Kristen Carder

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’re listening to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated. I am caffeinated. I am regulated. And I’m ready to roll.

Hi, how are you? Welcome to the podcast. So glad to be here with you today. So glad that you press play on this podcast. I know I’m thanking you every single time. But truly, I really do mean it. Thanks for pressing play. Thanks for hanging out with me. It’s great to be here with you. I’m here with a sort of solo show, I had an intention to put out a solo show this week. And what’s happening instead is that we’re going to have a class on living with vision. And before we get to that I have some explaining to do because I truly haven’t recorded a solo show. And like, I don’t know, quite some time, things have just not gone as expected. Okay, I think that’s what we just really need to communicate here.

Family stuff with teenagers a lot harder this summer than it’s ever been. And the transition back to school. And my husband leading a brand new church, all of it kind of culminating. It’s been very, what’s the word? It’s been a lot. It has been a lot. And so I just want to let you know that like, Yes, I will still be back with you eventually, with solo shows. I know that that might be annoying to some of you. It’s very interesting. The reviews are very mixed, because some people are saying, Kristin really shines when she’s in an interview. And then other people are saying that they prefer solo shows. And I get it. I like both. And I know that we’ve been really interview heavy. And I just want to let you know why.

Because an interview takes me an hour from start to finish. And it’s so much fun. And it’s life giving to me. And a solo show takes at least five hours. And a lot of my capacity, it drains a lot from me. And I’ve just really had to protect that recently, parents of teenagers send me your advice, especially parents of neurodivergent teenagers who are struggling with their mental health. It’s just been a thing. And gosh, I love my kids so much, and I want to do everything I can to support them. And sometimes that looks like doing a little bit less on this podcast, so that I have the capacity to hold the space for my kiddo at home. And I think we can all agree that it would have been really nice to have people caregivers in our lives that would maybe sacrifice some at work so that they could be more emotionally available to us at home. That’s what I’m trying to do.

So anyway, I just wanted to let you know that that’s what’s up. And I can’t wait to get back with you with the solo shows. For now. We’re doing a lot of interviews, we’re doing a lot of ADHD stories, just like people sharing their stories about having ADHD, which I know also is very valuable because I know how alone, people with ADHD feel I know how isolated I know how like shame filled it can be to feel like you’re the only one struggling and so I do believe that sharing these ADHD stories is really, really important.

Today, I it’s just gonna be me talking and I’m gonna be talking about living with vision. And what that means to me is like living with a plan. Living in pro active mode, rather than always being reactive. Living like you are the one making the decisions and stepping in and like steering the ship, rather than being at the effect of everyone’s wants and desires. And I know that people with ADHD struggle with this hard core, living with vision requires knowing what you want and going for it seeing your future which can be very difficult.

Some of us can’t even make pictures in our mind. So what does it look like to see your future? Even if it’s just the future, meaning what am I going to do with the next hour of my time? And then really making that happen for yourself? We’re going to get into all of that. On this episode today, why is it hard for ADHD years? What are the executive functions that are deficient and kind of playing a part in this? Why is it so important to have a vision or a plan that you’re following through on? And what are the practical strategies to make it happen. So we’re going to get into all of that today. If you love this class, of course, I’m going to encourage you to join my ADHD coaching program. I am putting all of my heart and all of my soul into that program. And I love it so much. And yeah, if this resonates with you, come join us over there. But if that’s not an option for you, or if you don’t want it, that’s totally fine.

Listen to this completely free podcast, enjoy every second of it, I hope that it is so helpful and impactful to you. Hello, I am so glad to be with you. This is my favorite place to be. Truly, truly, truly my favorite place to be so happy to be here with you. Love, these focus calls love the community that we get to build together love being able to encourage you, and teach you and help you and love being able to answer your questions. I am just so so delighted to be here with you today. I always get so excited to come back and see you. After weekend, I really do I truly I I really do mean that.

