Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 276: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 2 - Your ADHD Brain Needs Stress

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276: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 2 - Your ADHD Brain Needs Stress · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  Welcome back to part two of our four-part series on trying to think about what
• 0:07
  is actually keeping us a stick.
• 0:10
  Yesterday, if you tuned in, you heard the discussion we had on just measuring your capacity.
• 0:17
  And today we're going to talk about your stress level.
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  And I know immediately you're thinking, I always would have thought sort of
• 0:25
  capacity and stress are super related, and I'll give you they're related,
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  but we're going to look at them in completely different ways because they have different,
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  ways of affecting why we're sitting here stuck in our inaction and how to actually
• 0:42
  create a situation where we have just enough stress to keep us moving.
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  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
• 0:52
  ability to climb a tree that will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
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  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 1:02
  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
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  I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
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  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
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  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
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  then I'm glad you're here.
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  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
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  Together we could have a joy loving home.
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  Two things before I jump in. One, I need to make sure I clarify I am absolutely
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  not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist or any of those things.
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  I am here with my opinions as mom, an organizer, a fellow fish brain,
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  someone who has watched my clients in various states of stuck over these years
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  and just started to identify patterns.
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  And that's what I'm leading into with this little series on being stuck.
• 2:02
  Also, I'm recording in an unusual situation today, so if the audio is horrible, please forgive me.
• 2:08
  We'll try to have that fixed for tomorrow's episode. But I want to jump right
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  into how I am perceiving stress.
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  One of the things that has aggravated me is when fish brains like us try to
• 2:27
  lean into all the monkey advice on how to climb these trees.
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  Which is something we should not be doing in the first place.
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  We get caught up in trying to create a situation where,
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  we have all of the checklists, we have all the priorities in order,
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  we have all of the perfect planners, we have sat down with all the calendars,
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  and we have made the plan,
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  and it's all laid out, and now that means we're supposed to get all the things
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  done just right Because we've put it on the calendar and we have the alerts
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  and it's all super clear.
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  And I think our brain is allergic to this kind of artificial construction thing.
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  In a way that we actually will start to rebel from it a little bit.
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  Our brains do not like consistency or predictability.
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  Our brains thrive on the novel and the urgent.
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  And when you have everything laid out in these nice neat deadlines where if
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  you just do a couple steps each day, you're going to never drop a ball.
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  Doesn't suit our brains. Again, that's a monkey trying to teach you how to climb a tree.
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  You're a fish. You need to get in there and swim around and you need to come
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  across things that you suddenly have to handle now because our time construct
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  of things are due now or not now is real.
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  And so we have to work with our brain and we have to be out here swimming in
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  a way that works best for us.
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  The most aggravating thing and the reason I decided to do these podcasts was
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  because when I was in the probably most recognized organizing certification that I was getting,
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  there was the sort of standardized belief that there are naturally organized
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  people and those who are the clients we were helping who were unorganized,
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  didn't seem to understand that all you had to do was keep like things together,
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  and, you know, maybe throw in a rainbow order and life was going to all fall into place.
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  And, you know, we all know that's not a fix for our brains. So,
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  sorry, digressing here.
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  I, betting if you reflect back on your life, when you have all the deadlines
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  and all the balls in the air and you're juggling all the things,
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  you can look back and see that you were the most productive you have ever been.
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  Your brain thrives on that. You may still only hit 80% of the targets you were
• 5:17
  trying to hit, but man, 80% feels fantastic when you're usually operating on maybe 10%.
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  And I do think it's a myth that a magical checklist with a perfect order makes
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  sure you hit 100% of the things.
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  Causes a different kind of stress for a monkey in which they strive to hit all 100 percent.
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  It suits their brain so that they are hitting much closer to 100 percent,
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  but they still drop balls too.
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  And that's okay. None of us are perfect robots.
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  So we're going to lean into the part where this whole series is about,
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  which is why are you stuck?
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  Why are you not accomplishing any of the targets you're hitting?
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  And that is because your stress is too little. And I know you may think,
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  wait, wait a minute, I feel a lot of stress.
