hello brains one of my New Year's resolutions is to become epic at soup making do you believe you'll achieve that goal no even though you are currently making progress toward that goal that is [Music] correct like a lot of people with adhc I have failed at a lot of goals which has led to a lot of self-doubt even when I'm making progress in this video I'm going to talk about why those of us with adhc have trouble sticking with our goals and how accountability can help more importantly I'm going to dive into what types of accountability work best and what types are better to avoid but first I want to talk about an area of my life where I need accountability working out life gets overwhelming for those of us with ADHD and for me at least when that happens I stop working out like entirely then I go to start again and I'm really discouraged because of how much progress I've lost train well has changed that for me if you're not familiar with train well it's a one-on-one personal training service that prioritizes consistency and sustainability so you can actually reach your goals you're paired up with a fitness coach who plans your workouts for you based on your fitness goals and the equipment you have available and then you do the workout by following their step-by-step directions in the super convenient app there's a quiz that you take to make sure that you are paired with a trainer that is the right fit for you and if you ever need to you can change at any time and with a new baby in the house there have been a lot of barriers my coach has been really great at helping me find some Creative Solutions like baby wearing workouts that allowed me to workout and my baby to n when I'm struggling I can message her right in the app ooh she increased the weights in this workout for next time I will order the new weights but I also do semi-regular check-in video calls with her too hi Hi how are you I got some sleep and I'm feeling a lot better about that yes my main goal was to be able to physically keep up with the demands of Parenthood and we just set some new goals and I'm excited to have her help in reaching those too she's getting heavy she's over 20 lbs now so maybe that's why the 15 lbs are like oh this is nothing the two workouts seems to be working so let's just work on increasing the weights and building that strength of all the things I've ever tried to get myself to work out regularly and consistently so train well is the only one that's worked if you'd like to give it a try take the quiz to find your perfect trainer and get 14 days of free training here go. TRW well. net howto ADHD I've been accused of not actually having ADHD because I managed to build this YouTube channel and publish a book trust me I was just as surprised as you are those of us with ADC have trouble reaching long-term goals we do part of that is because we have trouble planning if that sounds like you check out this video but even if we come up with the perfect plan we don't always follow through on it it can get to the point where when we say we're going to do a thing even we don't believe it so when New Year's rolls around there's this excitement and hope but also this sense of futility because we feel like we'll let ourselves down again the truth yeah we might at least at least if left to our own devices planting the bell peppers planting ooh mushrooms get it our own devices I'm a mom now I got to tell mom jokes part of that is that what we're expecting ourselves to accomplish is often well epic we don't tend to set reasonable goals for ourselves but a bigger part of that is that we may be missing a key ingredient in reaching them accountability which is where accountability comes in I'm not talking about work accountability here by the way or legal accountability where not doing the thing will get us into actual trouble when we talk about accountability in the ADHD world we usually mean putting ourselves in situations where if we don't do the thing people will know and if we do do the thing people will know everyone needs some degree of accountability to help them Reach their goals if no one would ever know about your novel what's the point in writing that chapter you're stuck on but those with the ADHD tend to need more of it why well there are many reasons but a big one we get distracted more often also we experience delay aversion the tendency to prefer smaller more immediate rewards over larger more long-term payoffs making soup takes too long both of these mean we have a greater risk of veering off track even when a goal is really important to us so naturally we need more opportunities to remind us where we're going and course correct if we actually want to get there think of flying a plane if we start to ve off course but we've only traveled 100 miles it won't take too much to get us back on track but what if we wait until we land to check our progress we could be thousands of miles off course by then and worse not have enough fuel to get to the destination we wanted to go to and if we're not going anywhere at all because we're procrastinating on even taking off well accountability can add the sense of urgency we need to kick our brains into gear maybe most importantly for those of us who have a hard time believing in ourselves due to past failures yay accountability can create opportunities for us to recognize the progress we are actually making that said not all accountability is created equal there are some types of accountability that either don't work for us or are even counterproductive for example accountability that's too far away if