, supportive, and really loving environment. Right? A safe place to make mistakes. It's not always about, like, perfection or consistency, right? Of course the kid's going to fall off the bike. The kid's like, you know, going to have difficulties and maybe like, not want to go again and cry and have a little accident, right? It's. It's not about being perfect and nailing it every time or like having to do it every single day at 4 o'. Clock. It's about showing up. It's, you know, person A has created that encouraging, supporting, loving environment, knowing there's going to be mistakes. It's not going to go to plan, right? There's going to be a lot of lessons, a lot of along the way, there's going to be heaps of practice required, but with encouragement and support, it's so much easier to keep going. Right? I want us to go on a related tangent for a moment, okay. About consistency. So if you've listened to one of the recent podcasts I did on inconsistent success and how you can create inconsistent success with adhd, right? If you haven't, my friend, after this, go listen to that for sure. But one of the most consistent things about people with ADHD is we are consistently inconsistent. Okay? Now, this is not bad news by any means. It certainly does not have to be a problem at all. Okay, let me demonstrate with the learning to ride a bike example, right? In order to learn to ride a bike, you don't have to ride the bike every single day. You don't have to ride it every single day at a certain time, right? You don't have to ride every single day in order to become somebody who can ride a bike. You could ride a couple of times a week, then maybe you miss a week, and then you do one time that next week, and then the next week you might do three or four times, right? Over time, you become somebody who can ride a bike without having to think about it. But it doesn't require consistency or perfection. It simply requires that you keep showing up and you don't quit, right? Inconsistency is actually what creates the success that inconsistency is what actually creates the ability to ride the bike, okay? You don't have to do it every single day in order to achieve it, in order to be able to create the habit, make the change, right? The more we are going to do it, right, the sooner it becomes automatic rather than manual, right? We can flick it onto autopilot, right? You know, when you're riding a bike, it was like the same for like learning to drive a car, right? Which you might remember a little bit more. I don't know you, but I was like 5 or 6 when I learned to ride a bike. I was really little, but learning to drive a car, right? I remember when I first started, I had to really think about it, like put it into first gear, okay? Let the clutch out a little bit. Move your foot off the brake onto the accelerator, right? Okay. Look where you're going. Like there were all these things that you were thinking about and now all of that shit's 100% like automatic. Probably too much though, right? It's like autopilot, right? You can now drive and you don't even like register what you're doing. You just automatically do it, right? But you didn't have to consistently show up every single day to learn how to drive that car, right? You just had to not quit and continue to show up sometimes. And the more you showed up, right? The more you continue to show up, the sooner it becomes this automatic or I call it like autopilot thing that you do that you don't even have to think about, right? Okay. All right. Tangent totally related. Back to unshaming our goals. Okay, so let's put this into a three step simple process that you can actually action. Okay? Step one is recognize shame based goals, right? Recognize where you have one or maybe more of these, right? And it would sound like I need to lose weight because I'm disgusting or I should stop yelling at the kids because I'm a bad parent. Okay? A really key question to ask to help you find out if this is a shame based goal is, does this goal make me feel bad about myself before I even start? Okay, that question again. Does this goal make me feel bad about myself before I even start? Okay, number two is to reframe the goal, right? We want to shift out of the negative place, right? The shame based place, into either a compassionate place or at least a more neutral starting point, right? We want to move out of the negatives to the neutral line, right. Or into a positive place if we can. Right? For example, I want to feel strong and take care of my body or I want to feel calm and connected to my kids. So some key questions that I like to ask here are, if I already believed that I was good enough, would I still want to achieve this goal? Would I still want to work on this? And then another great question to ask is, what is the kindest way I can approach this goal? Right. Or what is the most loving and supportive way that I can approach this goal? And then the third step is to build in emotional safety for yourself, right? Like shame free support, right? So if I was to like, use the bike riding example, right? We talked about the two different ways that you could help a child to ride a bike. We want to lean into the encouragement, the flexibility, the celebrating of the progress, right? Not the perfection, Right. Again, we want to remind ourselves that inconsistency is totally normal. It's not a problem and it doesn't mean failure. Right? It's inconsistent and just continuing to show up, right? So in order to build in this kind of emotional support and safety element, one of the key questions I like to ask is how will I support myself when I mess up or when I, you know, have a setback, how will I support myself? Right? Because regardless of what goal we said, of what we are trying to achieve or change, there will always be roadblocks, there will be fuck ups, there will be setbacks, like all of it, right? We can't, like, we can't avoid that. But it doesn't have to be a reason that we quit either. So how will I support myself when shit hits the fan, when things don't go to plan? Right? How will I support myself? That's really about having your own back. How are you going to do that? All right, my friend, have a beautiful new year. I know that you have this. You, you've got what it takes and I am cheering you on. Let's fucking get after it. Let's go. Right? I got you. Let's do it. Hey, friend, if you want some more help navigating and thriving with ADHD and some help applying everything that you're learning here on the podcast. Then head over to our website navigating adultadhd.com.