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Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in person sales? That’s kind of our thing wherever you sell. Businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial@shopify.com listen shopify.com listen. Welcome to the I have ADHD Podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristen Carter and I have adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristen Carter and you are listening to The I have ADHD podcast, episode 127. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am ready to roll. How are you? How are you? Oh my goodness, I’m so glad to be back with you chatting about all things adhd. Sometimes I feel like a week is too long between episodes because honestly, I just kind of miss you. I really do. I know that might sound weird, but honestly I feel very connected to you. Yes, you. And I’m so happy to be with you here today. Thank you for pressing play on this episode. I don’t take your time or your attention or your energy or your effort. I don’t take it for granted. I’m so grateful that you’re listening. It is a gorgeous autumn day in Pennsylvania. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. It’s a sweet 65 degrees out, far too cold for me, but it’s fine. I’m soaking it all up. I’m soaking up the sunshine and the birds chirping and all of the things. And I plan to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas with my bestie tonight. I’m so looking forward to that. I have not seen, seen her and connected with her in a couple weeks and I just can’t wait to do that. To crunch on some chips and salsa, to drink two margaritas at least and to just have the best time. If you haven’t connected with your person in a while, I encourage you to text them like right now while you’re listening to this and just say hi. Tell them that you miss them. Connection is a huge part of the human experience and a lot of times those with us with adhd, we miss out on true connection because we forget that it’s a thing we kind of forget. So text your bestie, say hi. Tell them that you love them. All right, I want to read for you the best podcast review that I’ve ever received. Actually, I’m not going to read the whole thing. It’s very nice. It’s a little self serving, so I’m not going to read the parts about me that sing my praises. But I do just want to say first of all, thank you so much to those of you who take the time to subscribe to this podcast, to follow it on Spotify or subscribe to it on itunes or wherever it is that you listen, and then to also rate it. Thank you so much. If you haven’t subscribed, do it, do it now. I keep telling you to do things. Sorry, I’m in a bossy mood, apparently. But if you haven’t done it, if you haven’t subscribed or rated, go ahead and do it. And there’s a special place in my heart for those of you who go the extra step, the extra mile and you write a kind review. Because I know how much effort it takes to do that, to figure out how to do it, to follow through with it. Thank you. So last week in the time management episode, I mentioned that once in a while people complain to me about the ads. And it’s fascinating to me how many people out there in the world think that podcasters should pay for and produce this content without any kind of ad being present. So I promise I won’t keep talking about this forever. This is the last time I will mention it for a good long time. I promise. I promise. But it’s relevant because I am doing deep work here, and I always share with you my deep work. That’s just the way it works around here. So it’s been a huge struggle for me to kind of really think this through and debate, like, does advertising align with my values? Is it even ethical? So I’ve gone down the rabbit hole trying to figure out, does it make me a bad person if I put advertisements on my podcast? Like, does it mean that I’m greedy? Does it mean that I am, you know, unethical? Because for sure, those are things that I do not want to be. So that being said, I got the most hilarious review last week on Apple Podcasts, and I want to share parts of it with you. The title is so good. The title is Brene Brown Advertises Tortillas. Is that an amazing title or what? Okay, so this is from Queen Metamorphosis. I have no idea who this is. She says, I love, love, love Kristin’s podcast. I actually googled ADHD coaches and stumbled upon her group coaching program and signed up. Kristen has helped me change my life, and I later found her podcast side note here. This is very rare because Focus members usually find the podcast first and then they join Focus. But this woman came right into Focus from the Googles and found the podcast later. So, anyway, let’s continue. She says, for the people complaining about ads, almost every podcast has ads. There’s even a podcaster who puts out a 10 minute podcast and still advertises. Brene Brown advertises gluten free tortillas, so get real. Oh my God. So good. Gluten free tortillas. First of all, I had no idea that Brene Brown advertises gluten free tortillas. So I think that’s incredible. And then also I just want to say, like, I love my people so much and you are my people. Like, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for thinking the way that I think. Like, it just means so much to me. I feel so much less