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 63. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. I am hiding in my room hoping to finish this podcast recording without any major interruptions. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. It’s not fancier. Oh, there’s already been an interruption. All right, back at ya, you guys. I don’t know how the pros do it. Like, I don’t even know who the pros are. But I assume there are people out there who get their stuff done and in a timely fashion and in a professional office without any children around or interruptions. But I don’t want to give you the impression that I am that pro. I am so not. I am sitting cross legged on my bed right now, holding my microphone in my left hand, staring at my computer and just praying that we don’t get interrupted again. So listen, B minus work can change the world. How is it in your life that you can just allow yourself to show up imperfectly so you can get the stuff done? I really want to encourage you with that because even when you’re not feeling perfect, even when you don’t have the atmosphere or the setting that you think you should in order to accomplish what you want to accomplish, you can still get it done. You can. So I hope that I am proof of that. And I hope that you will accept this imperfect podcast for from me to you as a love offering and as an example of what is possible when you’re just willing to do it. Just willing to do it imperfectly. So today we are going to talk about failure. Now, before we get started today, I want to let you know something super, super fun. I’m going to be hosting my very first webinar for adults with adhd. The title is called why you’re not taking action. And I cannot wait to hang out with you. I want to personally invite you, my dear listener, to come hang out with me. Get some teaching, some coaching, get all your questions answered on why you are not taking action. If you are someone who knows the things that you should be doing, quote, unquote, should be doing, but you’re not able to make yourself do them, do not despair. I know exactly how to help you. I know exactly what’s going on. I help my clients with this every single day. So I would love for you to join me. Thursday, July 16th at 1pm Eastern. Now, I’m in Eastern time. I live near Philadelphia, so if you want to do like a time zone converter, I know you guys live all over the world. Shout out to all of my international clients. I see you. I love you. I’m so glad you listen. So come hang out with me. It’ll be so much Fun. We’ll discuss why you’re not taking action. I will give you some very valuable resources. Some teaching, some coaching, some. Yeah, some good stuff. And you’ll be able to answer your questions. You’ll be able to ask questions, get your questions answered. Wow, that was difficult. We’re going to move on, but I hope you’ll join me. You can go to ihaveadhd.com webinar. You’ll need to register, put in your email address, and then I’ll send you some reminders, including the zoom link. It’s going to be fantastic. I can’t wait. Ihaveadhd.com webinar sign up. I’ll see you next Thursday. It’s going to be so good. Okay, today we’re going to talk about how to fail without letting it break you. And I just wanted to visit this topic of failure over and over and over, because it is one that is so important to those of us with adhd. We must learn how to fail, because if we don’t learn how to fail, we will never succeed. We will live a small and cautious life, and we will never accomplish the things that we want to accomplish. Everyone wants to know how to succeed, but what I want to teach you is how to fail. Because the secret to success is being willing to fail over and over and over and not letting it get you off course, not letting it send you into a spiral, not letting it ruin your day. Okay, I know that it might be hard to hear this because we want something fancy and sweet and kind of sexy, like, hey, give me the five steps to never failing and to never feeling badly. And listen, if I had them, I would give them to you, but I don’t have them. I really don’t. But I do have a lot of experience with failure, and so I want to share that with you today. We learn to fail so that we can succeed. So my question is, like, are you afraid of failure? And if so, why? What is so scary about failure? What do you make failure mean about you? So a lot of my clients make it mean that they’re not good enough or that they’re stupid or that they don’t do anything right, or it’s just more evidence that there’s something wrong with them. And so, over the course of this podcast, I want to. To kind of switch that around and make it so that you have a different perspective about failure, that maybe it doesn’t send you into a tailspin, and maybe you don’t use it as evidence that you’re a terrible person, but rather you just chalk it up to being human and you’re able to move on. What would you do if you weren’t afraid to fail? What actions would you be willing to take? What risks would you be willing to take if you weren’t afraid to fail? Now, I looked up the definition of failure, and it’s not very exciting. It’s just the omission of an expected or required action. It’s not really that big of a deal. It’s pretty simple. Failure is. I tried something. I omitted a required action. I didn’t get the result that I wanted. The end. