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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 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 Kristin Carter and you are listening to the I have ADHD podcast, episode number 62. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. Let’s go. It is a gorgeous day in Pennsylvania. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, there’s like zero humidity. It is nice and warm and I am here recording a podcast for you. Love it. It’s going to be a short episode but it’s really important. I’m going to make an analogy that I think is going to be incredibly helpful as it pertains to ideas and constraints and sticking to one thing at a time, seeing it through to the end and fulfilling your God given potential. Really looking forward to this episode today. First, I want to let you know that if you’re listening in real time, Today is Tuesday, June 30th. Today is the last day to join Focused for July. If you’ve tried other ADHD programs and they haven’t worked for you, I want you to know if you that Focused is different. I don’t spend a lot of time telling you what to do and giving you strategies. I rarely coach on actions because you already know what to do, right? That’s the thing with adhd. We know what to do, we just don’t do it. The last thing you need from me is one more strategy. So instead we dig into why you don’t do the things that you want to do and how your thoughts are producing your results. And I teach you how to manage your mind and create the life that you want to live. So in today’s episode, it’s a perfect example of the work that we do in Focused. I’m going to break down a huge problem, very common problem that all of us ADHDers struggle with. And I’m going to give you a different way to think about it. And this different way of thinking about it will change your life. And this is how we approach everything in the Focus program, whether it’s relationships or time management or organization. It’s not about a gimmick or a strategy or some like, magical action that you need to take. It all comes down to clearing the clutter in your mind and intentionally thinking in a way that gives you positive results. So my friend, if you have ADHD or you suspect you have ADHD and you want help creating a life that you’re proud of, Join focused. You can go To I have ADHD.com focused for all the details, my friend. Here’s what we’re going to talk about today. I hear a lot from my ADHD clients and just ADHD people in general that it’s really hard to stay committed to one goal or one hobby or one business or one idea. This tendency is so pervasive among ADHDers, and if you identify with it, I would guess that you bounce around from idea to idea, business or business relationship to relationship, never really seeing one thing through to the end and feeling super accomplished. Now, I hear adults with ADHD say things like, there’s just so many things that I want to do. I just don’t know how to choose. Or I’m afraid that if I choose, I’ll have to give up X, Y, Z. Or doing one thing at a time is so boring. You guys, I understand this. I was this. I get this 100%. But if you want to live up to your potential, if you want to finish and accomplish anything, you’re going to have to choose one thing. See it through to the end. One of my favorite concepts to teach my clients and to practice in my own life is the concept of constraint. I read a great book. I know, I’ve mentioned it on the podcast. It’s called A Session Essentialism. It’s by Greg McGowan. I cannot recommend it enough. I really love this concept of having the essential things in mind and constraining down so that you are not bouncing all over the place and really not accomplishing much of anything. So someone who is very successful in their life knows exactly what’s essential to them and is committed to following, following that through. Now, if that sounds super boring, just hang on with me for a little bit because I’m going to make some sense in a minute. Okay? So just like, hang in there, my friend. All right? Now, I know our ADHD brains love novelty. They hate boredom. So it can be really hard for us to intentionally choose one thing and finish it. After the dopamine hit of the initial idea wears off, it’s very difficult to carry out the mundane tasks and that allow us to bring an idea to completion. A lot of times, as soon as what we are doing gets hard, we go looking for something that’s more fun, more interesting, more compelling, or we look for something else that we can learn before we see the idea through to the end. Right? So, like, this is why some of you are constantly Studying and learning and taking classes and not taking action action in that business or whatever it is that you want to start and do, right? I get a lot of pushback when I talk about constraint. I mean, come on, what’s wrong with having a million ideas and interests anyway? It’s just like a typical quality of adhd, right? Isn’t this endearing? Isn’t this a part of us that we should just accept and love? Shouldn’t we embrace it? My personal opinion? No, we should not embrace it. Because if we want to live up to our potential, if we want to produce value in the world, if we want to accomplish big things, then it’s a part of ADHD that we need to like, recognize, but intentionally work around. Now, the reason why I’m recording this episode for you today is because a few of my clients in Focused were having a discussion in our Slack community regarding this topic. And it started out with a question from Keeley. Hi Keely. In regard to last week’s episode on entrepreneurship now, she asked me, how do I know when I switch businesses or interests if it’s due to boredom or if it’s just like not something I want to do anymore? Everything new captures and excites me and I feel compelled to spend time on it. And then I find something else that’s new and I end up spending a lot of money on my hobby and then regret it when I look at my bank statements. And then I start feeling scattered with so many projects. Can you relate? I mean, I feel like she is speaking for so many of us. Right? It resonated with a lot of people in Focused who are like active in the Slack channel and they had an awesome discussion about it. So I wanted to talk with you today because I think it’s extremely relatable. Now, of course, I don’t have any specific answers for you as to what you should be focusing your time and attention on. All of us have God given talents and gifts and strengths and weaknesses that we can use to change the world and to make it a better place. So you get to decide what you want to do. You can do anything at all. You can do whatever you want to do. So what do you want to do? Like, that’s where we need to start. Now I want to give you an analogy today that I think will be really helpful to you. I’m going to say the analogy and then I’m going to explain it in detail. So here we go. Are you ready? Ideas are like lovers. It’s best to have just one at A time. Okay, so it’s kind of a funny analogy. I hope you love it. Let me explain it to you. I want you to imagine yourself as a single person, okay? Now maybe you’ve been married forever, so this might be hard, or maybe you’re currently single, so it’s actually like really easy for you to imagine. But either way, I want you to like, imagine yourself totally free, totally single. You’re completely 100% unattached, okay? Now you can date whoever you want to date. You can partner with whoever you