So hi, today we’re going to talk about living with vision. And it is so important that we have these conversations because most people with ADHD feel as though they are not in charge of their own life. And I don’t know if you resonate with that. But I think the the broader community, as a whole often feels like I’m living at the affected my life, I’m not actually the one in charge. So that could look like feeling like you’re have to be very reactive. Feeling like you’re having to put fires out everywhere. Feeling like you’re just going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing and feeling very powerless, as far as like where you are headed. And I wonder if that resonates with some of you, just feeling like you are at the mercy of the things happening around you. So maybe you have a job that’s really demanding. Maybe you have a family that’s really demanding. Maybe you have parents and extended family who are very demanding, maybe you have a brain that pulls you in a lot of different directions. And you just feel like I’m not really sure where this is going. And that is what this class is all about. Where is this going? How can we, as people with ADHD, how can we live with a sense of agency and a sense of empowerment? Not that we are controlling people in our lives? Not that we’re like, you know, rise up and demand whatever? That’s not what I’m talking about? What I’m talking about is?

How can we live with a sense of knowing who we are and where we’re headed? Okay, so what is vision? Because vision is the answer to that question. By the way. How can I have a sense of direction? The answer is creating a vision. A vision is a picture of where you want to go, it is the destination it is understanding what you want your life to look like. So maybe you envision, like working in a job that feels really, really meaningful to you.

And you can see it, and you can feel it. And you can just imagine yourself there. Once we have a clearer picture of where we’re going. What happens with the human brain is it starts to get to work to get us there. But the problem is that most ADHD peers feel so powerless, that they don’t even create the picture. And I’m saying they because I don’t want to say you because I’m not sure where exactly you are in this journey. So I’m talking about the broader ADHD or at large, okay, and maybe you deeply resonate with this, but maybe you don’t and that’s okay. We really struggle.

We often struggle to create a picture and there’s a very good reason for that. One of our executive functions is called nonverbal working memory. That is our ability to create pictures in our mind’s eye. Many people with ADHD have deficient nonverbal working memory. Raise your hands, if that is you or type in the chat, that is me. So people who struggle with nonverbal working memory, which if you have ADHD, it’s likely that you do struggle with this, you struggle to actually see visual pictures in your mind’s eye.

Now, I will tell you a secret about Kristen Carter, I didn’t even know that it was possible to see pictures in your mind’s eye. I had no idea. I didn’t know that that was possible, because I was never able to do it. So when I was in my 20s, I went through vision therapy. And that helped a lot. And then, when I opened my tutoring company, I was trained in a brain training program, and working with the students on their nonverbal working memory helped me to improve my own nonverbal working memory. And now I can see pictures in my mind’s eye. Which is amazing. It’s amazing.

But I didn’t know it was a thing. I was so deficient in it that I would, when somebody would say like, Can you picture this? I would be like, I don’t know what you mean. Like, all I see is black. It’s just just black in there, does nothing. And so it’s only in the last 10 years that I’ve developed that skill. If you have listened to the public podcast, with Barbara Aerosmith Young. That episode, she talks all about a brain training program. And the one that I was trained in and implemented with my students was very similar to what she does. So I don’t want to get too hung up here. Because I think our ADHD brains might be sparked with interest on like, oh, my gosh, this can be trained. And I think that’s amazing. And like, if that’s a rabbit hole that you want to go down, I want you to put a reminder in your phone.

If you have specific questions, you can put them in the q&a, and I’ll do my best to answer them at the end. Most people with ADHD struggle with nonverbal working memory. Nonverbal working memory is the skill that allows you to visualize and visualizing is what allows you to make a mental picture of what might be possible in the future.

And so I want you to understand that making a mental picture of what might be possible is so important in setting the course for your life. Setting the setting the direction. And so we’re going to take just a minute or two here together, and think through and we’re just going to do it for the day. We’re just going to do it for today. Because you can live with vision for your lifetime, can live with vision for the next year. You can live with vision as in like, this quarter, I want this to happen this quarter, I want this to happen. But you can also live with vision for like, the next hour or the next day. Okay, so it doesn’t have to be such a huge like, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Kristen, like, why are you making me do this? But like, if you could just think through? What do you want from today?

Take a second with me. No matter where you are in the world. No matter how much time you have left in your day, some of you only have a couple hours. What do you want out of the rest of your day? What do you want it to look like? So for some of you gonna be like, I want to make sure I connect with my kids before they go to bed. So what could that look like? Maybe we go watch a movie together. In my house, we call that forced family fun. Jen says I would like a clean bedroom. Do you want your day to look like cleaning your bedroom? That’s the part though, Jen. I want to get caught up. What does that look like? Do you want to actually catch up on things? Because some of us what we do is we create a fantasy picture. So for example, Jen said I want to have a clean bedroom. But then when I asked Jen, do you want to clean your bedroom? She said no. So the clean bedroom is the fantasy I want you though to like, do I want to spend my time cleaning my bedroom, so that at the end of the night, I can go to sleep in a clean bedroom?