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever told this story on the podcast, but one of my biggest fails, one of my most embarrassing moments, was in the second month of Focus. It was February. I came down with a cold, and it was, like, worse than I thought. I don’t know if you’re like this, but I’m like, I’m fine. I’m totally fine. I’m totally fine. And I never want to cancel anything. And so I just made myself teach a class in focus that I probably shouldn’t have taught. And I started in the middle of this class. I started to get, like, that tickle in your throat that you get when you are, like, so sick and you can’t control it. And so I click the mute button on my mic. I wear one of those, like, really hilarious Britney Spears mics so that I can, like, move around, and the speaker picks up my voice, and it’s not a problem. So I walk away from my computer, and I’m coughing and sneezing and gagging and blowing my nose. I mean, the sounds coming out of me were, like, so bad. Like, really gross. And after I, like, pull myself together, I’m not, like, secreting any more fluids. I walk back to my computer and. And the members on the call sweetly, gently, kindly let me know that I never actually hit the mute button. They heard everything. So I have on my Britney Spears mic, which means I took them with me, and I am coughing into this mic. I’m sneezing, I’m gagging. I’m blowing my nose. I mean, all of the gross stuff, right? So they all heard me, everything. I omitted a required action by not properly clicking mute, and I had a huge fail. Now, this is just an example of something that could have allowed me to spiral out. I could have ended the program right there. No, more focused. The end. I did end the call. I’ll tell you what, I ended that call pretty quickly. And at first, I really felt like a failure. But here’s something that I’ve learned. Failure is something that we do. It’s not something that we are. And it’s really important that we make this distinction. No matter what you’ve done or not done, you are not a failure. A human cannot be a failure. Failure does not define you or anyone else in your life. Failure is something you do right. And if you’re going to be successful, you must make the distinction between I am a failure and I failed at my goal. Because there’s a really big difference. No matter what anyone has said to you or about you, you are not a failure. So I didn’t hit mute on this call. It was a huge fail. But I was not a failure as a person. I was just a sick woman who accidentally didn’t hit a button. Failure is something we do. It’s not something we are now. We are told and we’re taught not to fail our entire lives. And what I’m learning is that this is really destructive. Failure aversion begins at a really young age and is perpetuated throughout our schooling. Most of us spent our academic career being told, get good grades. Don’t fail. Do it right, or don’t do it at all. The dreaded F on a paper or a test or a project. That dreaded F meant failure, right? And it wasn’t like, hey, you tried. This is great. Here’s what you can do differently. It was like, it’s a no. You’re a disgrace. You should be embarrassed, right? So I wonder, like, have you received these messages from your parents or your teachers or your employers? So I want you to consider, like, what failure messages have you received throughout your life? I think it’s important to understand what thoughts you may have borrowed from teachers or parents or employers or coaches or spouses. You know, because I have good news. You don’t have to keep believing the messages that you received in the past. You get to decide how you think and how you feel about failure. So even though we’ve been taught since we were kids, don’t fail. It’s terrible to fail. It’s an embarrassment to fail. We can actually make a conscious decision of whether or not we want to continue to believe that we can always change our minds. I do not like the concept of do it right or don’t do it at all. It’s one of the biggest messages that I think we need to unlearn if we’re going to create success. Because if you want to accomplish anything in your Life, you’re going to have to be willing to do it wrong a thousand times until you get it right. I’m going to say that again. If you want to accomplish anything in your life, anything big, any big success, you have to be willing to do it wrong a thousand times until you get it right. But the problem is that we’ve been so conditioned against failure that we’re not willing to do anything wrong. We’re so afraid to show up imperfectly that we just don’t show up at all. I’m wondering, how is that true for you? So many adhders are living small lives because they’re afraid to fail. Is that you do you know that you’re meant for more, but you’re too scared to take risks and to try. Now, one of the concepts that my coach, Brooke Castillo, taught me that I think is just really, absolutely brilliant is the concept of failing ahead of time. When we don’t bother to show up and try, we’re failing ahead of time. And here’s how that looks. I’m not going to bother to go up for that promotion because I know I won’t get it. I’m not going to finish that song I started writing because it wasn’t that great anyway. I’m not going to ask that woman out because she’s out of my league. I don’t want to have kids because I am afraid I’m just going to screw them up. I’m not going to start my dream business because I suck at managing my time or the little details of life. I’m not going to bother join focused because I don’t think I’m going to follow through with it. When we don’t even give ourselves the opportunity to succeed, we fail ahead of time. And failing ahead of time is still failure. We try to avoid the yucky feeling of failure by just not attempting the thing at all. But guess what? That feels gross as well. Because we failed ahead of time, we’ve not given ourselves the opportunity to succeed. I’m wondering, in what ways do you feel ahead of time? In what ways are you holding yourself back from even trying because you’re afraid of failure? I’m really curious, like, in your mind, what is so bad about failure? Like, seriously, why are we so terrified of it? Why were our parents afraid to let us fail? Why were our teachers so adamant that we never fail? What in the world is so bad about failure? Like, for most of us, failure