Podcast Episode #32: ADHD and Failure

This episode is sponsored by Cure Hydration. You know that moment for me, it’s around like 2 or 3pm when my ADHD brain just decides we’re done for the day. We’re done here. The afternoon slump hits, the lights go off upstairs and suddenly answering an email or doing basically anything feels like climbing a mountain. That’s when I reach for Cure Energy. It’s a clean plant based energy drink mix made with 100 milligrams of natural caffeine and electrolytes. So I get the focus and hydration boost I need without jitters, without a crash and without that like I drink battery acid. Vi vibe that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and akai berry flavors are my current go to’s crisp, refreshing. And they don’t taste fake, y’. All. They don’t taste fake. I’ll drink one before recording a session or when I need to get help through like that afternoon drag. And honestly I. I drink it anytime. My brain just needs to cooperate. What’s wild is that Cure Energy is only 25 calories and has zero added sugar. It actually helps me stay hydrated while giving me energy. Okay, I love coffee, but coffee could never Staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, it tastes great and it actually works. And remember, Cure is FSA HSA approved, which is amazing. You can use that money to pay for cure and for I have ADHD listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you do get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really helps to support the show. Don’t just drink more, upgrade it with Cure. What do you think makes the perfect snack? Hmm, it’s gotta be when I’m really craving it and it’s convenient. Could you be more specific? When it’s cravinient. Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter available right down the street at am, pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM. I’m seeing a pattern here. Well yeah, we’re talking about what I crave, which is anything from am, pm. What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That’s cravenience. Am, PM Too much. Good stuff. 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? You are listening to The I have ADHD podcast, episode number 32. I am your host, Kristin Carter. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am ready to roll. So glad to be here with you today on this dreary, chilly November day. I am doing the thing where I have my clothes on and then my bathrobe on over top. It is cold. My people here in the Northeast, I’m telling you, I keep trying to convince my husband to get excited about the idea of retiring in Florida, which, I mean, hopefully retirement is like 30 years away for me, but still, the idea that maybe someday I will live somewhere where I am consistently warm, even hot, that ideal idea woo. Appeals to me so much. Plus, think of all the plants that I’ll be able to have year round. Oh my gosh. My house is basically a jungle. Do you know that? Like, I’m looking right now at a palm tree that is in my home. There are three trees growing out of it. I’ll take a picture and put it up on Instagram for you. But like, it’s kind of embarrassing but also amazing at the same time. I never realized how relaxing having plants in my home would be. And I’m telling you, it’s life changing. If you can keep them alive and if you kill them, you know what? It’s totally fine. You’re still a good person. Okay, so today we are going to talk about failure. And I’m telling you, I am so excited to talk about this. I feel so strongly, such conviction about this topic. I feel like I have a fire in my belly. I just cannot wait to get the words out. The ability to fail and not let it break us is one of the most necessary skills that we need to develop as humans. And this is something that I have been working on in my life very intentionally and it has changed everything for me. But what I’m noticing as I’m coaching my ADHD clients and also hearing from many of you when you reach out to me is that in this community of ADHD adults or we have an extreme intolerance of failure. Now, what’s so interesting about the idea, the concept of failure, it’s just mind blowing to me is that most of the time when we consider something a failure, we’re actually failing at our own made up rules or standards. For example, we see a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and we count that as a failure because we’ve set an imaginary rule for ourselves that the dishes should always be done. Or we see a pile of clothes on the floor and we use it as evidence that we’re a failure because we’ve set a fake rule for ourselves that clothes should always be cleaned up, our houses should always be tidy. Good people pay their bills on time. Good wives make their families dinner every night. Successful husbands are the primary breadwinners of the family. So the first point that I want to get across to you here is that so many of the times that we feel so defeated and we feel extreme failure, it’s for completely imaginary, fake made up rules that we’ve quote, unquote, failed at. Who says that the kitchen needs to be clean all the time? Who set that rule? Who says that there shouldn’t be laundry on the floor? Who made that rule? Who says that our kids shouldn’t watch TV for two hours in a row? Who says that the man has to earn the most in the household? Now, I know that you guys do this kind of thing. You set these rules and then you break your own rules and then you beat yourself up