Okay, so I want you to think through what does it actually look like Kristen says, I want to have a productive day at work getting items on my list done that are most important. And Kristen, can you picture yourself doing that? Can you visualize or even like write it down? If you really, really struggled to visualize, I would, I would incorporate writing it down to like, first, I want to do this, and I can get in the emotion of what that’s gonna feel like and then next. So writing it down might be a really good way for those of you who can’t visualize mentally. Another thing and like, do you remember when vision boards were a thing that people love to do? I think there is extreme value in creating vision boards, especially for those of you who cannot visualize mentally. So creating a picture. And kind of like, you know it, for example, if you want to save $10,000, $5,000, however much like, if you have a small family or a big family, let’s say you have a big family, and you want to save $10,000 to go on a tropical vacation in one year.

What an end, if you can’t visualize it, print out pictures of the place that you want to go. Put them up where you can see them, remind yourself of the vision that you’re working toward. Does that are you driving with me? So the vision is the is the picture, it’s the direction, it’s like, this is where we’re going. But for those of us who struggle with nonverbal working memory, and literally can’t visualize, you might actually not to want to choose to get pictures. And put them up somewhere. So that you can see, this is like, for example, saving $10,000 is not easy, that is a sacrifice.

But if I have my vision of like, here’s where I’m going, here’s the tropical vacation, here’s everything involved, like everything included, this is the excursion that we’re going to do. And you can really see the why you can really see what you’re going toward, then the saving of the $10,000. And that sacrifice is connected to a huge amount of dopamine. Do you understand why we struggle with vision? Everyone say non verbal working memory.

Here’s another reason why we struggle. We struggle with a vision because we struggled to prioritize. And so when you struggled to prioritize, you are often sacrificing your vision for something that’s less important. So you might create a vision and save this is what’s really important to me. But then because your brain struggles to prioritize, you will often cheat on your vision with a one night stand activity. So you react to the things around you and your friend, like let’s say your vision is I want to be sober. I’m just making stuff up here. Okay? I want to be sober. And so that’s your vision. And you have this like picture of what it will be like when you’re sober. And you are just like, I don’t want to rely on alcohol anymore to manage my emotions. I’m going to be sober. But then a friend calls they want you to go out. But you know that this is the friend that always drinks and you’re just like and because we struggled to prioritize and because we struggle with FOMO and because we have like the pull toward dopamine. We cheat on our on our vision.

And we say okay, fine, whatever, we’ll just one night is not a big deal. So there’s no judgment in that. But that’s often what we do. Or we say I want to start this business. And so we start to focus on that one business, but then we get distracted by like other great business ideas. I want you to understand that living with vision comes with loss? You have to say no to the non priority tasks, so that you can move your vision forward.

Okay, so the question is, do you want to live with excellence in your one life that you get to live? Or are you going to bounce around to 100 things and just kind of be okay. And I think either way, you can live a very meaningful life. Either way, you can be a really good person, you can add a lot of goodness and love and value to the world. But I think there is a decision to be made as far as do I want to, to sacrifice and lose and feel the loss of this war, like these other things, so I can be excellent at one thing. A lot of us prioritize our one partner, not everyone, but a lot of us do. A lot of us prioritize our one partner, could there be other partners that we could go and be with? Yeah. But in order to have a trusting, safe, secure, monogamous marriage, I need to not be focusing on the loss of all of the other men that I could be with. You do I spend time thinking about all of the men that I don’t get to be with? No, never, never, because I’m so focused on wanting to make my marriage a really solid, beautiful, good marriage.

And what if I was like, this means that I don’t get them be with that person, or that person or that person? Like, my goodness, that would make my marriage a little bit rocky, don’t you think? And so some of you are doing that, in your own life in different areas. Okay, I’m not like, I’m not talking about marriage here. Marriage is just a really good example, because we ADHD or say that we can’t prioritize, and then we can’t say no, and that we can’t have boundaries, except many of us prioritize, say no and have boundaries with in the context of our marriage. And we don’t even think twice about it. We’re just like, Yeah, this is what we do.

