This episode is sponsored by CURE Hydration. All right, I’m going to be real with you. Drinking water is boring. My ADHD brain is like, wait, we have to do this again? Like every day, multiple times. What in the world? And because I’m running from meetings to coaching calls to kid chaos, staying hydrated is not something I’m naturally good at. It’s not something I naturally think about. That’s why I’ve been obsessed with Cure hydration packs lately. Cure is a plant based hydrating electrolyte mix with no added sugar, only 25 calories, and it actually tastes good. The watermelon and berry pomegranate have been on repeat for me. I’m actually like really running low on those flavors, which is so sad. They’re refreshing without being too sweet or artificial. It feels like my water finally has a little bit of personality, which I enjoy. I really do. What I love most is that CURE uses a science backed formula that hydrates as effectively as an IV drip. So when I’m scrambling through my day forgetting my water again, CURE helps me to catch up fast. I throw a few packs in my bag and it makes drinking enough water simple, which for my ADHD brain is basically a miracle. So staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, tastes great, and it actually works. And bonus, CURE is FSA HSA approved. So you can use those funds to stay hydrated. The smart way for I have ADHD podcast listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really does help to support the show. Don’t just drink more water, upgrade it with cure. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristin 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 number 113. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. What is up y’? All? Are you ready to rumble? Are you ready to go? Because buckle up. I am in. I have 19 minutes to get this done. Oh, my gosh. Oh, it’s so ironic that we’re talking about time today. It’s so ironic. We are talking about wasting time. And I’m really pumped to share my thoughts with you because I think they’re going to be extremely, extremely helpful. Because how often do you believe that you’ve wasted time? Or how often do you label a project or a task as a waste of time? This is something that I used to do constantly. I would judge myself and experience so much shame because I truly believed that I wasted a ton of time. I identified as a time waster and I would punish myself for it. So I’d be like, well, now you have to stay up until 1am because you wasted your time today. Or now you don’t get to do that fun thing because you wasted too much time. Or now you have to rush like a maniac because you wasted your time. It was so uncomfortable. And I just thought that, like, these are just the facts. This is just my life. This is just where we’re at. In addition to judging myself, I would also judge certain things in my life as a waste of time. Like normal, daily things, things that all humans do. Like, I don’t understand why I did this, but I would label them as a waste of time. So, for example, like, sitting at a stoplight. No, too much of a waste of time for me. I would try to, like, find a detour, an alternate route. If there was a stoplight. I was like, I can’t handle sitting here. I have to find a different route. Paying bills, going to the grocery store, or certain aspects of my job. I was constantly in a state of impatience and agitation because I labeled so many things as a waste of time. We are just like, going. We’re just going. We’re just getting right into it. But I wonder if you can relate. Like, is this you too? If so, I think this episode is going to be mind blowing. It’s going to be short and sweet and to the point. Because this is a really powerful concept. It’s not going to take a lot of time to communicate. I’m just telling you it’s going to be big. The first thing I want to say, and this might break your brain, but, like, hang with me here, is that I choose to believe that there is literally no such thing as wasting time. This is really important and I really work a lot with my clients on this as well. There’s no such thing as wasting Time, which is a huge identity shift for me. But hear me, like, what is time? Right? Like what is it? What is time exactly? Like without a clock? Can you see time? Can you touch it? Can you feel it? How do you manage something that you can’t see or feel or touch? Time is just a mental construct. It’s a concept that humans have collectively agreed to measure in seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years, decades, etc. Etc. Right. Physicists define time as the progression of events from the past to the present and into the future. Time can be considered to be the fourth dimension of reality used to describe events in three dimensional space. It’s not something that we can see, touch or taste, but we can measure its passage. But like, are we confused yet? Time is just a mental construct. It exists only in your mind. You create time with your thoughts. Now, my guess is that you’re used to thinking thoughts that most ADHD adults have on repeat. So those would be thoughts like, I don’t have time for this, or I wish I had more time, or I can’t get this thing done because I only have X amount of time, or I’m so timelined, or I can’t do it all, I’m so busy, I suck at time management. I’m always late. I’m always so rushed. I’m always so overwhelmed. I should have left earlier. I’m out of time. This is a waste of time. This is going to take me forever. I don’t have time to plan or stop and feel. I just have to get moving. This shouldn’t be so hard. I should be doing something else. None of those are facts. They are all thoughts and none of them are helpful at all. Right? There is just you and there is what you do. And sure, we measure our days by about 24 hours in