Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 263: Three Myths That Keep You Stuck (and How to Break Free)

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263: Three Myths That Keep You Stuck (and How to Break Free) · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  I've been spending some extra time lately trying to sort of dig into why I delay getting things done,
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  why I won't take action the minute my mind notices something that needs done
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  or talking to my husband about things we're trying to tackle during the week and I don't,
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  every intention of doing these things or just in the moment something occurs
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  to me, but then I push it off for another time.
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  And I've just been trying to dig into what is this and sort of change my habit
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  around actually taking the action. And I know that's one of our biggest things that we struggle with.
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  And one of the things that I've been examining in particular,
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  and I think could be helpful to anyone who struggles with this kind of thing
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  is that whole adage of if you don't have time to do it right,
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  when will you have time to do it over?
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  And I think that's one of the biggest ways that our ADHD brains get defeated
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  before we can ever get ourselves to start.
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  It is that need to not waste time, in which we tend to waste time.
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  So we're going to examine that with a little more detail right after this.
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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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  Okay, to examine why we are not getting ourselves going, I'm going to try and
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  bust what I consider three of the myths that we tell ourselves that get us locked into this inaction.
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  So I think one of the very first ones is that we have been taught that we have
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  this lack of executive function and it will prevent us from doing a task the
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  quote unquote right way.
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  Because we don't know how to sort of pick apart all the little pieces and get
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  them in the right order and hold them into our working memory and so that we
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  can see that we should start at A and right after A we should do B and there
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  should be some logical progression.
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  And because we've been taught that this is really difficult for us,
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  then we stay paralyzed at either the complete inaction phase,
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  or we get ourselves swirling around,
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  spending a lot of time trying to think of every step and order those steps and
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  plan how long will each step take and when can I carve out the time for that step.
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  And we spend so much time in planning to get our executive function correct
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  that we miss out on taking any action at all.
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  This is really unfortunate because I think it's funny, we have no issues with
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  sort of noticing those folks who are really good at tinkering.
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  You know, the person who can pull apart.
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  The washing machine because they don't like how it smells, and they can watch
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  one YouTube video and sort of pull everything apart and figure out how to clean
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  it and get it all back together.
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  And we sort of admire that kind of tinkering,
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  yet we don't recognize that they're just experiencing the steps as they go along
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  and adjusting to them, which is something we can do, and we can do it really well,
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  but we don't admire that as much as we admire somebody who has bullet-pointed
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  lists perfectly numbered with an action plan of how long each one's going to take.
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  There are two different sets of skills. One is not any more important than the other,
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  but we've given so much power to the orderly, organized,
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  efficient person that we forget that there is a type of brain that experiences
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  and learns best through doing and adjusting and shifting and pivoting.
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  And that is a skill set that we can't utilize until we actually begin the action.
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  So in order to bust this myth one, if you find that you are holding yourself
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  back because you don't think you're going to do it the right way in the right order,
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  that you're going to suddenly realize on step three that you should have done
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  something in step one that would have made step four possible.
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  And now you have to go back and start over and you're just gonna mess it up.
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  You need to let that go. You need to tell yourself, I am a person who tinkers.
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  I am a person who learns from doing.
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  I won't know exactly what I'm doing until I'm in the thick of it and I know it's gonna come to me.
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  This is a huge part, sincerely, of when I'm organizing.
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  I will get asked questions about,
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  well, what's the best way to do this and what's the best way to do that?
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  Well, every home and every set of things.
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  Are so unique to the home and the person and the lifestyle and the family that
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  I'm organizing with that I don't have clear-cut answers because it sincerely
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  takes me being in a space and tinkering.
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  It's about starting to see things that are alike together that may not be consistent
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  from one household to another, but suits your lifestyle.
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  Your space is incredibly unique. The stuff you already have on hand versus the
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  stuff you might want me to get.
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  It is an, what is it?
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  Hit the ground running. It is a taking action in the moment skill set.
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  All of you have it. You have this ability.
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  You fear messing up. That's the only thing that's holding you back from that sort of first myth.
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  Okay, jumping right to myth number two.
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  Myth number two is you believe you weren't born naturally organized.
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  So you can't see how to make your incredibly frustrating house work better for you.