I know, this is not everybody, but I’m just saying many of us, okay, and so I want to show you that you can prioritize, and you can say no, and you can have boundaries, and you can feel the loss of but I don’t get to be with that person and that person and that person, or don’t get to start that business and that business and that business or don’t get to take that job, or don’t get to have 100 friends. Having a vision is important, because it sets the course and direction. And it does set up the guardrails of the boundaries for us. And so what I want you to understand is that when you set a vision for yourself, whether it is education, like if you’re like, I really want to go back and get my masters, there are going to be some boundaries and some guardrails that are naturally going to need to be set up so that you can prioritize that endeavor. If your vision is, I want to start my own company, but I’m currently running three, like side hustles. So I want to go all in on one company and like really make it work.

Well, there’s some natural guardrails and boundaries that are going to need to be set up. And we’re going to need to say no to some things that we’re currently saying yes to Hello. That was important. We’re going to need to say no to some things that we’re currently saying yes to. Now, when you think about your vision for the day, let’s get back to our vision for the day. If my vision for the day, like Tamra said I want to get caught up. That’s my vision. Okay, what boundaries and guardrails do we need to create an order to get caught up? In order to at the end of the day, I see myself in a state of knowing I am caught up. What are the boundaries and guardrails that are going to need to be set? Well, I’m not going to answer that phone call that comes in. I’m not going to go on social media. I’m going to make sure that I have as much support as possible Those are boundaries and guardrails that I set up so that I can live out my vision. But what y’all say often is, I want to get caught up. And then somebody calls and you’re like, Oh, sure, I can go out. And you’re you’re not saying no. And you’re cheating on your vision with a one night stand. I’m sorry, to get all weird about it. I just. And then you’re saying yes to things, right? You’re just like, Sure, I can do that. Sure. I can do that.

Because tech-nic-ally, technically, you can. A lot of you are living in yeah, technically, I can do that. And so you say yes to things that are not serving your vision. Technically, I can watch my sister’s kids on Friday. But that would mean that I don’t get to work on my master’s degree. Some of y’all are doing the technically I have time for that situation. And I need you to stop and start actually carving out time for the things that matter to you and that move your vision forward?

Hmm. Would you say that you struggle the most with a vision for an hour? Or a day? Or a week or a month? Like what? What’s the hardest for you? Is it a long term vision or a short term vision. So it is kind of all over the board here, which is really interesting. Most of yours, I would say two thirds of you are saying long term. And then about a third of you are saying short term. So when you set a vision, let’s talk short term first. When you set a vision for your day, what I want you to understand is that anticipating obstacles is a big part of this. And so I want you to think through, like let’s go back to Gen Gen said I want to have a clean room by the end of the day. That’s my vision. Okay. When I, when I see that now, I need to get really practical with just asking myself a couple questions. What do I need to do in order to make that vision happen? Or actually, like have to clean my room.

If my vision is clean room, at the end of the day, what’s going to need to happen is I’m gonna need to clean my room. So what needs to happen in order to to let that happen? That was wow, I’m sorry. Sometimes the words they just don’t come. So I need to make some time. Okay, what are going to be my biggest obstacles? Well, I have three kids, and they’re still home for the summer. And so they’re going to come in and they’re going to annoy me and they’re going to want me and need me. Okay, so how am I going to navigate those distractions? Is the timeframe that I’m setting reasonable? Hmm. Because I have three kids. And because there’s so home from summer, maybe this is a two day vision. If you still get to the same destination, why are you beating yourself up about the timeframe? Yeah, we’re feeling defeated. And when we feel defeated when defeated is our fuel. What happens? We just give up. We’re like, forget it. I get stuck. And I totally give up because I’m feeling defeated. If instead, I feel determined another D word. Let’s just go with determined instead of defeated, D determined not D feeded. I’m going to get there no matter what. I’m going to be persistent. This is just going to take some time. Libby says that she asked herself often. What’s the point? Living? That question is amazing if you’re willing to answer it. What is the point? Let’s go back to Jen.