the day, but time cannot be wasted. There are actions that you take or don’t take and time ticks by. Sure, but it’s not wasted. If I’m a human who is breathing and I’m taking up space in this world, even if I’m just binging Netflix instead of finishing a work project, I’m not wasting time time. I’m existing within time. I am using the time in a way that I’m choosing to use it, right? I’m having an experience within time, but I’m not wasting it. Here’s why it’s so important to ditch the belief that you can waste time. If we believe that we can waste time, here’s what happens when you think the thought, ah, I just wasted the last two hours. I wonder what emotion that generates for you. How do you feel for me believing that, oh, I just wasted this. I just, you know, I just. I was trying to do this thing, and I just wasted this time that generates a feeling of frustration or regret or shame, depending on what’s going on, right? And when we feel those things, frustration or regret or shame, what do we do? So for me, I spin out. I ruminate on it. I think about it over and over. I try to make myself feel better with, like, food or social media. I judge myself. I avoid my work. I stop doing anything that’s productive. And what is the result? Listen, listen. So close. Lean in here. We waste time, right? That’s the result. When we believe that something was a waste and we feel all of these negative feelings, we just end up wasting time. And so that’s the secret. That’s the whole point of this podcast. Whenever you have the thought I wasted my time and you believe will always, always, always lead you to wasting time. Time. Like, we could just close right now at, like, eight minutes in. We totally could just do that. But I’ll keep talking. I’ll keep talking. I want you to test out this concept. I want you to try to prove me wrong. I think that would be really fun. And as an adhd, you’re probably a little oppositional, so you might be like, nuh, Kristen, that’s not true. And that’s perfect. That’s exactly what I want you to think, because I want you to test this out. I want you to observe what happens when you label something a waste of time. Test it, Test it. See how you feel and observe what you do and notice where that leads you. Okay, Think about it this way. Let’s say you have a project at work. You think to yourself, oh, this project is such a waste of time. How do you feel? If it were me, I’d feel annoyed. And then what would I do? I’d avoid it. I’d complain about it. I’d do anything else but the project, right? Like, I’ll look for anything else to do. If something’s a waste of time, I am out. I do not want to do it. Right? And then here’s what happened. I wouldn’t get it done by the deadline, and I’d probably get in trouble with my boss. Right? I’d use my time on other things, and I’d miss the deadline for this project because I’ve labeled it a waste of time. A. Essentially, you could look at that, and if you wanted to, you could say you wasted your time. Right? Any time you believe that something is a waste of time or that you’ve wasted your time, it will always lead you to spinning out, avoiding doing something else to make you feel better, but not getting the result that you want. So, you know, maybe it’s not a project that you’re excited about, but if it’s a on your list from your boss to do, then I’m gonna guess that it’s something that you want to get done so that you don’t get fired. Right? And so labeling it a waste of time, not helpful, doesn’t lead you to completing it. And just checking it off and getting it done doesn’t lead you to taking fast action and checking it off your list. Right? It just leads us to elongating the project, to making it last forever, to think. Thinking about it all the time. Like I waste my time thinking about it all the time. Right? Okay, so here’s a question. What if we stopped judging our use of time or our existence within time as a waste? Then what? Then what would happen? What would we have to think and believe? Like, I used to have so much brain energy and brain space taken up by this belief that I was wasting my time or that things were a waste of time. And I believe with 100% of my heart that this is why I was stuck in a constant state of agitation and frustration. This one thought of waste of time applied to whatever it might be, whether it’s something that I’ve done or something that’s in front of me that I don’t want to do, that I’m labeling as a waste of time, I was in a constant state of impatience and agitation. And so as I began to change my identity and as I began to notice all of those times when I would be like, oh, my goodness, it’s such a waste of time. I can’t believe I wasted my time. I don’t want to do this. This is a waste of time. And I began to rewrite those narratives and say, I just stopped believing that wasting time was a thing. Sometimes I come into my office and I stare at the wall because I have zero energy or because my brain is just fuzzy or because I forgot to eat that morning or something. Does that mean that I’m wasting time? No. I’m still existing. I am here as a human being existing in the world. I’m not wasting time. Time. And if I can hop off of that crazy train, that train that leads me to spiral in shame, and judgment and self loathing. If I can hop off of that and just observe, oh, I’m staring at the wall. Do I want to keep staring at the wall? If I keep staring at the wall, what’s going to happen and look at it more objectively without so much judgment. I am telling you, the productivity has skyrocketed. My enjoyment of my experience in the world skyrocketed because I’ve replaced agitation and impatience and self judgment with acceptance. I am a flawed human being existing in the world. That is true. That feels much more palatable in my body than