for breaking the fake rule that you set for yourself. I know this because first of all, I coach a lot of you. And second of all, because I used to torture myself with this kind of crap on the regular. And I’m telling you, it is total crap. I’ve recently set myself free and I want to invite you to do the same. I want you to slow down and take a breath and really hear me. I’m about to break your brain. Okay? Caution. There is no rule that says that you have to be a tidy person. It doesn’t make you a better person. If you are a tidy person. It doesn’t make you more valuable. You are 100% worthy just as you are. There is no rule that says that you must be in a great relationship or that you must pay your bills on time. Now, sure, there’s a date that your bills are due and there are definitely consequences if you miss that date. But no one is going to burst into your home and throw you in jail today if you don’t pay it on time. There’s no rule that you must make a certain amount of money or have a certain job in order to be Successful. There’s no rule that says that you must go to college or get a certain GPA in school. These are all fake rules, you guys. Fake rules. What we have are ideas in our heads. We. We have ideas of what success looks like. We make up these standards that we set for ourselves and then we try to measure whether or not we are good people or bad people based on these imaginary standards that we hold for ourselves. Because obviously good people have clean cars and bad people have messy cars, right? Or good people have thousands of dollars in the bank and. And bad people have debt. Good people perform perfectly to their boss’s standards while bad people get fired, right? No, no. This is total BS. I want you to know that you are 100% lovable, 100% worthy. No matter what circumstances you’re in. Whether you’ve failed out of school, whether you’ve lost your job, or whether you’ve broken off your relationships, whether you’ve reached your goals or not, whether you are following your self imposed rules or not. That has no bearing on your worthiness or on your lovability. Now, how many rules do you imagine that you have set for yourself? I really, really want you to think about this. It would be awesome if you could just pause this podcast right now and on a piece of paper or the note app of your phone, write down all the fake rules that you set for yourself. Write down all the standards that you hold yourself to that are just like these made up rules. Like I should do the dishes immediately every time after I eat. I should clean the house every day. I should vacuum the floor once a week. I should whatever. I should be getting a promotion every year at work. I should be in a job that is super fulfilling. And since I’m not feeling fulfilled in my job, then there’s something wrong. I’m a failure. I should have gone to college for something else. I should have gone to college at all. What are all of these rules, these standards, these imaginary things that you have set your sights on that you then use to beat yourself up with? You beat yourself up when you don’t achieve all of your standards. Here are some of the fake rules that I had for myself that I used to feel so badly about failing. I wanted to leave for work at a certain time so that I didn’t feel rushed. So anytime I was in my car feeling rushed, I counted that as a failure. Kristen, if you had just left earlier, you wouldn’t be feeling so rushed right now. I wanted to cook dinner for my family every night. Not just dinner, but like, you know, like I’ll make a roast and then I’ll make mashed potatoes from scratch and then a vegetable, like actual real amazing food every single night. And when I didn’t do that, or when I hated doing that, I used it as evidence that I was a failure. I had this thought that I wanted to get X amount of sleep every night. I should get at least eight hours. And when I couldn’t do that or when I was interrupted from that, it was a failure. And I would beat myself up and kind of wallow in my exhaustion the next day I had this thought, and this was a recent one that I’ve been working on. I had this thought that successful people exercise every day. So if I wanted to be successful, I better exercise every day. That hung over my head and I used it every single day to beat myself up about, oh, gosh, didn’t work out today, you’re for sure not going to be successful. Another one that I’m letting go of is that debt is horrible and I’m a bad person if I have debt. That is just not the truth. Debt is just math, just numbers. You’re not a bad person if you have debt. You’re not a good person if you have money. Those are not the things that make you bad or good. Right? Am I right? Of course I had the standards of my house should always be clean, which is not at all true. Or I shouldn’t have a pile of clothes in my dresser, which I do currently, right now. And I should definitely say yes to helping someone every time they ask. This is a big one. Or I’ll be a failure if I don’t. I better say yes. Every time someone asks for help, I better be available to say yes. Another one was I should never lose anything, ever. If I lose something, I’m a failure. Do you see that? These are all my own made up fake standards that I’ve held over my own head and beat myself up with when I didn’t achieve them. And I’ve used them as evidence for my entire adult life that I’m a failure. Over and over, I’ve used these fake imaginary standards to