Jen wants a clean bedroom. What’s the point Jen? Libby, you’re using that as an accusation. You’re not actually coming from Curiosity. You’re accusing yourself. What’s the point? Is this no point. I’m not ever going to do this. What’s the point? But if you can actually ask that with curiosity that can change your whole life. What’s the point? What’s the point? Jen? What’s the point of having a clean bedroom camera? What’s the point of getting caught up? Jen says to have one Um, place of calm, to clear my mind. Who wants that in their life? One place of calm to clear their mind. Everyone’s like me, that sounds like a pretty good point. Hello. So when your brain does that thing where it’s like, what’s the point? You’re not even doing it? You’re never gonna get there? Answer your own brain. For those of you who remember my call with Jillian, I coached her on a business call. And I forget the question that she was asking herself, but it was not nice. It was an accusation.

And a nice, I think it was something along the lines of like, why can’t you just do this or something like that? We got to answer those questions and actually be curious. Why can’t I just do this? What is the point of this? What if we were actually curious? wouldn’t wouldn’t that actually be helpful? If we were curious about the point about the why behind what we’re doing? So when you set an intention, or a vision, whether it’s for a day or for the year? What’s the point? What’s the reason behind it? There have been times where I have set a vision, and then circled back with like, Why do I want to do this? I didn’t like my answer. And so I threw the vision in the trash can. Because if I don’t like the answer to essentially, what’s the point, I’m not going to do the thing. If the if the point is to impress people, if the point is to feel like a better human like, Oh, I just, I feel like I’m worth more. Because when my house is clean? Nope. That’s not That’s not it. Right? If you can’t answer, what’s the point, then you need a different vision? All right.

Like it, if you can’t answer, what’s the point, you’re probably never going to do the thing. And you should just find something that you actually care about. That you can pin point, you can say, I know exactly why I’m doing this. Because living with vision and getting anything done ever is so hard. And if we don’t have a strong why behind it, we’re not going to do the thing, we don’t care enough. Some of you need to look at the things you’re not doing and recognize that you just don’t care about them. I think that you can also those of you who are at jobs where you’re like, Yeah, I don’t see the point of any of this. The point is that you get to eat. The point is that you get to sleep in a safe place. The point is that you get to feed your children. The point is that you get to buy clothes, and like clothe your body. So like sometimes, the point is just keeping the job so that you can eat. And that’s a pretty good point. That is the life of an adult. Like sometimes we just have to do a job that we don’t enjoy, so that we can eat. If you struggle with living with vision, you need to go to your why and say why am I calling this my vision? Do I care about it? So for example, Jen, Jen says she wants a clean bedroom. Jen, is that? Is that something you really care about? Is that something you’re willing to spend your time effort? Energy boundaries, all of that on? Are you like, I’ve given up so many things. Some of y’all have fake visions that you’re trying to force on yourself.

I think that’s my point. All right, I’m going to answer some questions. And I’m going to see if you need more from me here. Is there a difference between having a vision or creating a vision and dreaming? Yes, dreaming is so important, dreaming and like fantasizing about the future is so important. And it’s so beautiful. A vision though is like, I’m I’m going after that. So for example, Jen has a decision to make, she can dream about a nice, clean bedroom. But once we’re out of the dreaming stage, and we put it into vivid Imagine, that’s like this is happening, I’m working toward that. So dreaming is really important, right? And like, imagining and living in this fantasy of what could be is so good. And it’s so important, and it’s so healthy. And then once you kind of find something that feels really resonant with you, if you want to pull it out of the dreaming and put it into vision, that’s when the hard work starts. Because that’s when you actually have to do stuff. Dreaming is fun. We can all fantasize about like our futures. But when we actually make it a vision, then we actually have to do some work. I can dream about being at a new job.