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  And you believe in this myth that.
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  If you had the right systems and the right routines and you had a home for everything
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  that was exactly right for how these things should be organized,
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  then and only then could you figure out how to make all this stuff work.
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  And because you just, you weren't born that way, you weren't born naturally organized.
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  I can't see what those other people see to even know where to start or how to do this.
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  That myth is holding you back because you don't have to be naturally organized
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  to make a homework for you.
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  Those naturally organized folks make
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  their homes work for them because they line up their life the way their brain
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  lines up and we believe that this linear progression through life is preferred
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  or the right way or the way that makes things easier. It does.
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  It makes things easier for them and for their brains and for the way their brains
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  think and so therefore the way they move through life.
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  You are not wrong when you do things what we would call quirky or,
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  oh, that's unusual or that was creative or that was different.
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  It's not wrong to let your brain, I'm using air quotes here,
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  organize itself around the way it works.
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  So what if it doesn't fit the Instagrammed version of the orderly, neat, organized home?
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  You can still make your home function better for you and your family and your
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  stuff and your activities and the way you move through your home, it doesn't have to work.
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  The right way according to the organizing industry for it to work for you.
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  So you need to let go of that idea of setting your home up for what I have always
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  called the monkey brain version.
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  You're not out to climb trees so you don't have to organize the branches and
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  know which is one, two, three, four, and five.
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  You are out swimming in your stream with your little fish brain And if you gather
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  a pile of rocks here and a pile of rocks there and you know that that's the
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  general mismatch of the way you swim through your morning, so be it.
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  Get rid of this decision that there's a right way to do it if only you could pursue that right way.
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  And just start organizing things as you see fit, as you are in the moment,
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  as you discover. it would be really nice if all my kids' socks were in the mudroom.
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  Why are they in the dresser drawers upstairs?
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  It would be really nice if I could just leave my purse and my keys in my closed
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  garage inside the car so I'd never run out without them.
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  Things that make your life easier are the right quote-unquote way to organize your life.
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  So let's quit letting that one paralyze us.
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  And then myth number three that I want to bring up is that we believe that even
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  if we were to get things organized and set up quote-unquote the right way for
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  success, we'd never be able to maintain it.
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  That one might actually be slightly true. And the reason I say that would be
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  slightly true is because if you were to hire a professional organizing team
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  who are trying to organize you in the classically organized way,
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  you probably wouldn't be able to maintain it.
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  You wouldn't because it's not suited towards your brain.
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  So even if you're like, I'm saving up all of my money,
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  I'm asking as this is my birthday and Christmas gift for the next three years,
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  I'm going to get somebody hired in here to show me this is where everything
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  should go and tell me my system to follow and then they're going to leave and
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  I'm just going to be able to maintain in it forevermore.
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  First of all, you would be in a little bit of a shell shock because our body
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  has muscle memory and we would still want to walk to this drawer and discover
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  the silverware is no longer there because they told you the best place to put
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  silverware is over here.
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  And we would constantly feel like we were spinning around even though everything
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  has a home because it's a home where they said it should go,
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  not a home where our brain thinks it should go.
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  And so fighting your own natural instinct is not a way to maintain anything.
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  We need to work with our own natural instincts.
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  And the quote unquote, right way is the way your brain thinks.
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  That's the right way to handle it.
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  The biggest benefit, sincerely, that you would get from hiring a professional
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  organizing team to come in is that hopefully they would help coach you through minimizing a whole
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  of your stuff, because the universal biggest problem we all have is too much stuff.
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  And minimizing helps anyone and everyone. So that part would be a successful piece of that attempt.
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  But trying to assume that things would maintain themselves, or you would have
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  this sudden capacity to maintain, is a myth in that life gets messy. Life happens.
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  Seasons change. We have needs one year that are completely different the following year.
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  Our kids go through one set of activities and then they shift to another set of activities.
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  Fall is not the same as summer.
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  Spring is not the same as winter. We go through different phases all the time.
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  And trying to capture some perfect setup is this unicorn you're chasing that's
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  actually wasting your time from living in your real life right now.
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  So to bust that myth, you need to just give yourself permission to start setting
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  things up in the way that is instinctual for you.