prove to myself that I am a failure. So I’m here to tell you that I’m done. I’m done doing that. And I would love to invite you to be done as well. Next time you feel that feeling of failure wash all through your body, I want you to ask yourself if you’ve actually failed at a real thing, like is doing laundry perfectly or quote unquote, on time, Whatever that means. A real thing. Ask yourself, is this a real failure, or am I making this up? Just get curious. Get really, really curious. Now, as adhders, we received a lot of negative feedback as kids and teens, and God bless our parents and teachers, because obviously we were not easy to live with. Let’s be real. But here’s the thing. We need to let go of all of that negative feedback and stop dragging it with us into our lives. Today, it’s done. Elementary school is over. High school is over. Your chemistry teacher is not in your life anymore. Your mom is not still yelling at you to clean your room. I mean, hopefully she’s not. If she is, that might be a little inappropriate if you’re an adult. Anyway, unfortunately, most of us have latched on to this negative feedback, and we feel like we are a victim to it. Now we play it as loops in our brains, and now it’s so ingrained in us that it’s really a belief system. We believe that we don’t measure up. We still hear our parents or our teachers voices in our heads from years ago. Now we just think it’s the truth. And guess what our brains do when we believe something. You guys, this is so fascinating. Our brains set out to find evidence for our beliefs. Now hear me again. Once we believe something to be true, our brains are constantly trying to find evidence to prove that, right? So when we believe we’re a failure, guess what our brain does? It goes looking for evidence everywhere. See that pile of clothes on the floor? It means you’re a failure. See your kids fighting? It means you’re a failure. See your bank account balance? It means you’re a failure. Our brains find evidence for it everywhere. One of my coaches and teachers once said, the eye sees what the mind believes. I’ll say that again. The eye sees what the mind believes. Now, I think the best example of this is in the area of politics. And without getting political. I want you to think in your country about the two different parties and the political leaders of each party. And the one party that you think is amazing and the other party that you think is terrible. Okay? Politics is very polarizing right now. And for many people, especially in the US There are political leaders that people think are great, and there are political leaders that people think are horrible. Okay? So I want you to pick the politician that you absolutely despise. And I want you to think through all of the evidence that you have against that person. And I want you to think about even when you’ve seen that person let’s say feeding the hungry, visiting veterans or sick children in the hospital, has it changed your opinion, opinion of that person at all? Or have you used it as further evidence of them being disingenuous, being fake, putting on a show, and thus supporting your belief that you despise them? Now, I also right now want you to think about the person who you think is an amazing political leader. You really admire them, you’re really happy with the work that they’ve done, done everything they do. You’re cheering them on. You’re like, yes, this is my person. Now, when someone else in your life or maybe in the media gives quote, unquote evidence for them not being great, what I imagine that you most likely do is kind of dismiss that maybe, or say, oh, that’s not what they meant. That’s taken out of context. No, this is actually a really a good thing, and here’s why. Because the eye sees what the mind believes. Now, we all do this. This is just an example of it. So here’s what I want to offer you today is that if you’re convinced that there is evidence everywhere for the fact that you’re a failure, it’s only because you believe that you’re a failure. I’ll say that again. If you’re convinced that there is evidence everywhere for the fact that you’re a failure, it’s only because you believe you’re a failure. If you keep believing you’re a failure, you’re going to keep finding evidence for it everywhere. Do you want to know something amazing? You can stop believing that you’re a failure. I know that sounds like ridiculously oversimplified, but it’s 100% true. The belief that you’re a failure is completely optional. Now, one of the ways that I’ve learned to do this is not by telling myself, you’re amazing. You do nothing wrong. You are perfect. That’s not at all what I’m trying to suggest that you do. But you can remind yourself that you’re learning. In coaching, we call this a bridge thought. We don’t jump to, I’m the most successful and wonderful person in the world. Because honestly, our brains would be like, yeah, I don’t buy it. I totally don’t believe that. But if you choose something more neutral, like I’m learning, then that is more doable, it’s more believable for your brain. So you see your bank account balance and you say to yourself, I’m learning how to be someone who has their finances in order. You get yelled at at work. And you say to yourself, I’m learning how to become someone who has good performance at work. You interrupt your husband or wife or partner or whatever for the millionth time and you literally say out loud, I’m sorry about that. I’m learning