But once I have a true vision of like, in a year, I’m going to be sitting at a different office. Okay, well, that’s going to take some work, it’s going to take some vulnerability, it’s going to take some, like resume work, it’s going to take some putting yourself out there, it’s going to take some applying and interviewing. There’s a big difference between fantasizing and actually following through with a vision. You’re with me? What do I do if my visions are too broad, and I don’t know how to break them down, I want to feel joy, I want to be present, I want to just not survive the day. But I can’t achieve it. Because I’ve truly have no idea what that looks like, or what is involved. Okay, so I would just choose one of those. So, which one of those three feels really deeply resonant to you feel joy? Be present, not just survive the day, if you had to pick one to just focus on for a little while, not just survive the day. Okay, what does it mean to you to not just survive the day? What does that look like? What would someone who doesn’t just survive the day? What would they be doing? What would they be feeling? How would they act? What does that look like? Less dread, and less buffering. Okay. But what would you be doing? Do you see that like the way that you’re talking? Like, not just survive the day less dread less buffering, it’s still in a very reactive place, rather than I would XYZ? What does someone who doesn’t just survive the day? Do? My idea of that is they make decisions? They choose what they’re going to do. And they do that thing. When you’re just surviving the day you’re reactive.

I struggled so much with decisions. Yep. Okay. So I want you to practice making one decision today. Two decisions tomorrow. Three decisions the next day, like, I’m going to whatever fill in the blank, I’m going to call it friends. So today, the decision I’m making is I’m going to call a friend. And if that friend is unavailable, I’m going to call another friend. And that sounds like I’m going to talk to a human today on the phone. Okay, so I want you to begin to make tiny, tiny decisions that put you in the driver’s seat. Is vision, a feeling I keep coming back to how do I want to feel? No vision is not a feeling vision is the picture, the destination, the place that you’re going, the thing that you can see that you’re going to make happen? Even if it’s I have a vision for a clean kitchen. Let’s just say that that’s what it is. What’s the feeling that you would need in order to make that vision happen? What we want is we want to be like, I want to be like fine, and I want to feel motivated, but like no one feels that way when it’s time to clean the kitchen.

When it’s time to clean the kitchen, I need to feel willing, I need to feel determined, let’s go when it’s time to clean the kitchen. My vision is not going to be realized until I do the hard work of getting there. So we take something like I have a vision for a clean kitchen. My vision is not going to be realized until I am willing to like unload the dishwasher. But like getting peanut butter and or Nutella off of utensils out of bowls like that, to me is the worst job in the kitchen. I’m going to have to endure that in order to follow the vision. Y’all want to have a vision that easy and that feels good all the time is not going to happen. We have the vision it feels good to fantasize about but what do we need to feel to follow through? What if you have two equally compelling soul driven visions that don’t align A mission driven this business that doesn’t meet my goals for money, or financial independence, or maybe they could, but I just don’t see it well enough how? I mean, I think that we also have to make choices. And this is where loss might come in. This is where last might come in.

And also, this is where creativity, like, yeah, pick one and get started. And say, I’m going to, I’m going to go all in on this vision. And then when I have this space in time, I’m going to add in the other one, what is my vision? Oh, or determination toward my vision seems to instigate friction and defensiveness in my partner. A tropical vacation, for example, is a goal that takes prioritizing, and can be derailed by a partner not on board, like not saving, not securing his time off, how do I see determined with that conflict happening and not become so frustrated? Well, that sounds frustrating to me. So I’m frustrated just reading that. So I just want to validate your frustration. Here’s how that would look for me. And actually, I did this this weekend, a couple weeks ago, I said to Greg, we should take the kids to the beach. And he was like, so I’m not going to person that I want to delegate the authority to him, because I don’t feel confident, although you would not know it. But in a family system, I don’t feel super confident being like, I want you to take the day off, I want you to did it. Like here’s what’s happening. And so the way that I did, it was on Sunday or Monday of last week, I said, I’m taking the kids to the beach on Friday, we’re gonna go to Ocean City, New Jersey, we’re gonna leave at eight o’clock in the morning, I’m taking the kids, it’s gonna be great, I would love for you to come, if you want to come amazing, I hope you do. But if you don’t, it’s no problem, I’m going to take the kids to the beach.

That’s like when I have something that might conflict that I really want to rely on him for. So that he can kind of take over some of the authority, so that he can kind of like make me feel okay about taking up the space, spending the money, I just kind of remember that I get to do things without him. And so if you have a partner that’s not on board with a vision, I think that being clear with your partner, like I have a vision of taking our kids on a tropical vacation in a year.

And I think it’s going to take $5,000 to do that. And so I’m going to be setting aside X amount of money from my paycheck, in order to do that, I hope you want to come because that will be so great. It would be so fun for our whole family to be together. It would be so fun if we could have this experience all together. But you don’t have to, I just want to let you know, like, we’re gonna go from this state to this state. And I’ll remind you of it. But also, if you don’t ask for the time off, I’m still going to go like I’m still taking my our children. And I’m going to spend the money that I’m making. And we’re going to go on this tropical vacation, and I really hope you come.

