Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 277: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 3 - The Comparison Trap

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277: 4 Things Keeping You Stuck - Part 3 - The Comparison Trap · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  If somehow you have just stumbled upon this podcast, welcome.
• 0:04
  We are in the midst of four part series. This is part three on examining why
• 0:10
  we get stuck and can't seem to take any action on our homes.
• 0:14
  So you can listen to any of the four parts in any order you want,
• 0:18
  but just make sure at some point to catch them all.
• 0:20
  So it starts on episode 275 where we examine how to make sure we're matching
• 0:27
  our capacity in any given day with choice of activity because it matters in keeping you moving.
• 0:35
  In episode 276, we're measuring our stress and ensuring we have enough of it to take action.
• 0:42
  I didn't touch on the paralysis of too much stress, but if you were there,
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  please figure out how to get some help because that has bigger implications
• 0:51
  to your health than just a messy home.
• 0:54
  And I think there are a lot, people a lot more qualified than me to talk about having too much stress.
• 1:01
  And then today, however, we're just going to dig into comparison traps.
• 1:06
  And this is a special kind of stuck that loves to disguise itself as inspiration or research.
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  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
• 1:21
  ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
• 1:25
  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 1:31
  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
• 1:36
  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,
• 1:44
  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
• 1:49
  then I'm glad you're here.
• 1:51
  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
• 1:56
  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
• 2:02
  I'm guessing you know where I'm going with the idea of the comparison trap,
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  but it really needs to be repeated because sadly, I think we forget that all of those things we,
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  doom scroll through, whether it be Pinterest or Instagram or TikTok or Facebook
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  or YouTube, all the things,
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  all the places where we spend time watching other people's lives instead of
• 2:30
  being in the midst of our own, it's really, really dangerous.
• 2:34
  And don't worry, I'm not immune to it. I have my own battles with the addiction
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  of it, especially the way it gives our lovely fish brains the dopamine hits that it does.
• 2:47
  But I think for the ADHD brain, it really is an incredible trap because it leans
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  into our distraction of the shiny things and it just.
• 3:02
  It feeds that feeling that we're a little different and can't somehow get our
• 3:10
  lives in order like everybody else's we are seeing in our feed.
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  And I want to reiterate that anything we see on any of those platforms is performative,
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  staged, edited, styled, you name it.
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  It is not a real picture.
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  The reason you're not seeing folks just like you on those platforms is because,
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  even if they wanted to be real and true,
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  the distraction of an actual brain like yours, managing to think to set up the
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  camera and then once the camera was set up, still have the thought in their
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  head of what they were going to do.
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  And not end up walking away from the camera because they're distracted in another
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  space or being willing to be raw about the way their home looks.
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  And I know you'll see snippets of that, but at the same time,
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  a lot of, and I'm not saying there aren't exceptions because there's exceptions
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  to every situation, but...
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  It would often mean that there are people in the background that help them with
• 4:28
  getting it scheduled, getting it edited, getting it filmed.
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  Even if they're trying to be real on camera, nobody is 100% real in a situation
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  that they're putting out to the public, podcasts included.
• 4:44
  I just, I think we have to remind ourselves that that format rewards monkey brains.
• 4:56
  It rewards even the other extreme a lot in the sense that people who are in
• 5:05
  a need for control can have their life in really great order.
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  And it doesn't mean that that's not their own kind of battle they're facing.
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  It's just we reward that battle instead of shame that battle.
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  But everybody has a battle.
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  I don't want you to remember that when you see something so perfect.
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  They're having their own struggle to walk through. Just because we reward perfectionism
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  doesn't mean it's a desired trait and doesn't mean it doesn't give them troubles.
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  So just when you're seeing all the things, try to give yourself this buffer of,
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  okay, this was presented with help, with editing, with styling,
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  with all the things that make it performative.
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  Not productive.
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  I also want you to remember that you have time to sit and doom scroll through the best,
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  cooking people and the best workout people and the best styled clothes and the
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  best styled homes and the best organization and the best mommy parties and the best.
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  Gift givers and the best book readers.
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  And you're like, I can't do all the things.
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  None of them are doing all the things. All of them are doing the thing that they zero into the most.
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  And when that becomes your job and you get to do it a lot more than anything
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  else you're doing in your life, you get really good at it.
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  And somehow we believe the snippet of our life that is involved in our fashion
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  or is involved in our home or is involved in packing the lunches for our kids,
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  is the same amount of time that they're spending.