I need to study for a report card I won't see for 6 months just one more episode when the consequences of failing or succeeding are too far away they feel less important and that's especially true for those with ADHD we tend to live in the now consequences that are not now might as well not even exist accountability that's non-consensual at best this kind of accountability is disempowering you only did the thing because someone else decided to remind or Force you at worst it can make us feel resentment or even quit our goals it's normal for someone who wants to help to check in on your progress especially if they're personally invested in it but whatever type of accountability is going to be used should be agreed upon in advance this puts the power to achieve or not achieve your goal back in your hands where it belongs finally accountability that creates shame accountability that puts you on the spot or makes you feel judged can be counterproductive having an accountability partner who makes you feel bad about not doing the thing well that's just going to make doing the thing miserable or imagine making a public announcement that you're going to do the thing next thing you know you're paralyzed and feared that others are watching you're not making progress quickly enough and instead you just don't do the thing at all so what does work for us one accountability that's frequent enough for the progress we'd like to make this is where recurring check-ins or having set deadlines around Milestones can help a typical milestone for writing a book is submitting the first draft that wasn't going to work for me instead I sent chapters to my editor weekly which helped me stay on track sure we can create shorter more frequent deadlines for ourselves but without external accountability we're likely to blow right past them because they don't feel real so if you're becoming an epic soup maker try hosting a weekly dinner where you serve a new soup every week you know I have a baby right or once a month more frequent accountability decreases the time between the action we need to take and the consequences of taking or not taking it which can create the sense of urgency we need to kick our our El into gear it also puts the focus on the process rather than the end result and the process is what actually gets us there two accountability that keeps you moving check-ins alone can be discouraging especially if we didn't do the thing again this can add failure bricks to our wall of awul and make doing the thing even harder in the future the best types of accountability for those with the ADHD are typically those that actively help us move forward that can mean problem solving and removing barriers by working with an ADHD coach it can also mean doing the work itself where someone can see you do it taking classes for example or body doubling working on your task with someone else in the room with you you can check out our video on that here even pretending you're live streaming yourself decluttering your house and explaining what you're doing to imaginary viewers anything that allows you to make progress where you and others can see it so making soup while my baby watches and explaining to her what I'm doing yeah actually babies and pets make great body doubles because they're naturally going to be non-judgmental which brings us to our third point three accountability that doesn't suck accountability doesn't have to be painful it's actually better if it's not accountability can be curious compassionate even fun what we're trying to do is often uncomfortable why make it worse why not get silly with our goals milestones in progress celebrate monotonous work with dorky memes or use emojis to check in with your accountabil budy this can also help counter that shame based accountability many of us experienced growing up and accountability that focuses on the progress we are making can help us believe in ourselves and our abilities including our ability to reach our goals all of this said there's no one- siiz fits-all strategy for accountability what helps you might depend on your goal where you are in your journey and what works with your brain and often we need multiple forms of accountability so that if one falls through we're still okay so whatever your goal is the how to ADC team has found it helpful to write out what is the goal and what types of accountability might be helpful as well as what types it might be better to avoid so for my soup Quest I'll see if my partner would be willing to check in with me before he goes grocery shopping to see if I need any ingredients that week for soup and I'll ask him not to check in with me other than that then I'll prep ingredients while my baby watches and post any soup related activities to Instagram Jessica's soup stagram is that going to work for you I don't know but I can always adjust thank you again to train well for sponsoring this video if you'd like to give it a try take the quiz to find your perfect trainer and get 14 days of free training here go.
TRW well. net howto ADHD thank you to our brain Advocates and all our patreon brains for supporting us in making content like this let us know in the comments below what your goals are and what types of accountability you're planning on putting in place or avoiding like subscribe cook all the things and I will see you next video bye brains did you know we have a Discord Community through patreon when you support the work we do on how to ADHD you get access to a global supportive community and other patreon perks if you'd like to join us go to patreon.