is not a matter of life or death, right? Unless you’re a doctor, failure is not A matter of life or death in a lot of ways, right? Like really think about it. The things that you’re considering trying and failing at, are they a matter of life and death? So like me not hitting mute was totally harmless. So what I would offer here is that like the terrible thing about failure is how it makes us feel. We feel embarrassed and shameful, unworthy, stupid, inadequate, inept, defeated, frustrated, useless. Right? Like we feel terrible when we fail. One thing that I have been learning and teaching my clients is that our thoughts create our feelings. So all of those feelings are caused by thoughts. So we must realize that we’re actually in charge of how we feel about failure. So if we are in charge of how we feel about failure, which I know is like a meta concept and I would love to work with you on developing this concept. So if you are interested, reach out to me. I’d love to work with you, Join, focused, become a client and we will work on this. So I’m wondering what you make failure mean. Most of us make it mean that we’re an embarrassment, we’re stupid, we missed the mark, we’re never going to amount to anything. So what do you make failure mean? That’s one of the best questions that I’ve learned to ask myself is what do I want to make this mean? I get to decide how I think about it, which is so crazy. So distinguishing between the sting of failure and the suffering that we cause I think is really important. So clean pain is the gut punch that we feel after we’ve failed, right? It’s realizing that you missed that meeting. It’s seeing the fear on your kids faces after you’ve screamed at them. Or it’s wanting to sell to 10 people but only selling to four. There’s like this initial pain that happens and that’s very just like clean pain. All right? It’s normal, it’s good, it’s useful. It indicates to us that we’ve either like crossed one of our boundaries or we want to make changes or there’s action that we omitted. All right? That pain is good, it’s useful. However, here’s what we ADHDers often do. We cause a huge amount of suffering for ourselves, right? So for days or weeks or months or even years after a failure, we will berate ourselves, shame ourselves, beat ourselves up, and hold ourselves back from ever trying again. And that, my friend, is unnecessary suffering caused by our own thoughts. Ask me how I know, right? Like I know because I’m an expert at this. I was an expert at beating myself up because of my perceived failures. And the wild thing about suffering is that it is 100% self inflicted. We do it to ourselves. So clean pain is good, it can stay clean. Pain means like, oh, I missed the mark and I want to do something differently. But suffering, that needs to go. So I’m wondering, do you inflict suffering on yourself after you’ve failed? See for me what I’m learning is that failure is an opportunity to take care of yourself. How much more would you be willing to try and potentially fail if you knew you’d be nice to yourself afterward? What risk would you be willing to take if you knew you wouldn’t cause suffering for yourself if you did it wrong? A fail is a great opportunity to learn to take care of yourself. It’s a great opportunity to learn to trust yourself. In my opinion, a failure is the best time to self coach and to practice self care. It’s the perfect time to make a conscious decision on how you want to think and feel about yourself. Remember, a fail only hurts because of what you make it mean about you. So I’m wondering, are you creating a safe space in your mind for yourself to fail? Is it safe for you to fail and will you still be okay or will you beat yourself up? Is failing dangerous because of the way that you treat yourself or is it safe because of the way that you treat yourself? Whenever I fail, which is a lot, I spend time deciding on purpose what I’m going to make that failure mean and how I want to choose to feel about it. And that’s right, I like decide. It’s hard. It doesn’t come easily. I have to sit down and intentionally coach myself. But I do powerfully decide how I’m going to think and feel about this particular failure. So I’m wondering how your life would change if you believed that you had the power to decide how you’re going to think and feel about each failure. Like, what do you want to make your failures mean? How do you want to feel about your failures? Some emotions that I go for that I practice after I failed are acceptance or I feel willing, like, okay, I’m willing to feel, I’m willing to allow this failure. Purposeful, knowing, peaceful, open, understanding, compassionate. You get to choose. The choice is yours. So after I got married, which was 16 years ago, almost, almost 16 years ago, I spent years beating myself up about what didn’t go right at my wedding. I caused a tremendous amount of suffering for myself. For years, every night I would lie in bed and I would viciously attack myself And I would relive the parts that I was deciding were, like, embarrassing. And I forgot this detail and this didn’t go right. And I misunderstood this person. And so, like, it turned out in a different way than I wanted it to. Do you do that to yourself? Like, what past failures are you still beating yourself up for? So once I realized that ADHD played a huge role in why I couldn’t manage the details of my wedding and why I was so overwhelmed and I wasn’t willing to even try, I was able to work through forgiving myself for the way that it all went down. That’s something really important. Like, how does ADHD factor into the fails that you’ve had? If you’ve failed out of college, or if you’ve gotten fired from a job job, or if maybe you have a relationship that you didn’t show up the way that you wanted to? How did ADHD or even just your humanness play a role in that past