alone. I am so grateful to you for subscribing and rating and reviewing and Queen Metamorphosis. Like, please reveal yourself to me. I know you’re a Focus member, but you have not told me who you are. But I want to give you a big, huge hug and say thank you. Thank you so much for this amazing, amazing review. Oh, my word. Brene Brown advertises gluten free tortillas, so get real. It is so good. Okay, should we stop, like, goofing off and actually get to the content? What do you think? Should we do it? Last week’s episode was on time management, and if you haven’t listened to that, I know you’re gonna love it. So definitely make sure you cue it up to play next because it’s a goodie. It’s a really great episode. And in that episode, I mentioned the period of time which I referred to as the work before the work. It’s that time that it takes to get your brain and your body in sync and ready to do the thing. You know what I’m talking about? Well, anyway, that phrase or sentence resonated with so many of you that I thought it would be worth dedicating an entire podcast episode to. And thinking through this episode and writing it out and researching for it has actually really helped me a lot. So this is me talking to me as well. So I think that it would be fun to call this time period the pre game show. It’s like the tailgate party before the actual event takes place. In this time, we are often scrolling social media, snacking, tidying up, checking email, dancing, walking around, jumping from easy task to easy task, all while trying to convince ourselves to get into the real work, into the meat of the work. Do you do this? I know that I do this, so I’m curious, do you do this? I for sure do it, and I’ve spent decades shaming myself for it. I’ve labeled this time period this pre game tailgate situation. I’ve labeled it as a waste of time. And that often brings up frustration, sometimes disgust with myself or even feelings of shame. So I think things like, why can’t I just sit down and get to work? Why can’t I just start, produce, perform? Why can’t I just get going? And if I’m super unlucky, I’ll go into a shame spiral, right? So I’ll say things to myself like, no one else does this. I’m the only one Greg can just go to work at 8:30 and start working. Why do I have to wait until like 9 or 10 to start? And then even then I’m spacey? What is wrong with me? Spiral, spiral, spiral, spiral. Relatable. I’m curious, is this relatable to you? So this episode, I want to make a distinction here. This episode is for those of you who know that when you do finally put your mind to working and you are able to get into flow, you work just as fast or maybe even faster than your peers or co workers. This episode is for those of you who, when you finally are able to convince your brain and your body to cooperate and do the thing, you are able to produce work that is just as good or maybe even better than your peers or co workers. Now I know that’s not everyone’s experience, so if that’s not you, I’m sending you a huge hug. Lots of love. And you can keep listening for sure. Or you may just want to choose another episode. Whatever you decide is perfectly fine. But go ahead and ask yourself, am I talking to you? When you finally do the thing, are you able to do it just as fast, maybe even faster than your peers? Or just as good, maybe even better than your peers? I find that when I finally get down to deep work, I can work faster than anyone. I can produce quality, compelling content very quickly. I can do my job really, really well once I’m actually doing my job. But when I realized this about myself, do you know what I did? I can promise you that I didn’t celebrate. No, I did not celebrate. Instead, I beat myself up. I told myself things like, why does it take you two hours to prep to do 30 minutes of work? You could just work the whole time and you’d be so much better off. If you could just get started faster. You’d get so, so much more done. Think about how much more you could produce in a short amount of time. Think about how much more successful you’d be if you just did the things when you’re supposed to do them instead of wasting so much time. This voice in my head is, she’s not kind. She’s not. She’s not a kind friend. No, she is not. In the last year or so, I’ve been working on changing my narrative on all of this. I’ve been working on changing my perspective because Honestly, almost every ADHDer, I would venture to say every, but I mean, maybe that is just too broad, but almost every ADHDer that I talk to, and I talk to a lot of adults with adhd, almost all of them struggle with this phenomenon. I work with adults with ADHD in varying capacities. For most people, I support them in my focused membership, which is my ADHD coaching program. Right? And then there’s a handful of like well established six and seven figure entrepreneurs or public figures that I support in a one on one coaching relationship. And I’m going to tell you right now, it doesn’t matter. Highest functioning, lowest functioning, it doesn’t matter what kind of client I’m working with. This is a thing for all of them. And I know it might seem like I’m painting with a broad brush, but I don’t think I am. I’ve gathered a lot of evidence for it. So I decided to pull my Instagram as well because I thought that would be like a great place to gather percentage data on this topic. So I specified that I only wanted people who identified as ADHD to answer. So I’m going to trust that, you know, they honored that. Right. And so here’s what I asked. I asked, do you find that it takes you a significant amount of time to warm up and get ready before you start working? Like 30 minutes plus? And I can’t wait to share with you the findings. 