how to be someone who can let you finish your sentences. Now, this is an intentional practice. This is not something that will just happen to you. You must be thoughtful, slow down, put post it notes all over your home, set reminders on your phone, change your lock screen to say I’m learning. Remind yourself over and over. But it is doable. There’s a very well worn neural pathway right now in your brain, right? And it is on a failure. And last week or two weeks ago actually, we talked about neuroplasticity and how the brain can change, but it’s an intentional practice. It is just as hard as changing the body. It takes exercise. It takes intentionality. When you replace the failure thought loops with the I’m learning statements, the brain is like, oh, we are learning. Okay, let’s go do that. Remember, the eye sees what the mind believes. If you train your brain to believe that it’s learning, it will begin to find evidence for it. Now what’s so interesting about being an adult with ADHD is that our brains have the tendency to perceive that other people are doing it right and we are doing it wrong. Other people have it together and we don’t. Other people are successful and we’re not. So when we fail, it’s like additional proof that we’re just not measuring up. We’re not really in tune with reality here. I’m convinced that everyone struggles. This is not unique to the ADHD or neurodiverse community. Everyone has their own battle to fight. Every single human experiences pain, insecurity, loss, sadness, fear, anxiety, loneliness, frustration. No one’s life looks like Instagram or Facebook. Not all of the time, not even half of the time. Everyone experiences the feeling of failure, but not everyone lets it paralyze them. See, this is where we need to do the work. So many of us ADHDers experience a perceived failure and then we move right into defeat and paralysis. Now you know that our thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings drive our actions, and our actions produce our results. So when we think we’re a failure, we feel defeated or hopeless, which usually drives us to inaction. We avoid, we procrastinate, we do nothing thing, which of course does result in failure because we aren’t even trying. Being able to coach yourself through a perceived failure is One of the most important and life changing skills you can develop as an adult with adhd. Now, I know this is hard. I know this seems impossible. I did put a resource together for you. You can go to ihaveadhd.com failure and grab it. It’ a printable. It’s a reminder of the things that we’re going to discuss as we move forward. But I wanted to let you know I forgot to write it in my notes and I had it in my brain now so I wanted to say it. Okay. Ihaveadhd.com failure okay, so coaching yourself on failure. Here’s the first step. Notice the feeling of defeat. Now obviously our feelings are caused by our thoughts, but normally we experience the feeling in our bodies first first. So notice that feeling when you’re feeling defeated or hopeless. That should be like an alarm bell going off. Then get really curious with yourself. Did I truly just fail at something? Is this a fake rule that I’ve created for myself that I’m now using to beat myself up with? Is it truly a failure? Get curious. Ask yourself questions. Really be honest with yourself. Next. Your job is to recognize that the feeling of defeat or hopelessness will always 100% of the time lead you to avoid procrastinate and not do the things you want to do. So you can sit with that feeling for a minute and realize that your thoughts about failure are causing it. Breathe it out of your body and choose a new thought like a boss. You’re going to actively decide to think something different. I’m learning how to show up the way that I want to show up. I’m learning how to pay my bills on time. I’m learning how to get to work on time. Learning how to not yell at my kids. I’m learning how to do the things that I say I’m going to do. And after that, I love to remind myself that everyone experiences failure. For me, failure is really isolating. I often go straight into victim mentality and I feel like I’m the only one who experiences this and I’m all alone. But these feelings are not unique. I’m not the only one. All humans struggle and all humans experience failure. Now if it is a fake failure, if you’ve gotten really curious and really honest and you realize, oh, this is just a standard that I’ve held myself to and it’s not a real rule, I actually haven’t failed in anything. I want you to talk yourself through that and let it go. And if it is a true failure, if it’s not some sort of made up, fake rule that I’ve imagined I’ve broken. And by the way, here I want to add that goals that we set for ourselves are fake and made up rules that we have. I’m not saying don’t set goals, but understand their place. Goals are not to be used as an opportunity to beat ourselves up. Goals are fake, okay? They’re imaginary. There are things that we set for ourselves that we can reach or not reach, but nobody’s going to be like, you know, disappointed or mad if we don’t. So for me, I had an earning goal for 2019 and I worked super hard at it. As you know, I own a company and we’ve been growing and it’s been great. And this year I learned a lot. I studied, I applied everything that I was learning. I really took a lot of action and I didn’t reach my goal. Now it’s only November, so of course there’s still six weeks