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 that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and acai berry flavors are my current go tos. 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 CUR 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. Save over $200 when you book weekly. Stays with VRBO this winter if you need to work, why not work from a chalet? If you haven’t seen your college besties since, well, college. You need a week to fully catch up in a snowy cabin. And if you have to stay in a remote place with your in laws, you should save over $200 a week. That’s the least we can do. So you might as well start digging out the long johns because saving over $200 on a week long snowcation rental is in the cards book now@verbo.com. 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 69. I am your host, Kristin Carter. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am so ready to roll. Today we are talking about two of the most important mindsets ever in life. I cannot wait to talk to you about them in depth because I’ve mentioned both of them on the podcast before, but I have not spent an entire episode discussing these two ways of thinking. And I think, think that if you give it a chance, this is going to be absolutely mind blowing and life changing for you, just as it was for me. About a year ago, I had a coaching session with Carolla, awesome coach. And she pointed out two things in me that were very difficult for me to see. And by difficult, I mean painful, not super fun, not things that I wanted to see, but they changed my life. And I believe that that one session was the catalyst that really set me on the course of the last year, which has been an amazing ride. And so if you’ll give this episode a chance, it’s not your like sweet and cute ADHD tips and tricks episode. It is a mindset episode that can change everything for you. I invite you while you listen to this podcast episode, you might want to get cozy. You might want to grab a piece of paper and a pen. You might want to like, sit in your most comfortable spot in your house. And if you’re out on a run or if you are driving in your car, that’s fine too. But just know that it might be worth it to come back to this at another time where you can really engage with it and answer some of these questions. Because I don’t want you to just be consuming information all of the time. There’s a place for consumption and that’s great, but sometimes we just kind of get really obese on our consumption and we are not actually putting things into practice. And so we just get these like really big obese brains that are consuming all of the information. But we’re not doing the work of like, working it out. We’re not doing the work of putting pen to paper and really getting clear on our thoughts. We’re not doing the work of taking massive action. Is that you? If it Is it’s totally fine. But just know that consumption consuming can only take you so far. And then you’re going to have to put things into action. And so sitting down with this episode with a piece of paper and a pen and really getting clear about downloading your thoughts and your responses can maybe really change things for you and jumpstart you into positive results. I don’t even think I’ve mentioned yet what we’re talking about today. Are you ready for it, my friends? We are going to be talking about the two mindsets that I think are the most insidious and results stealing mindsets that I’ve encountered in myself and my clients. So the first one is entitlement, and the second one is victim mentality, and they’re difficult to talk about. So I just want you to know that I do have very. What’s the word? Like, candid, gentle, kind conversations with my clients about these. But since you’re not looking at my face, since we’re not in the same room together, since we’re not looking at each other over a zoom call, you might not be able to see the sincerity in my eyes when I tell you that the only reason why I know anything about these two mindsets is because they were all over me for so long. I used to think this way. And so I completely understand if you are in, like, trapped in a cycle of entitlement or trapped in a cycle of victim mentality. And they sometimes go hand in hand, which is why I think they are pretty easy to talk about. Both of them on the same episode. I didn’t want to split them up and just have like one episode and then another episode. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone because I have ADHD and I’m all about efficiency. You feel me? You know what I’m saying? I think you’re the same way, so I think you get it. Okay, so two mindsets that steal results, they completely and secretively, insidiously steal your results from you. The first one, entitlement. So this one for sure kept me from making true change in my life for so long. Entitlement. I felt as though I deserved a lot more than I had. I believed that I had the right to certain things, and when they didn’t come easily, I got mad, got a little indignant, got a little anxious and graspy and weird. Okay, I was a complete weirdo, if I’m going to be honest. All right? So these thoughts can be very difficult to identify in yourself. This is why having a coach is so Valuable because he or she can pick this out in you if they are brave enough to bring it to your attention. And I hope and pray that you do have a coach that’s brave enough to bring these things to your attention because they will completely like 10x your results if you’re able to recognize and get rid of them. Okay, so entitlement sounds like I should be making more money. I should have the home or the decorations that I want. My potential customers should be buying from me. My husband should get a raise. My kids should be better behaved. All of these shoulds, we can also find them in