93% said yes, this is their experience. That’s 277 people replied every damn time, like, yes, this is what I do. And only 20 people responded with rarely. So only 20 people out of 299 people said no, this is not a thing I struggle with. Okay? So I want you to know that if this is something you do, you are in the majority. You’re not actually in the minority. You are in the majority. And here are some of the things that they identified. Doing, eating, scrolling Instagram, random tasks without real action. Drinking coffee, deciding what to do, like journaling or thought downloading or just like making lists. Exercise was a big one, like squats or dancing or walking, scrolling coffee, random pointless tasks. Organizing and exercising were like the top five answers. If you had asked me three years ago, hey, you know this thing that you do where you waste time before you get started working, is that common? I would have said no. I’m the only one who does it. I’m a failure and I need to clean up my behavior because I’m never going to be successful if I don’t clean it up. And that’s exactly why I’m recording this episode for you, because I’m going to assume that you have those same kinds of thoughts. Thoughts like, this isn’t normal, I shouldn’t be doing this, what is wrong with me, I need to do better, tomorrow’s gonna be different, I should just be able to start, etc. Etc. Etc. And here’s what I’m realizing and I really do think this is true. The warm up time is normal for adults with ADHD. 100% normal. You are not bad or weird or defective because you require a lot of warming up, a lot of pre game, a lot of tailgating in order to get you into the task. You’re actually quite normal for an adhder. I’ll go one step further here. If you could just decide what to do, sit down and do it every day, you would not actually be a typical adult with adhd. That’s neurotypical behavior, not ADHD behavior. Again, you are in the majority if this is something that you do. So the warm up time I’m finding is actually necessary and we don’t have to label it as a waste of time. Dun dun dun. Like I feel like we need to have very dramatic music right there. Like you don’t have to label this as a waste of time. It’s actually really important. It’s what gets us rolling. It’s what convinces our brains and our bodies to get into flow. It’s what allows us to do the things. It’s what puts us in the zone and helps us to produce the work that we’re required to produce. And labeling it as a waste of time just makes us waste our time even more. Like I want you to think about it when you think I’m wasting my time. How do you feel so like, access that right now in your body. Think to yourself. And I’m guessing that this is probably a familiar thought. Think to yourself, I’m wasting my time. What emotion does that create in your body? Now when I used to label this, you know, pre game period as a waste of time, I would feel disgust with myself. I would feel judgment and shame. And you know what that would lead me to do? Scroll, hide, avoid, procrastinate. So we have a choice here. We have an option. What if we don’t label this warm up as a waste of time? What if we label it as completely normal and necessary? What then? Like, let’s really go there. What would happen if we’re like, oh no, this is actually what I need to be doing right now so that I can do the important work. Here’s what I think. If we were to label the warm up time as normal and necessary, we would be much more intentional about it. We would maybe make a plan or develop actual rituals that cued our brains and our bodies to get us to work. We would stop resisting this time and instead embrace it. And in so doing, we would be mindful that it’s actually prepping us to work. And this would likely cut the time in half. Honestly, I truly believe this. Instead of feeling shame about it, we could feel acceptance and self assuredness and certainty. How much more willing do you think that you might be to start working if you’re feeling acceptance, self assured and certain? I mean, my guess is you’d be a little more willing to, to jump in and start. Now. Let’s take this in another direction. I think it’s important for us to understand that there are different kinds of work that require different skills from us, right? So we have that busy work, like the easy tasks like responding to certain emails or certain slack messages or replying to texts or phone calls, right? Like the things that can be done quickly without much effort, without much thought. Thought. But the real work that we do is the production work. What we produce, whether it’s for our own business or for the companies that we work for, right? The easy, busy work doesn’t require much effort. Usually there are plenty of messages to respond to that are super quick, require little thought, we don’t need to stress about them. But what matters most is usually the work that we