I am a waster of time. Nobody wants to be a waster of anything that does not feel good. That is a harsh judgment. I encourage you to interrupt those thoughts. Anytime that you label something as a waste of time, any time that you label yourself as a waster of time, it will always steal your time from you. It will always lead you to being less productive, having less output, making less of a contribution in the world. I promise you. So as you know, I use the self coaching model in my coaching with myself and with my clients. And so the whole premise around that is that we have these things that happen to us or these things that you know, exist in the world and we call them circumstances. So for example, like from 2 o’ clock to 4 o’ clock today is a circumstance. It’s like it’s a thing that’s a proven fact and it exists outside of me. And if I were to have the thought I wasted my time, I would feel shame, I would feel maybe frustration or regret. Let’s just pick shame. Like I cannot believe I did this again, I wasted my time and I feel shame. And then my actions would be to spin out and to judge myself and maybe complain to a lot of people about myself and how I wasted my own time and probably try to self soothe with something that’s not productive like TV or alcohol or food. And then my result would be like nothing else gets done. I’m still not doing the thing that I wanted to do, right? And if I wanted to put a judgment there, I could say I wasted my time. Your thought is usually going to show up in your result line. That’s usually what’s going to happen. So the self coaching model shows us we have circumstances. We have thoughts about the circumstances. Those thoughts cause a feeling in our body. And that feeling, like we talked about a couple weeks ago, is the fuel that drives our actions. And so if you think about the thought I’ve wasted my time, that is going to bring Up a feeling for you that will drive actions that don’t serve you, my friend. I promise you. How about we let go of the identity of being time wasters? Let’s just do it. Just do it. Do you know that I never ever think I wasted my time, ever? And as I’ve been processing and like, preparing for this episode, I realized what a game changer that has been. I never label myself as someone who has wasted time. And I always am coaching my clients to let go of that identity, to let go of that belief. Because if you can simply just look at the facts, I had two hours and I scrolled on social media, okay? Those are the facts, right? Without the judgment of saying I wasted my time. Do you know what’s so much easier then? It’s so much easier to just get back on the horse and do what you need to do. So let’s say that what you need to get done is finishing your book for your editor, right? And you have this deadline and because you’re afraid of like sending it off to the editor and having feedback, maybe you’re doing some avoiding. And so you can look at the last five hours of your day and say, I wasted the whole morning, right? One of my clients, I’m working with him right now on his mornings and he will say things like, the morning was a disaster. I wasted the whole morning. The morning was shot, right? And those judgments of what happened cause all of these feelings in our bodies, right? When we place a judgment on what we have done within time, it just causes us to get so distracted then by the emotions that are coming up for us. So maybe it’s self loathing, self judgment, shame, regret, annoyance, maybe defeat. Like, well, now, like, look, there’s no time left. I just feel so defeated, right? Instead of just acknowledging like, yes, this happened, I was on social media for five hours today. How do I want to feel about it? How do I want to move forward? We don’t have to label things as a waste of time. We don’t have to judge ourselves. We don’t have to apply morality to the way that we’ve existed within time. You know, like, we’re either doing our work or we’re not. We’re either on social media or we’re not. We’re either exercising or we’re not. But we don’t need to apply all of those judgments to it. And if we can remove some of that drama, I promise you we will be so much more productive, my friend. There’s no such thing as wasting time. There’s just you existing as a fully worthy and lovable human within the construct of time, doing certain things and the actions that you’re taking. Some of them are serving you and the purpose that you have in this world. Some of them are not serving you and the purpose that you have in this world. But if you remove the judgment, the stigma, the shame, the impatience, the agitation, all of that drama, you will find that you will move toward your goal in a much less entangled way. You will be so much freer to just get done what you want to get done when you want to get it done, or noticing that you have not been doing the things that you want to do and you will just notice it and self correct rather than going down the shame spiral rather than spending so much time in judgment and self loathing. I wasted my time. I can’t believe I did this. I’ll never learn. This is just par for the course. Here I go again. Blah. Like listen, I know it, I’ve heard it, I’ve done it, I’ve said it. But we do not have to do that. It’s a optional. Stop believing that you’ve wasted time and you will use time to your advantage like you will never believe. I can’t wait to hear from you. I want you to do an audit of your time thoughts. Check out what you’re thinking about time and if you’ve got a lot of drama in this area, join Focused. Write this second. Head over to the time management course. We talk all about it there. I heart ya. I can’t wait to talk to you next week. See ya. Hey adhder, I see you. 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.