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  And the person who I have seen who has the best handle on that instinctual mode
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  of organizing is Dana K. White at A Slob Comes Clean.
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  She asks the right questions.
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  She asks, if I needed this item, where would I think to get it from?
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  And that is the place you need to store it. It doesn't have to make sense to the organizers.
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  It has to make sense to you, your family, your brain, your lifestyle, your home. That's it.
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  Nobody else is out here. You know, there's no organizing police coming in with
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  their whistle, throwing the flag, saying you did it wrong. Oh, there's a foul.
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  So to sort of sum up where my brain went with this is that instead of,
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  okay, here's the question. This is where I want to get to.
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  If you notice yourself dragging your feet, you had this impulse to,
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  oh, I'm going to handle this right now.
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  And then you're like, oh, wait, I don't have time for that.
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  I don't actually have time for that right now.
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  I want you to ask yourself this question.
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  Do you really not have time for this right now?
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  Or do you not have the time to do this right, right now?
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  And if the answer is, oh, I don't have the time to do this right now,
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  right now, I want you to hear me in your head say, the thing that is holding
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  you back is this belief that you are having time, if you don't have time to
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  do it right, then you, when will you have time to do it over,
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  is the biggest myth, is the biggest lie we tell ourselves, is the biggest barrier
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  to us getting into action.
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  Because there isn't one right. And,
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  isn't even the best of organizers.
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  The most type A monkeys there are out there that organize for other monkeys
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  that can set up this perfect system,
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  even they will start with a plan and be willing to adjust it as they get into
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  it, when they discover in real time that there is a tweak they could do to make it better.
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  They don't see that as a failure. They see that as an improvement.
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  So if you are stopping yourself because you're like, well,
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  I can't do this right now because I didn't get the new summer clothes out of the attic yet,
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  and I didn't wash them yet, and I didn't set
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  up where I could dump the old clothes that
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  are too small into the right boxes and I don't have my hand-me-down set up and
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  I don't have my donation box and I don't have where my kid's gonna squirm if
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  I make them try on every pair of pants and I don't have everything set up just right.
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  So this is just a lost cause. This is gonna be a waste of my time.
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  None of that is a waste of your time.
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  Super side note pro tip here.
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  If you can scramble your kids into one outfit,
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  and just go, ooh, that was too small, and then you look at, and I know sizes
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  are very deceiving, but you go, oh, that was a 4T, then anything at least below
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  4Ts, we're just going to not even bother with.
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  I don't even have to have them around to try that on.
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  Don't make them try everything on. Have them try on, when fall comes,
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  one pair of pants, the one that fits the right length.
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  If maybe you don't get it in the first try, but you know you're two inches off,
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  you then hold that pair of pants next to every other pair of pants so that you
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  can like let your kid go run amok.
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  That's so not even what this podcast was about.
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  But the point being, you don't have to wait for the perfect scenario to get going.
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  Actually remind yourself you're a tinkerer. You're going to be great at adjusting.
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  Adjusting as you go, discovering as you go, realizing, oh my gosh,
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  this is brilliant, is part of the process.
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  Knowing that you drug a dresser to one side of the room, thought this was going
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  to work, and then realized it wasn't, isn't a failure.
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  It's a piece of data that you're now smarter than you were when you started,
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  and you now know how to adjust it in a way that actually is going to work. That wasn't failure.
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  That was an adjustment. That was an improvement.
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  That was discovering that there was a better way along the way.
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  That can't be done just on paper
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  with fish brains that need to experience their environment as they go.
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  A monkey gets to sit at the bottom of a tree and look at every branch and make
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  a decision ahead of time about which ones they plan to grab when they climb to the top.
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  A fish is out there in the water not knowing what's around the next bend.
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  If you aren't willing to move forward and discover what's around the next bend, you will stay stuck.
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  And we're not going to do that anymore.
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  So there is no right time to do something.
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  What you're trying to wait for is the right time to do it right.
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  And those are all myths that we just busted. So jump in. Take some action.
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  Smile when you discover something new. Don't be frustrated by it. Smile.
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  Understand that this is part of the tinkering process that is going to lead
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  you eventually, in multiple chunks of time, to something that you can be really thrilled with.
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  Hope all that was helpful, and until next time, continue to choose joy.