shouldn’ts. Like, this shouldn’t be so hard. I shouldn’t have to invest in myself. I shouldn’t have to take medicine for my adhd. I shouldn’t have to invest in coaching in order to make good results. Okay, so entitlement can sound like shoulds, and it can sound like shouldn’ts. Now, these are different from the shoulds where they make us feel like a failure. These are different shoulds, which is why you need a good coach to be able to point them out. Or you can be taking very good notes on this podcast and then try to notice the difference in your thought patterns. So there are some shoulds in our lives that make us kind of feel like a failure. Kristen, why didn’t you do that? Right? You should have done that better, right? And then I feel like a failure or I feel defeated. That’s not the kind of should that I’m talking about. This should produces the feeling of entitlement, of deserving of having the right to something, right? So I should be able to do this without help. I should be able to get this done without medication. I shouldn’t have to spend money on investing and coaching. Those shoulds don’t make me feel like a failure. Those shoulds produce a feeling of deserving or entitlement in my body. And as you know, your feeling is always going to drive your action. So when you feel deserving, when you feel entitled, when you feel like you have the right to something, it’s actually never going to produce an action that serves you. It never produces an action that gets you a really good result. Okay, so when I feel deserving of something, I actually don’t take the action to it because I feel like I should just have it. So I don’t take the action that would lead me to get it. I actually avoid it. So if I feel like I shouldn’t have to take my medication, then what happens is I actually either don’t take it or I allow myself to forget. I don’t set it as a priority. It’s not really a big deal to me because I shouldn’t have to do it. I deserve to not have to take medication. All right? So I want you to really try to find entitlement in your life because I promise you, it is stealing positive results from you. Now, there were so many shoulds in my life, I can’t even begin to tell you I didn’t realize this, but I really did operate out of a place of entitlement for years and years. Decades. Okay? And entitlement is actually a really yucky feeling. It doesn’t feel good in my body. It feels like a strong tightness in the front of my chest, like in my sternum. And it leads me to feel anxious. And then I fight against the reality of what is actually happening. So, for example, if I feel like I should have more money and I look at my bank account and I don’t have the money that I think I should have, I’m just fighting against reality. Reality is I have this certain number in my bank account when I believe that I should have something else, I deserve something else. I have the right to more money. I’m just fighting against the reality of what is that makes me really anxious, really graspy and really weird. It never gets me good results. Okay? Entitlement never makes my relationships better. So I. When I had kids, I kind of felt extremely entitled to it just being easy. Like, why is this so hard? This shouldn’t be so hard. They should be sleeping better. They should be eating better. Potty training shouldn’t be taking so long. They should be better behaved. They should be able to be independent by now. All of these shoulds or shouldn’ts, again, I want to remind you, they’re not the failure should or shouldn’ts, right? They’re not the ones that make me feel feel defeated or like a failure. They make me feel entitled. They make me feel like I deserve to have kids who are better behaved. I deserve to have a family that never fights. I deserve to live in a home that’s always peaceful. Is that even true? That I deserve that? No, it’s not true. I don’t deserve that. That’s just. That’s so silly. That’s not at all what I deserve. But believing it was actually stealing my results from me, so my kids should be sleeping better. I shouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night really just made me mad. And what’s so funny about that is that the anger is what would keep me up so much longer, right? So, like, my kids would wake up, I would get super mad because I felt like I deserved to sleep through the night. And then that anger would keep me up. It’s hysterical. When I look back on it, I’m like, aw, Kristin, you’re so sweet. You’re just so cute. Now, I really want you to hear me here. Entitlement is insidious, which means it’s very, very sneaky. And it sounds super true. So, for example, that thought of, like, my kids should be sleeping better at night. I shouldn’t have to wake up with them. Like, that doesn’t seem like a harmful thought, but the way that we know that a thought is harmful is the feeling that it produces in our body and then the actions that we take from that feeling. So me stomping around at 3am slamming doors and just being angry about people waking me up in the middle of the night, not a super great feeling or action. You know what I’m saying? And entitlement is never true. Entitlement will always keep us from producing positive results in our lives. It’s a result stealer. It’s also a money stealer. I learned it the hard way, okay? So it’s never true. One of my beloved coaches, Brooke Castillo, I mention her all the time. One of the things that she says is that the only thing that humans are entitled to is death. Like, wow, that’s crazy. But really, think about it. The only thing that every human is entitled to is death, right? We’re not entitled to anything. There are wonderful and good people around the world who are starving. They’re living in treacherous and dangerous conditions, right? We are so lucky to be safe, to have access to clean food and clean