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  But the stress you're feeling is about disappointing people,
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  about letting people down, about letting yourself down, about here I go again.
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  And I wanted to do this in a better way than I've done it. I didn't want to
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  be stuck in the same situation I was in.
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  And I didn't want to be waiting until the deadline is tomorrow and then panic accomplishing things.
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  I hate to break it to you. That is your brain.
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  Continuing to do what it's been reinforced to do, which is to kick in when the stress is high enough.
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  And if your stress is too low or artificial, it's not going to kick in for you.
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  It's not going to accomplish those tasks you're looking for.
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  You may have deadlines, but they may be too far away for your brain to register
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  them as a now obligation.
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  Again, our time constraints are now and not now, and you're going to feel the not now.
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  The same reason I outlined the fact that I had a four-part series coming up,
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  and I have all the bullet points for all four episodes, and I could have recorded
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  them all ahead of time and scheduled them all to drop.
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  Instead, I am recording each one the morning I'm trying to make it publish.
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  Is that the right way to do things? It's certainly not the recommended way.
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  But here I sit at seven in the morning on the day that this podcast is dropping,
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  and I have to finish recording it and edit it and publish it and make a blog
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  post for it. So if you want to make a comment, you can.
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  And I could have done it yesterday.
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  And I didn't because my brain saw this as not now. And here we are sitting in now.
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  So I'm going to accomplish it because my brain sees and feels the urgency.
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  And I want you to quit beating yourself up with wasted frustration and shame
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  because this is the way your brain works and you have to lean into it.
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  So you may ask, is there a fix? What's the point of the fancy planner and the lists and.
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  The calendars with the alerts if I'm going to rebel against them and I'm never going to follow them.
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  It does help your brain recognize that it's there.
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  I do honestly think your handwritten scribbled notes all over the place are
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  actually a better tool for your brain.
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  There's something about the handwriting of things on a piece of paper that actually
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  help formulate those in your brain.
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  And that's why when I encourage pending lists that are non-linear,
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  we may make them and walk away from them and not check them for weeks.
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  Suddenly to discover we can check mark a whole lot of them off.
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  We didn't walk around with them. We didn't prioritize them. We didn't make them all fancy.
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  But the act of writing them down can keep things in your brain in a weird way that I cannot explain.
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  I'm sure there's somebody far more educated in brain science than me.
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  They could explain why that is happening. But I'm not here to touch on that.
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  I'm here to say, I know you've felt it. I know you've experienced it.
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  And I don't want you to beat yourself up because you have a hundred scribbled on pieces of paper.
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  It is the way your brain can organize things. And I don't want you to feel like
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  that's a broken system. It's actually probably working for you better than you imagined.
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  But what I do know that can be helpful is to have some accountability.
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  And one of the most brilliant ways to have some accountability when you don't
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  see real deadlines or when you're trying to force the right amount of stress
• 10:13
  on yourself to get yourself moving is to body double.
• 10:17
  And body doubling can be something as simple as if you've got a lot of emails
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  to get through or computer type work to take yourself to a coffee shop or a
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  library where there's some activity,
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  where you can sit there and you feel a certain pressure.
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  There may be people looking at you wondering why you're sitting there in front
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  of a computer but you're not actually working or you've got your computer out
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  but you're actually scrolling on your phone. This sort of added.
• 10:48
  It may feel really artificial, but this pressure that somebody's watching to
• 10:52
  see if you are actually taking action, that sort of body doubling is base level helpful.
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  If you can ask a friend who maybe works from home and say, look,
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  I'm not going to bother you, I promise.
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  But if you're working and can I set up my laptop on your kitchen counter and
• 11:17
  periodically you walk through to grab your next glass of water or your snack
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  and you're like, how's it going?
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  It can be enough to trigger some activity.
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  It can be enough to have a fellow fish brain,
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  work with you on where you just agree to set timers and text each other back
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  and forth and say, hey, in this last 30 minutes, I got this done.
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  In this 30 minutes, I got that done.
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  There's a really awesome app called Voxer V, as in Victor, O-X-E-R,
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  that works like a little walkie-talkie.
