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256: Discipline that Works for ADHD Brains · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

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  If you are listening in real time, today should be a quick tip Tuesday.
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  However, I wanted to share some stuff, but I'm going to tell you there will
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  be some quick tip practical ideas of how to try what I'm going to talk about today at the end.
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  So hang on for that quick tip part. But I heard a new definition of discipline
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  last week, and I really think it could be a game changer for our fish brains.
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  And if you happen to not know what I'm talking about when I say fish brains
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  or monkey brains then please listen closely for the next 45 seconds.
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  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its
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  ability to climb a tree it 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.
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  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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  All right, probably like you, things will just randomly pop into your feed.
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  And I don't know where they're from immediately. And so I had to do a little
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  digging to figure out where this came from.
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  Definition of discipline that I heard is from Chris, sorry, Chase Hughes,
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  who is apparently a behavior expert.
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  And this is from a podcast interview he did on Diary of a CEO a year ago.
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  Somehow it just popped into my feed. So if you're looking for that and you just
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  go into YouTube and look up Chase Hughes, Dyer of a CEO, it's going to pop up.
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  But his definition of discipline was your ability to prioritize the needs of
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  your future self ahead of your own present self.
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  That's it. That to him is discipline.
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  And what he suggests that you do is you just create situations where past you
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  becomes your source of dopamine for present you.
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  And this delight, the dopamine surge that you get, encourages you to do the
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  next nice thing for future you.
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  So it has this sort of built-in reward cycle. As long as each time you delight
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  with this dopamine hit of something past you did for yourself,
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  you look back with gratitude, and then you look forward to doing it for yourself again.
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  And that is all he talks about is what you need for discipline.
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  Now, for those of us with fish brains,
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  whether you want to say that it's ADHD or diagnosed or not diagnosed or a combination of things,
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  we are incredibly good at beating ourselves up and looking back with regret
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  and kicking ourselves as to why we can't get something right.
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  But if we shift how we think about past us.
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  It could be a real game changer. So his little example is, he says,
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  become a butler for future you.
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  And so what he's suggesting, and this is where the practical tip part comes
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  in, is to look around and ask yourself, what is one very small thing, start small,
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  that you could do that future you is going to be delighted by?
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  It can be something as simple as leaving a little note in a pocket or putting
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  a sticky note on your car steering wheel that says,
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  hey, remember to stop by the dry cleaner on your way home from drop-off. Or...
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  And making sure the coffee pot is clean and set up and ready to go with even
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  maybe a mug under it at night before you go to bed.
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  The first way I tried this since I heard this this past week is in this new
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  year, I've actually been trying to spend a little quiet time journaling in the mornings.
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  And I have carved and allowed myself this 15 minutes to do this.
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  And I grab my coffee and I sit down and I have my notebook and my pen and I've been laying those out.
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  And that was sort of a nice little cue is all I was thinking.
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  Let's set yourself up with a cue.
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  And then more times than not, because I am of an age where I'm suddenly needing
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  reading glasses to do everything,
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  I am sitting down and all settled in and realize I don't have my reading glasses.
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  And so I push everything off my lap.
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  I go running around looking for the reading glasses. And then by the time I'm,
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  resettled, I've lost half of that 15 minutes.
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  And that's such a letdown because I can't extend the time just because I'm out
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  running around looking for the glasses. This is the time I have to do it in.
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  So the first small step is before I'm going to bed at night,
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  I'm usually over in a different room near the TV with the glasses because I
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  was looking at my device while I was watching TV.
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  And I am standing up and I'm walking them over to the space where I do the journaling piece.
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  The couple mornings that I have remembered to do that, I just get a big grin
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  that I'm like, oh, your glasses are here. You remembered to do that yesterday.
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  And what's amazing about our ADHD fish brains is we literally have like the
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  memory of a goldfish, which is like eight seconds long.
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  And we don't even remember that we were doing these nice things for ourselves.
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  So it's literally a surprise and a delight to discover that I had done that the night before.