water. And for me, like, a safe home, a warm bed. So when I start to notice this feeling of deserving or entitlement, I remind myself that I am not any more entitled than anyone else in the world. And that there are lovely, amazing, wonderful humans all over the world that have it really, really bad. They have it so hard. We are entitled to nothing, okay? And thinking that we should have more than we do is the perfect way to create no results. Entitlement thoughts always create less. Okay? And you can find them in your should thoughts, right? This should be easier. I should be making more money. This should be happening faster. Why is this taking so long? So a great example of this is there are some people that join focus for like a month, and then they’re like, why is this taking so long, I should be a different person by now. They wonder why they’re not having completely different results and becoming a completely different person after a few days or a few weeks of investing in themselves. And listen, no, we’re not entitled to our results being fast or easy or linear. Okay? We’re just not. It should take a long time. Evolving into a new person should take time. This needs to be a journey. So anytime that you feel entitled, anytime you have this feeling of you deserve something, I want you to stop and really question those thoughts. The best thing I think you can do is question. Is that serving me? Is it going to give me a result that’s beneficial, a result that I like? In my experience with myself and my clients, entitlement thoughts always create less than we want. They always steal our results. So I’ve really decided to kick entitlement to the curb. I work very hard to try to not assume that I’m deserving of anything. I do not have the right to anything. It is a privilege to even know that I have adhd. It’s a privilege to be a woman who has a diagnosis at the age of 30, 39. So many women die without even knowing that they had adhd. Think of our grandmothers, Think of our grandfathers. Think of the people who went before us, the generations before us, who never even knew that they had adhd and they just struggled their whole lives. So we can really be hindered by our entitlement thoughts. Like, I should have gotten a diagnosis early. I shouldn’t have to take medication. I shouldn’t have to invest in myself in order to make progress. But I want you to think of this as a privilege. It’s a privilege to even have a diagnosis. There are millions of Americans, millions of people all over the world walking around without a diagnosis who will never have the privilege of knowing why they struggle. They will never have the privilege of knowing why they do the things that they do. It is a privilege to know no matter what age you are diagnosed at. Thank God you were diagnosed. Thank God you have access to medication. Thank God that you have a credit card that can buy you coaching. Like, even if you don’t have the actual money sitting in your account. Most of you have, like, access to credit cards, right? Thank God we have a credit card that can give us access to therapy and medical care. Right? Thank God that is a privilege. So I invite you to change that entitlement thinking and to really begin to view things as a privilege. And one of the ways that I do that is I just reverse all of my shoulds. So any should that I having that I feel like should be going faster. This should be going faster. My business should be growing faster. I reverse it. No, it shouldn’t. How is it true that my business shouldn’t be growing faster? So I asked myself that question a couple months ago and the answer was it shouldn’t be growing faster because I’m not willing to invest in advertising. So you know what I did? I started to invest in advertising. So, like, switching around those thoughts and asking yourself the opposite can be so powerful. Get rid of entitlement. Hire a coach who’s willing to tell you the truth. Hire a coach who’s willing or a therapist who can see entitlement in you and encourage you to kick it to the curb. Because I promise you, this is one of the main ways that you can begin to transform into someone who produces a amazing results. Okay? The second mentality that I believe is a complete result stealer is victim mentality. So just like entitlement, this mindset is a total result stealer, a total money stealer, a total happiness stealer. And I’ve dealt with it in my own life. I don’t know if you can hear my kids in the background, but I did not have the luxury today of having child care. And so they are like screaming in the background if you can hear them. Just know that this is just real life, my friends. It is just real life. Okay? So anyway, victim mentality. Know that this is a result stealer. It is a money stealer, it’s a happiness stealer. I’ve dealt with it pretty much my whole life. So know that I’m speaking from experience, okay? So it’s likely that you’ve defined victims as people who are mistreated by other people. And I would totally agree with you. But one thing that we humans often do to ourselves is we make our circumstances our villain and we become the victim. We position ourselves as the victim of what’s going on in our own lives. We victimize ourselves by believing that we can’t produce results because of our circumstances. Right? So when you identify as a victim, you feel powerless to change your current reality. And of course, as you know, our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, our actions produce our results. So if we’re feeling powerless, we’re not going to change anything. And I’m wondering what your thoughts are about that. What are your thoughts? Do you notice yourself feeling powerless? Powerlessness is a feeling that I have. I’ve dabbled in for sure. For my whole life especially I would say in two areas, the area of money and the