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  And instead of pausing and texting and sort of maybe getting distracted by your
• 12:03
  phone, and again, Voxer is still an app on your phone,
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  but it is a one-touch button where you just say, 30 minutes are up and I just
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  did X, Y, and Z, and then you're off of it and you can hear them respond and
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  boom, you set your timer again.
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  Timers are also helpful, but without the accountability of an extra person,
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  sometimes those can fall flat as well. But I'm not saying don't use them.
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  Absolutely use timers as a tool if that helps you.
• 12:32
  Again, this series, I'm sure you've guessed by now, is leading up to the fact that I have,
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  a tool that I'm really proud of that I want you to utilize that I think is super
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  helpful, and that is my membership group, which I'm calling Fish School for
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  us fish brains out there.
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  And one of the favorite things that we have in Fish School is our Tackle It Tuesdays.
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  And on Tackle It Tuesdays, we have set Zoom times throughout the day because
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  we are there from all kinds of different parts across the US,
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  Canada, Australia, where our time zones are very, very different.
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  And we have times where we come together in a Zoom call and you can have your
• 13:19
  camera off. You don't have to feel any pressure. It is not recorded.
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  We are not using this for anybody else to see. It is a completely judgmental, encouraging space.
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  That we, I said judgmental, judgment-free. Can you tell I haven't had the coffee yet?
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  A judgment-free encouraging space where we are here working together.
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  And so we check in on each other at the beginning of the Zoom call.
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  We announce what it is we're going to work on and we set our timer and we mute
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  everything and we get busy.
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  And guys, I don't know what it is about knowing that there is motion in all
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  those little windows of the Zoom call,
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  where we can see people walk through or, you know, I set mine on the bar in
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  my kitchen if I'm doing a kitchen task and you can see me sitting there washing my dishes.
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  It helps me get it done when I won't do it at any other time.
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  I see people sitting in their offices working on their computers.
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  I see people just sort of disappear and when the timer goes off and they come
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  back, they're like, oh, I was scrubbing a bathroom, but I'm back.
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  It is something about that active body doubling that accomplishes things.
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  I have folks in the group that literally build their lives around making sure
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  they're there for Tackle It Tuesdays, because Tackle It Tuesdays is the day
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  that they get things done around their house, and they're like.
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  The power of that day is the whole, it's worth every penny you pay to be in
• 14:58
  the group. And by the way, the pennies you pay to be in the group is $10 a month.
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  So it's not out of the realm of reachable. I wanted this membership to be something
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  that anybody could join.
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  And so I'm hoping $10 is not a barrier for anyone to join us.
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  I feel like the bigger barrier you may have is feeling like,
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  well, nobody in there could be as bad as me.
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  Nobody in there has a house as messy as mine.
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  Nobody in there will be quite like I am. Trust me.
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  Trust me when I tell you it is a fantastic group where we welcome everybody,
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  and it is not a place to be worried about.
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  Super friendly, super lovely.
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  And we have seen it all. At least I have seen it all, guys. I promise we will not allow any judging.
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  So, and you can always keep your camera pointed somewhere else and still get the benefits.
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  You don't have to invite any of us into seeing anything.
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  You can just have it pointed in a direction where you can see that we're there
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  with your camera muted, muted camera
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  off and you can still feel the accomplishment of getting things done.
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  Enough about rambling about that. I just want to say one last thing.
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  If you go to joylovinghome.com slash membership, the carts are open.
• 16:27
  If for some reason you're having trouble getting in, you're like,
• 16:30
  I want in, I'm ready to do this, something is happening, Joy,
• 16:34
  you're having a technological glitch, which is not uncommon.
• 16:39
  Email me joy at joylovinghome.com. I will see that you're struggling and I'll
• 16:43
  figure out how to get you in there.
• 16:44
  All right, I'm going to stop there because I am excited to talk about tomorrow
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  and I'll be back tomorrow.
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  So until then, right now, we're saying, what is our capacity?
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  What do we feel we have the bandwidth for?
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  What is our actual level of stress? Is it enough stress to get us moving?
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  And tomorrow, we'll explore something else. Until then, continue to choose joy.