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  It's not. This is what they have created as their thing.
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  And anything you do as your job, whether you consider it a quote unquote real
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  job or not, you're going to do it well, spend extra time at it,
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  have lots and lots of reps, and,
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  get it just right because that's how you're presenting it.
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  You're good at your particular job too.
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  Which leads me to also saying.
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  We see these folks online that, quote unquote, have their schedule set up and
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  their planner set up and they're killing it. They're doing all the things just
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  right and they don't seem to have the hiccups in their life.
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  Their life doesn't seem to life like yours might.
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  Like I'm getting this podcast out two, three hours later than I wanted because,
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  I've got an old dog that's struggling and I was up most of the night.
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  I've got, you know, people get sick, people have unexpected appointments and
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  calls and fires that you have to put out.
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  That is life.
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  And you're not trying to make your life squeeze into the margins of your perfect schedule.
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  You need to be living the life and squeeze the things you want to get done into
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  the margins of that schedule.
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  Or that living, quite frankly. You need to be focused on
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  the actual human element, the actual living of the life, and less concerned
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  about whether it's checking off the lists and matching up with the planner and
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  matching with, but I time blocked this,
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  for meal prep, and somehow I missed on my list.
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  I was supposed to get the chicken out of the freezer last night,
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  and now it's frozen and I can't meal prep and the whole day is blown up.
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  It's not. I think with our brains in particular, it is very...
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  Easy to reinforce when we mess up. Our brain remembers the mess up.
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  Our brain remembers all the open loops that we can't seem to shut off or close down or complete.
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  And we don't have a mechanism where we reward ourselves for the things that
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  we're actually doing. Our brain's like, yep, check, done. And it just flows
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  right out the other side. Like it's done.
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  That is why you get to the end of any given day. And you're like,
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  I'm tired. I felt like I scrambled all day. I don't even know that I have anything to show for it.
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  You do. You haven't trained yourself how to notice those things.
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  And that's yet another one of those things that I love about the different exercises
• 9:47
  we do inside of fish school,
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  is we have moments where we ensure that we are checking in with each other on
• 9:54
  the accomplishments, on the done list,
• 9:58
  on the things that we actually tackled on our Tackle It Tuesdays.
• 10:03
  It is very important to train ourselves how to reinforce the things that we are getting done.
• 10:09
  But looping it back into you're stuck in this comparison trap,
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  I just need you to be really cautionary about convincing yourself that you're
• 10:21
  just, you're putting your mood board together and,
• 10:24
  you're getting just a couple more ideas and you're watching just like one more
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  YouTube video on whether I really want to paint that room and should I color
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  drench it or should I, you know, stop it here or should I add,
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  you know, something to the wall or should I,
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  as a way to procrastinate in actually tackling what would make the biggest difference
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  in a room, which would be to attack a pile and find homes for it,
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  whether that be the recycle bin, the trash can, the donate pile,
• 10:56
  or an actual home, because you actually might want to keep it.
• 11:01
  It bears repeating that decluttering and spending some time getting things in order,
• 11:09
  not perfection, not for the camera, just for the function of how you want to
• 11:13
  live in it, space that you own, so that you can walk in and just kind of smile and go, Wow.
• 11:20
  That made a difference, even without the can of paint that I sat for three months
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  trying to figure out the right color of.
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  You can make baby steps towards progress and get yourself unstuck by taking any action.
• 11:34
  Not perfect action, not the right quote unquote action, but any action.
• 11:40
  And if you're needing help with that kind of action, that's where the accountability
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  of having people who are in your same situation, who are challenging you to
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  take the next step and share with us in the group, to take that before picture,
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  even if you only ever share it with yourself,
• 11:59
  and take that after picture just 30 minutes later, just with a 20-minute timer,
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  you will see the difference in a photo that you won't see inside your brain.
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  And those are the kind of reinforcing things that we encourage each other to
• 12:13
  do inside of Fish School.
• 12:15
  So if that kind of loving, encouraging, non-judgmental accountability sounds
• 12:20
  like something you would like in your life, please go to joylovinghome.com slash
• 12:24
  membership and check out.
• 12:27
  Carts are open and join us. We would love to have you be part of our fish school
• 12:34
  and enjoy actually accomplishing things in your home with us.
• 12:40
  Until tomorrow, where we wrap up this four-part series, continue to choose joy.