have to like gear up for. For the work that requires creativity and analytical thinking and problem solving, maybe even confrontation, right? That work requires copious amounts of attention and it has a much greater weight to it. I find that I need a ton of warm up time to get my brain and my body willing to be able to do this kind of work. So I’m curious, what’s the most important type of work that you do for your job? Go ahead and like identify it. Right now you’re sitting here with me, maybe you’re actually driving or running or doing the dishes, but it doesn’t matter. What’s the most important work that you do for your job? I Bet that’s the work that takes you the most time to gear up for, to warm up for. Am I right? I think it would be cool for you to pay attention to that, test that theory. Now, besides coaching, which is very exciting to me and very easy for me to just show up and do, there’s like, no prep work. I can just show up. I can connect with another human being. I can coach their face off. I know I’m making a difference in their life. I’m very confident. It’s just so easy for me to show up and coach. That’s an important part of my job. But other important parts of my job or like, the most important things I do for my job would be like writing these podcasts and writing emails to my email list and creating new content for my focused ADHD program. Right? And, of course, those are the hardest things for me to just sit down and get into. There’s like, this very distinct feeling that’s required for me to tolerate when I engage in those tasks. And I’ve really been thinking about that feeling because it’s really unique. It’s like this flow, effort, exertion kind of a feeling. It’s definitely not boredom because, like, I love to do this. I love to think and to write out my ideas, but it’s just like this effort. It’s hard, it’s uncomfy, and my stamina for this type of effort is very low. It’s very low. So what I find is that when I know I have these types of things scary scheduled on my calendar, so when I know it’s podcast day, when I know I’m gonna have to dedicate a couple hours to, like, thinking and writing this podcast, and then when I know it’s time to press, record, and, like, actually do what I’m doing right this second, which is speaking the words and recording it and bringing it all together, when I know that that is what’s required of me for the day, it takes me a minute to get into the zone to do that. I really have to take a long time warming up and convincing my brain and my body to do the things I need to do. It can be excruciating. I think it’s really important to note here that even though I want the outcome of the completed task, I’d literally rather be doing almost anything else than the work that’s involved with getting the task done right. That’s really important for us to understand. We want the outcome of the accomplishment, but the process itself, not easy, not super fun. And there’s a lot of discomfort to tolerate in that process. So understanding that means that there’s a gentleness that can be added in here. We can be so much kinder to ourselves. Of course this is hard. Of course we’re going to need a warm up. Of course I can’t just jump in and start producing the important work. I am not a robot and I’m not neurotypical. I’m a creative and smart human with adhd, right? So I have feelings, emotions, limitations. It takes me a while to wade through all of that before I can really focus on output, production, creativity and getting the things done. So the good news is once I am finally able to focus, once I am finally willing to, to just go ahead and wade into it and feel that feeling of exerting the effort, I do produce amazing work. It’s not perfect, but it is super valuable. And I bet that’s the case for you too. Once you’re finally able to get in the zone and to focus and to get the things done, you’re producing valuable work for your company and your employer, right? Am I right about that? So again, there’s really no need to shame ourselves here, which I know is always our default mode. But like we’ve got to stop, right? There’s no need to shame ourselves. Embrace the warm up. Call it a pre game, call it a tailgate party. But no matter what you call it, understand that it’s completely normal and it’s completely necessary. It’s not a big deal. I want you to think about a freight train, okay? This is like, this is a turn in a different direction. I’m sorry, that was a little abrupt, but I know that you can handle it because you have ADHD and you are ready for a subject change. I want you to think about a large and powerful freight train. Can you picture it in your mind right now? It’s huge train, it’s at the station, it’s idle, it hasn’t started moving yet. Think about how much time it takes for them to get started. Think about how noisy they are, how much effort it takes, right? It’s just like it takes a minute every single time that we transition from one task to another or transition into the deep work that freight train has to get rolling from a complete stop into a new direction. It’s noisy, it’s hard, there’s a lot of effort involved. It takes a while. And this is normal, okay? That freight trains your brain and the time that it takes to get rolling in the right direction, that time is necessary. It Requires scrolling