Does that make sense? So I want you this is not like, you have to save your money, or you have to not spend in order for us to do this. This is I’m going to make empowered decisions for myself. I’m going to put aside X amount from my paycheck, I’m going to block off the time and take our kids, I’m going to order the flight tickets on this date. So if you want to come and I hope you do, it’d be so fun if we could all go together. If you want to come great. If you don’t, I’m still gonna go. Okay. And Greg was like, Yeah, I totally want to go. And he like moved a meeting around. And we all went and it was great. We had a great time. But if he had said like, no, like, I don’t want to I would have still taken the kids because I had a vision of one last hurrah at the Jersey Shore at the end of summer. That was my vision that was not Greg’s vision he it wasn’t something he was thinking about. And it’s not on me to delegate that to him to make happen for me.

Oh, okay. I’m just gonna read all this can you talk about the vision for the day like we got back from a camping trip after another trip the house has a rack tons of bags to empty laundry stuff. Then there’s doing the day to day making food feeding the kids dishes bola my vision is to empty the bags, pack the laundry, clean the house up of all the stuff. Oh, not in one day. That’s too much, too much for one day. This is the vision for the month. In the next month we’re going to recover the house from this trip. Okay, So she continues, but I also want to make sure that we get fresh air and exercise. And with the rest of my needs, blah, blah, yeah, that’s the thing is that we make this fantasy of like, my vision is to totally come back and you know, recover from this trip, and exercise and cook for the kids. And like, Y’all cut it out. Let it take time, let your house be messy. So the vision for today is to empty the bags. That’s it. One thing, we pick one thing, and it might get done today, but it might not. Okay, we pick one thing we’re like today, I’m going to start with the bags, we’ll just start getting the laundry going. But also I’m going to live my life with my kids. Because my vision is not to be mean to my kids. In an effort to carry out my vision. Just what Kristen party used to do, Sweetie, what you need to do is say, I get to take as long as I want to recover from this trip. And the house being messy is just a reflection that we were on a trip. Makayla, what about the difference between goals and vision or goals? Just how we get to the vision?

Yeah, I like that distinction. And I think they can also just be the same. But when I have a vision, I’m seeing it. I’m feeling it. I’m working toward it. I’m aligning myself toward it. And you can also do that with a goal. But I really like the visual picture of a vision. Sometimes visioning or even looking at it to do this creates anxiety.

Yeah, Terry, I totally understand that. I’m new to the course. So maybe I need to go through the emotions course. I want to encourage you to go through emotional regulation 100%. And I want you to understand that that anxiety response is totally normal, because of the way that we’ve been kind of set up to fail for our whole life. Right? And so, make it very simple for yourself. Make it easy, make it doable, make it fun. A vision should not be a punishment. Everyone grab hands, and turn to your neighbor and say a vision is not a punishment. It should be fun. It should be easy. It should be doable. This is not a punishment. So when you look at your list, I just want you to be like, why am I doing this? What is my why? Why am I moving this forward? Where am I headed?

Because cuz even like if we go back to Tamra, saving for a trip, same version was hard. And like setting money aside is hard. But also, it’s kind of fun to like, take that $100 out of your paycheck and pop it into an account and be like, Oh my gosh, look, I have $300 Look, I have $500 Oh my gosh, there’s $1,000 in the account. I can’t vote like it’s kind of fun. I’m saying. So I want you to see how you can make it more fun. This is not a punishment. All right, this is the perfect place to end adore you. I hope this was very helpful. I can’t wait. A few years ago I went looking for help. I wanted to find someone to teach me how to feel better about myself and to help me improve my organization productivity time management, emotional regulation. You know all the things that we adults with ADHD struggle with, I couldn’t find anything.

So I researched and I studied and I hired coaches and I figured it out. Then I created focused for you. Focus is my monthly coaching membership where I teach educated professional adults how to accept their ADHD brain and hijack their ability to get stuff done. Hundreds of people from all over the world are already benefiting from this program and I’m confident that you will to go to Ihaveadhd.com/focus for all details.