area of motherhood. I felt powerless in the area of money for my entire life up until about a year ago. And I felt powerless in the area of motherhood. I still dabble in that. I’m still working on that. Okay, now victim mentality sounds a little bit like this. I can’t make money because I have little kids, so my kids become my villain. I position myself as the victim of my circumstance of having little kids or I can’t get that promotion because I’m a woman. So sexism is my villain. I position myself as the victim or I don’t have time to invest in my self growth. Okay, so now I’ve positioned myself where time is my villain or I’d be so much further along if it weren’t for my stupid ADHD symptoms. Okay, so now ADHD is the villain and I’m the victim. I can’t stay consistent long enough to make progress. So my inconsistency is my villain and I’m the victim. Or I would have so much more money if it weren’t for these stupid student loans. Right, so now the loans are the villain and I’m powerless to change my financial circumstance because I’m being victimized by my loans right now. I want to pause here and say that, like this is not to say that some of these circumstances aren’t real villains. Of course they are. Racism exists, sexism exists. Time is limited. Right. Villains are out there for sure. And I’m not saying that some of you have not been truly victimized by people or the system or racism or whatever the case may be. And if you have, I’m sorry, I validate it. It’s 100% real. I totally create space for that and validate it. Here’s what I want to say. Acquiring a victim mentality is a choice that we all have the opportunity to either accept or reject. Okay, there’s victim. And if you have been a victim, which I would dare say that most of us have been a victim of someone or something at one time or another. Okay, so there’s a victim and then there’s a mindset called victim mentality. So I encourage you, even if you have been legitimately victimized, and I know a lot of you have, and I know that I have too, I encourage you to reject the mindset of victim mentality. Victim mentality always produces powerlessness, that feeling of powerlessness. And you all know that your actions are going to come from the way that you feel. Your feeling is the fuel that drives your action. It’s the gas in your gas tank that powers the car. It. It powers your actions. And so if your feeling is powerlessness, you are not going to be taking action that leads to a positive result. Powerlessness always produces poverty. Hear me again. Powerlessness always produces poverty. Now, that might not be financial poverty. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be financial poverty. It could also be results poverty. If you are someone who’s just consistently not getting the results that you want, it could be because you are in a victim mentality. And I would really encourage you to seek out an amazing therapist or a really good coach who is able to help you identify whether or not you are living in a victim mentality. Because if you are, you’re not going to be able to produce the positive results that you want for yourself. Remember, victim mentality always leads to feeling powerless, and powerlessness always leads to poverty. It might not be financial poverty. It could be, but it might just be results poverty, like not getting the results that you want to get. Identifying your own victim mentality and what people or circumstances in your life you are villainizing will be life changing for you. These two mindsets, entitlement and victim mentality, have changed everything about my results in the last year. And it took a really brave coach to look me in the eyes and say like, hey, I notice that you’re in entitlement and victim mentality. And I wonder if she was nervous to say that because now as a coach, I’m like, wow, that is very bold, very bold to say to someone. But I never want to hold back with my clients because my coach didn’t hold back from me and she totally changed my life. Totally. So here’s the part where you put pen to paper. What are your current victim mentality thoughts? I can’t create this result for myself because. And like, fill in the blank. What are you villainizing right now? What are you thinking that is standing between yourself, like where you are now and the results that you want. You can identify your villains that way. It might be time. It might be your ADHD symptoms, it might be your children, it might be your partner, it might be your boss or your company. But just like figure it out and then kind of begin to peel that back. Okay. And really look at it. Do you want to keep those thoughts? Have you felt powerless to change your circumstances, to change your life, to get better results, to change your financial future? And do you see how that powerless, this feeling creates poverty? For you. Results. Poverty, right, entitlement and victim mentality are always going to be result stealers. They will always leave you creating less than you should. Creating less than you want to Creating less less than maybe you’re capable of. I highly recommend that you talk to your therapist, that you hire a coach, that you talk to your partner or your friends about this and see where you can uncover victim mentality and entitlement in your own life. It will change everything for you. So now I don’t go about my day thinking that I am the victim of my adhd. I don’t go about my day thinking that time is my villain. I just go about my day trying to reduce my own brain drama so that I can create the positive results for myself and my clients that I know we are all capable of. And spoiler alert my friend, you are capable of those results too. I am cheering for you. You totally got this. I will see you next week. Hey adhd’. Er. 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.