want to partner. The world is your oyster, as they say. Which, by the way, I have no idea what that means. I have no idea what that means. But anyway, let’s move on. So you’re single and you want the benefit of a loving and committed relationship. You want the security of knowing that you’re loved unconditionally. You want to have a person who is there for you no matter what. So you’re looking to find a relationship. Now you can date anyone of any age, any race, any country, any. There’s no limits, okay? There are so many eligible people in the world, I just googled it. There’s about seven and a half billion people in the world. So I want you to like literally see in your brain like hundreds of thousands of people, like a sea of people that you can choose from. Now remember, your goal in this analogy is to be in a loving and committed relationship full of security and fulfillment. So you start dating. It’s great, right? And you date a bunch of people and you date people and you realize, like, oh, I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want to be with you. You keep dating people and meeting people and you just find a lot of people that you don’t want to be with. This is good. It’s like eliminating people. It’s very good. And then you meet someone who you fall in love with. You enjoy being with them. You’re quite compatible. Sure, you fight, it gets hard, but you’re committed to working it out. And you’re like mutually benefiting from the relationship. You decide to be exclusive. So now you’re in a committed relationship. In order to get the benefit of a loving and committed relationship, you must keep up your end of the bargain to be exclusive. If you’re having affairs and one night stands and cheating on your partner, you lose the benefit of a committed relationship. So what this means is that even though you may see other people that may seem nice and attractive, you intentionally do not pay much attention to them because you’ve made a decision to love the person that you’re with. So I hope you see the connection here. Ideas, jobs, businesses, the dreams that you have in your head are like lovers. Stay committed to one at a time. Now, the sea of people that we’re imagining, right, that are available to you as a single person, it’s like the sea of ideas that are available to you as a human with a brain. There are so many ideas and there are so many things that you can do, so many avenues that you could try, so many jobs you could have, or businesses you could start, or ways that you could improve the world. But if you want to reach your potential as a human, you need to pick one thing and stick with it for a period of time, not necessarily forever. You don’t have to marry it, so to speak. It doesn’t have to be until death do us part, okay? That’s why I specifically in this analogy, I’m not talking about marriage, okay? But I encourage you to be in a committed relationship with that idea for long enough to see how it works out. Long enough to benefit from it, long enough to gain fulfillment from it. I’ve heard from a lot of you who are unfulfilled in your lives. You reach out to me, you DM me, you email me, we coach on it and focus. I would say that this is one of the main causes you aren’t doing what you want to do and you’re not sticking to your dreams and goals long enough for them to come to life. Having a million ideas that you bounce around between is like dating a bunch of people casually and then wondering why you’re not in a committed relationship. Some of you are cheating on your dreams with stupid one night stands. I’m going to say that again because I really think it’s profound. Some of you, my friends, are cheating on your dreams with dumb and unfulfilling one night stands. I want you to treat your ideas like romantic partners. If you have too many, life gets complicated. It’s exhausting, it’s confusing and really no one is happy. But if you commit to one at a time, life gets much better for you as new ideas surface. Ask yourself, am I cheating on my real dream? Is this just a one night stand? Is this worth like risking the relationship for now? One of the brilliant responses to Keely’s post in Slack was from Rich who said, I’m learning that I can do anything, anything I want to, but I can’t do everything. That blew my mind. Shout out to Rich. I love it. It’s so true. I’m learning that I can do anything. Everything’s available, right? I can do anything, but I can’t do everything. One of the lines in my marriage vows was a commitment, and it’s worded this way. Forsaking all others, I commit to forsake all others. And I just love that language. I love the wording of that. Because if we think about seven and a half billion people in the world, if we cut that in half, that’s three and a quarter. Nope. Let’s do the math correctly, Kristin. 3.75 billion women in the world, right? Like, if we kind of cut that in half. Wow. Are you bored? Sorry for the math. I promise to never do math on this podcast ever again. But there’s, like, over 3 billion women that Greg could choose from, right? And he could be compatible with hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of them, but he has chosen to forsake all of others and show his love and devotion to me and only me. And of course, of course it’s the same for me with him. No matter what, I only have eyes for him. And I’m telling you, we have a great relationship. We benefit from the security of an exclusive partnership. And I want you to ask yourself, are you treating your ideas and your dreams the same way? Are you willing to forsake others, all others, to make that relationship work? Now, again, you don’t have to do it forever. It’s not until death do us part. Maybe give yourself a time limit. I like to encourage my clients to commit to an idea for about six months to a year. Forsake all others for a short period of time. And then every time you get a new idea, acknowledge it, write it down, but don’t persuade it until you’ve seen your other idea all the way through to completion, or your time limit is up and you’re willing to consider other things that you might want to do. So, getting back to Keely’s question, how do we know when we can change jobs or ideas? What do we do when we’re captured by an idea and we feel compelled to spend time and money on it? The real answer here is that, like, you get to do anything you want to do. You get to, say, spend your time and money any way that you choose, but make sure to check in with yourself. What do you really want? Are you committed to fulfilling a relationship with an idea or a plan? Or are you just out for the dopamine hit of a fling? Really get authentic and vulnerable with yourself. And if you’re not doing what you want to do, then that’s the place to start, right? Because you can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything. So decide on purpose what it is that you want to do and then remember, ideas are like lovers. One at a time is best. Stick with one idea for long enough to see it through, to gain fulfillment and to feel a core accomplished with what you’re doing. I know this is short, I hope it was helpful. I’m sending you all the love and I will see you next week. If you’re being treated for your ADHD but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join Focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted. No matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world, Focust is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused for all the info.