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  Another quick easy way to do something like that
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  is to you know back to
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  the the running the errand situation if you know you have returns how many times
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  have you gotten to the place you're supposed to do a return and realize you
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  forgot to bring the return or I'm embarrassed to admit the number of times I
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  don't have my purse with me and so I don't have the card if that's something
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  they need to see, which is super frustrating,
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  or the phone so that I have the little QR code from the Amazon return that they
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  have to scan in order to take the return.
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  I have started because I have a garage trying to leave my purse in my car.
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  I don't recommend that if you don't park in a car, park in a garage,
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  but just little small things that you could sprinkle through your life that
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  will make you delight in past you's actions so that you quit looking at past
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  you with shame and kicking her.
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  While she's already down, start taking these moments to say,
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  what could I do to just another one that's so easy.
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  If you're in bed or sitting on the couch at night and you're thinking,
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  gosh, I need to remember to make that call tomorrow. I need to make that call tomorrow.
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  What if I'll remember to make sure I'll remember to make that call is open your
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  alarms app on your phone.
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  Set yourself alarm for whatever time you think is convenient,
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  10, 15 a.m., 10, 22 a.m., and label it, make that call.
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  If you're afraid you aren't even going to remember what that means, make the call to the vet.
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  Whatever it is that you're needing to do, it will be this built-in reminder
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  that you're going to be so thrilled you did for yourself that you weren't necessarily anticipating.
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  And if maybe you remembered that morning and all of a sudden this alarm goes
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  off at 10, 22, you can still chuckle at yourself and go, huh,
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  guess what? I already did it in this time.
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  I remembered it. It's different ways to help reinforce for yourself that you
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  are capable of these things.
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  Another thing he mentions is not that we deal with cash a whole lot anymore,
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  but he's like, you can even at the end of winter,
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  drop a 20 in a couple pockets that you're only going to wear again next winter
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  and delight in the like, wow, you know, this found money that you discover later
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  that you hadn't counted on.
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  So different little ways that you can sit here and think about how to sprinkle
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  some dopamine delight into present you because of something past you did for yourself.
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  And that is the cycle that will help kick you into thinking about future you.
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  Now, notice in this definition of discipline. And in every example I gave,
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  I never said the word routine, consistency.
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  Anything like that. Because most of this type of discipline advice you hear,
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  it's do this every day. If you don't do it every day, you won't,
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  if you have to do it every day for 21 days or it won't stick, there's none of that.
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  If you are anything like the folks that should be listening to this podcast,
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  you do not have a strict morning routine.
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  So if you do or don't remember to do this one evening, it's not going to throw
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  the whole morning routine off because you don't have one.
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  It's just going to make tomorrow's routine easier and give you a smile.
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  And if you don't remember it the next night, oh well, you're used to flexing
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  with everything that goes on in your life anyway.
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  So there's no, there's no fail here. It's just, can I remember to do a few nice things or not?
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  But maybe hide a few of those little post-it notes that says,
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  have you done anything nice for future you lately?
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  Do you remember to thank old you for something she did that made your day better today?
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  Maybe it's pre-loading the dishwasher and starting it.
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  So future you can come down in the morning with a chance to empty the dishwasher
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  right away so that there's places to put today's dishes.
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  Any of those steps would be a super practical, useful way to lean into this
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  definition of discipline.
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  I'm going to state it one more time. It's your ability to prioritize the needs
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  of your future self ahead of your own present self.
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  And then look back with gratitude at past you for having taken that step.
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  And that will be the dopamine cycle that keeps you rolling.
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  All right. Hope you enjoyed that one.
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  And, oh, I have to share one last one that I just saw in my notes that I wanted to mention.
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  One of the things that you all talk to me about all the time is planning but
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  not remembering to execute your plan.
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  I'm going to try and remember tonight when I set the reading glasses down that
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  I also carry the planner over there.
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  So maybe when I'm done the journaling part, the first thing I see is that planner.
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  Or another great place I could put it is make sure the coffee pot is ready to
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  go and set the planner there so while my coffee is brewing, I can at least be
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  glancing at what should be happening on that day.
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  Either one of those steps would be an awesome future me gift all right let me
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  know how it goes and until next time continue to choose joy.