left. Ish. In 2019, there’s always the chance that I will reach that goal. But I’m telling you the truth, it doesn’t look real good. Okay. And last month in October, when I realized that I probably was not going to be reaching my goal, I really struggled. I really, really, really struggled. I felt frustrated and defeated and annoyed and angry and upset. I had worked really hard and I was experiencing a lot of defeat and failure. Normal emotions for when we don’t reach a goal. It’s totally fine. I spent a lot of time getting coached on this by my coach and also coaching myself on it. My money goal was a made up rule that I set for myself. It wasn’t real. It was this idea that I had in my mind and I worked hard to achieve it. I had it in my mind the whole year and I didn’t reach it. Now the question is, do I want to use this as an opportunity to beat myself up? Do I want to use this as evidence that I’m a failure? Do I want to use this as evidence that I just can’t get it right. My answer to that question, to all those questions, is no. I purposefully decided that I did not want to do this because no one grows a business from the feeling of failure. Just like no one gets as from the feeling of failure or cultivates a healthy marriage from the feeling of failure or excels at their job from the feeling of failure. Feeling failure and defeat only leads to failure and defeat. Instead, my coach encouraged me to get curious. Why didn’t I reach my money goals for My business, what worked, what didn’t work, what do I want to do differently? Once I began to get curious and I really processed the emotion, I was able to apply the scientific method to my business, which in essence is gather data for what works and what doesn’t work and change. You can do this too. Process the emotion that you’re feeling. Feel the defeat wash over you. Recognize it, identify it, breathe into it. And then recognize that no one can take action from the feeling of defeat. It always leads us to avoid. It always leads us to procrastinate. And then decide like the powerful person that you are. Decide whether or not it’s going to be helpful to you. Decide whether or not you want to keep the feeling of failure and defeat with you. If you don’t, then get curious. What’s working, what’s not working? What do I need to do differently? Start to analyze. Start to see. See things like a science experiment. In the scientific method, there really are no defeated feelings. There’s just evidence. There’s evidence that something works and there’s evidence that something doesn’t work. So if you can move past the feeling of defeat into the space of being curious and collecting data, your life really will change. Get curious about whether you’ve actually failed at a real thing or just one of your many made up rules for yourself. Get curious about what you want to make your failure mean. You get to decide what it means. Does it mean that you’re still learning? Does it mean that you have more work to do? Does it mean that you need to change course? Does it mean that you’re a hopeless defeated failure that’s never going to get it right? You get to decide. Do you want to continue to walk in defeat and see failure everywhere? Or do you want to start learning how to get things done in spite of doing them imperfectly? All success is built on a pile of failures. There’s absolutely no way to succeed without failing first. It just doesn’t work that way. That’s not the way that life is. So if we can’t learn to fail and move through the feeling of defeat, then we’re never going to reach our potential. I want to invite you to start getting comfortable with failure. Begin to develop a tolerance for it. Know that you can powerfully decide what you want to make it mean. What does it mean when you don’t show up somewhere on time? What does it mean when your house is messy? What does it mean when you lose your job? What does it mean when you say the wrong thing in a conversation and Somebody gets angry. What does it mean when you binge eat or when you yell at your kids or when you accidentally send an email to the wrong person? What do those things mean? You get to decide. All right, my friends, I hope that this was so helpful to you. I ironically, am struggling with this episode because I wonder if I’ve done it justice. I. I wonder if I’ve communicated clearly. I wonder if I’ve stumbled over my words too much. I wonder if you can notice all the splicing of my editing. I wonder if you are bored with my pauses and my breaths. I wonder if I just wonder what everyone thinks. And I just find that to be so ironic. Because in this episode about failure, my question is, what do I want to make it mean that I have an imperfect podcast? What do I want to make it mean? That I say a lot? What do I want to make it mean? That it’s not perfectly edited? What am I going to make that mean? And here’s what I’m deciding. I’m deciding to make it mean that I show up imperfectly, and that’s okay. One thing that I always love to remind myself is that B minus work can change the world, but work that never gets done doesn’t help anybody. And so that’s what I’m leaning into today. I hope this was helpful. I hope that the concepts about failure are really meaningful and powerful to you, just like they are to me. It is completely changing my life, and I am so happy to be able to share it with you. Remember that I have a resource for you@ihaveadhd.com failure cannot wait to chat with you next week. See ya.