and dancing and menial tasks that don’t actually matter but are the warm up for our brain to get into doing the deep work. I’m learning this right along with you. I am by no means an expert. I have the tendency to shame myself for wasting time. Even though I’ve decided that this isn’t a waste of time, I’m still making that shift in my own brain where I’m like, wait a second, this isn’t a waste of time. This is just what it takes to get me going. This is just what it takes to get me in the zone. Here are a couple things that I’d like to suggest. Let me see. 1, 2, 3, 4. I have four little tips for you. Number one, take the judgment out of the pre game warm up time. No more judging it. Notice it, be aware of it, identify it, but label it not as a waste of time, but as a warm up. Remember that telling yourself you’re wasting your time feels terrible and it’s only going to lead you to avoid, procrastinate and hide. Okay? And I’m sure that for years you’ve probably judged yourself and I’m going to assume that you’re a lot like me and that for years you’ve judged yourself for the time that it takes to get you into the zone to do the thing right. What that perpetuates is just shame and avoidance. So let’s drop the judgment. If we can instead identify this pre game, this tailgate party, as an actual skill, the skill of warming ourselves up and if we take it seriously, then we can sidestep that shame and save ourselves so much time. Number two, if we identify this as an actual skill and we take it seriously, we can be more intentional. We can create some rituals with it. Now I’ve noticed that if I get ready for the day and then go for a walk, and on that walk I’m thinking about work. I’m kind of like pep talking myself, convincing myself to work. It really gets the juices flowing and then I can just keep up that momentum and get going to work. But there are a couple other rituals that I think I do need to establish actually in my office. Like okay, I take a walk, but then I get in my car. So then I walk from my car into my office and then it’s like I have to perform this warm up task again. So I’ll keep you posted. I’m still learning and doing this work, but I do think I need to add in a couple rituals here at my little office as well, especially on writing days. Yeah. Okay, moving on. Number three, I encourage you to get creative. Find out what works for you. Be willing to try a bunch of things. Maybe scrolling Instagram is the only thing that works, and that’s okay. Be willing to look like you’re wasting your time because you know that it’s actually a necessary stepping stone to getting the task done. Right. One of the ways that I’ve been creative with this is that I don’t write my podcasts at my office anymore as of like last week. So this is new. But because in my office I am surrounded by technology and I just have this propensity to like, hop on Slack and answer messages, hop on Instagram. Like, I just am kind of switching tasks a lot if I’m not on an actual coaching call. And so if I go to like a Starbucks or Panera and sit down and write my podcast, and that’s the only task that I have to do in that location, it’s actually much easier to get myself into the zone of writing. So I just allow myself to focus on that one thing. It’s a small change, but it’s actually making a big difference. I’m wondering for you, are there creative ways that you can help yourself with this as well? Okay, number four and last one. I invite you to embrace this warmup as the way that you operate and just be willing to ebb and flow once in a while. You’re not going to need a warmup, right? But here’s the thing that we do when we don’t need a warmup or we, like, perform amazingly one day, then we hold that over our heads and we say, remember that time last month on that one Tuesday when you were incredible and you didn’t even have to warm up? Why can’t you do that every day? And we use that as evidence against ourselves. And what I want to say is don’t make that one time that it was super easy for you. Don’t make that mean that you should never need a warmup. Okay? Continue to observe yourself, be aware, learn, tweak, grow, evolve. Allow this to be a process. It’s not a problem to be solved. It’s just a process to. To observe and tweak. All right, what do you think? I’m just really curious to hear if this is resonating with you. Is that warm up time a deterrent to you actually getting into work? Or is it actually a necessary stepping stone that you can stop judging, start embracing, start making really intentional and ritualistic, and start using to your advantage because that’s what I plan to do. And I will keep you posted along the way as I learn and grow in this area. I’ll be sure to share more tips with you if I come across any of them. And until then, we’ll just tailgate together. What do you say? I can’t wait to talk to you again next week. Bye. Hey adhder. I see. I know exactly what it’s like to feel lost, confused, frustrated and like no one out there really understands the way that your brain works. That’s why I created Focused. Focused is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself, feeling better, and creating the life that you know you’re meant for. You’ll study, be coached, grow and make amazing changes alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more.