failure? And how do you want to feel about that failure? Part of what’s important is to, like, work on forgiving ourselves for our past failures so that we will be willing to make mistakes in the future. It’s like, I’m so afraid to fail now because of the way that I’ve treated myself with my past failures. So if you would be willing to go into that and, like, really decide to forgive yourself for what went wrong in the past, you will be much more willing to try and fail in the future. Remember, you will never have massive success unless you’re willing to fail. It’s impossible. Success comes only after a thousand or so fails. Again, ask me how I know the amount of success that you want. So envision that the amount of success that you want is the exact amount of failures that you must be willing to allow and tolerate. So if you have a goal in mind, you will fail at it until you don’t, right? Avoiding failure is just avoiding success. And in my opinion, failure is just data. It tells you what you should be doing differently. And the only way to find out what you can do with your life is to try. Fail, evaluate, adjust. Try something different. Fail, evaluate, adjust. Try something different. And so on and so on and so on until you reach your goal. Have you ever watched a baby, like, grow into a toddler and learn to walk? So you guys know that I have three boys, and, like, right around their first birthdays, they all started attempting to walk. It’s like the best time in a little kid’s life. I just think it’s like the Cutest age ever. It’s hard, you don’t sleep and it’s exhausting, but it is adorable. So first they like start by just pulling themselves on the, like up on the couch or the coffee table, right? So like they pull themselves up, they plop down, they pull themselves up, they plop down, up, down, up, down. And then next they cruise along while holding on to something, but then they finally let go and they attempt steps on their own. And over and over they take a step, fall, get back up, take a step or two, fall, get back up. They fall 100 times a day. They have skinned knees and scraped up hands, but it’s fine. They just keep trying. You know what I never thought about my kid? I never once thought, now I had three boys learn to walk and I helped all three of them with it. I never thought, gosh, like, I really don’t know. I don’t think my kid’s ever going to learn to walk. I never considered their failure as indicators that they wouldn’t succeed ever. I just knew that failing was a part of the process. And I guess instinctually they knew it too, because they just kept trying. And somewhere along the way, we’ve lost that perspective. What if you began to look at failing as normal, totally expected. What if there’s absolutely no way for you to create what you want in the world without experiencing a ton of failure first? What if failure isn’t really that big of a deal? What if every success is built on a huge pile of failure? What if we don’t make our failures mean that we’re flawed or deficient? That just like we’re humans, we’re working toward a goal just like a child learning to walk. Like nothing’s gone wrong. It’s just a matter of trying and failing long enough. And we know they’re going to learn to walk. So something really, really cool that I learned, which I did not know prior to doing this work, is that the baby’s learning to walk thing, which is probably an overused analogy when it comes to failure. I did not know that babies actually get their strength from pushing themselves up after they’ve fallen. Did you know that? I totally did not know that. So they build the muscles that they need to by falling and then pushing themselves back up. What? Isn’t that so cool? So what if you had this desire to build your muscles and what if you decided that you wanted to pursue failure? What if you wanted to get good at it? Like worthy fails, like collect badges of honor, build your failure tolerance so that you can experience success. Now I’m not talking about escape fails. Like oh, I plan to do an Instagram live and make a direct offer, but whoops, here I am watching Netflix. Or I plan to pay off a credit card this month, but whoops, I’ve booked a vacation. Or I plan to lose 50 pounds, but whoops, here I am like eating ice cream every night. That’s not what I’m talking about. Those are escapist and self sabotaging fails. Okay, do you see how those actually in a very weird way, those protect you from the fail, right? Like if I’m on Netflix, if I’m sitting on the couch watching Netflix, I don’t actually have to do the scary thing of going onto my Instagram story and making an offer. Does that make sense? Okay, so I’m not talking about escapist and self sabotaging fails. I’m talking about worthy fails. The kind of fails that show you that you’re making progress toward your goal. So here’s how I want to end this. What worthy fails could you collect in order to accomplish your goal? So if you imagine a goal that you want to accomplish, I would love for you to write down 10, 15, 20 fails that you would be willing to try fail and do it differently. 20 things that you’d be willing to try and fail at that would push you closer to getting to your goal. I’m telling you, this is a game changer my friend. Make sure that you begin to work on your willingness and your ability to fail. Because all success is built on a pile of failure. It is so worth it. Go, go and do it. That’s all I have for you today, my friend. I hope this was super helpful to you and I hope that you’re planning to join me for the webinar why you’re not taking action. Remember, go to ihaveadhd.com webinar to register. Get your email reminders, get the zoom links. I can’t wait to hang out with you. It’s going to be a jam packed hour so don’t miss it. It’s going to be amazing. I’ll see you there. 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.
