I want to talk to you today about routines I have always had a very weird relationship with routines because I always felt like I needed to have one that was perfect mainly because that's what I saw online I would see creators posting about their perfect early morning routine as early as watching a Creator like Mac Barbie 07 I don't know if you guys watched her ever but before school I would watch videos about her and she' be talking about her before school morning routine and I thought oh my God I want to be like her
so bad and so I would try it but I would never ever be able to maintain it pretty much my whole life I have gone through this cycle of wanting to have the perfect routine watching an influencer or a Creator or a YouTuber showing me what I think is a perfect routine me then feeling motivated and doing it for a single day maybe sometimes two days and then never doing it again and I always thought that was because I was broken I was messed up there was something wrong with me and as I found out
more things about myself such as the fact that I've lived with depression anxiety I have ADHD I'm autistic there are many reasons that routines are a challenge for me my autistic brain wants a routine really bad my ADHD brain however requires motivation dopamine and interest to do something and I'm going to be honest there are certain days when I wake up and I don't want to do anything even the thought of brushing my teeth in the morning can feel like too much and so I realized that routines and the way that I have been taught
them the way that I have seen them online weren't made for me but the thing was is that there wasn't really anything out there for someone like me I didn't know how to even begin understanding how to create a routine for myself and it wasn't until 2 years ago when I started deep diving into my ADHD to understand how to create routines that work every day consistently something that I can stick with because here's the thing because I have ADHD if I wake up in a morning and I'm in my dopamine deficit which is you
know a Hallmark trait of ADHD living in a dopamine deficit my brain is hardwired to seek that dopamine out but if I'm waking up in a state where I feel low energy maybe I feel a little depressed that day maybe I'm not excited about the tasks that I have to do that day and so I'd rather just stay in bed and do nothing my brain might go to okay well I'm just going to scroll on my phone then because that gives me dopamine and that feels good but it's not part of a routine that I
have built when I was really depressed when I was in my lowest moments I would stay in bed all morning until 10 minutes before I had to start work and I would very quickly put clothes on and I would get in front of my computer and I had no routine whatsoever and that was reflected in how I felt every single day I felt like I felt awful but in my head that was just a problem with me and it wasn't something that was going to change because routines aren't meant for me so I guess that's
just how I live until I started to do the work I started to do the research I started to look into it and I created a routine method that has not only changed my life but has changed hundreds of lives of clients that I've had in the past who have ADHD this method of routines is designed for neurode Divergent people who do not have the same energy level every single day I call it the Honeyman method mhm fancy and I'm really excited to share it with you today The Honeyman method is built off of the
basis of ADHD and my neurod Divergence which is that I will wake up and feel minimum energy some days where I don't want to do anything at all but I'd still like to be able to hold a routine on these days that is you know realistic and on a minimum energy day it's not realistic for me to do everything thing I want to do but there are also days like on the weekend when I have so much energy and I want to put it all into my routine in the morning and that contrast of how
I wake up on different days needs to be reflected in a routine so here's how it works the first part of my routine I build out based on my highest energy days I imagine a day where I have so much energy and all I want to do is all of my routine things these days don't show up always but I call this my ideal morning routine the ideal morning routine is designed for a day that you are high energy and that you have motivation to put into your morning routine I put down everything I would
like to achieve in that morning routine for myself my ideal morning routine looks like this I wake up and I immediately go to the bathroom where my phone is charging I then brush my teeth I wash my face I do all of the things in the bathroom that I need to do and then I will immediately go and take my dog for a walk on an Ideal day I'm going for like 45 minutes to an hour once I come back home I can then start on a breakfast for myself feed my animals and the breakfast
I making for myself is one that is nutritious it's good I am like cooking something once I've had my breakfast and maybe a coffee or a tea I'll go ahead and I'll get ready so I will do my hair and my makeup and I'll get dressed in an outfit that makes me feel good and then I will Journal I'll sit down and I'll write what I want to do that day or maybe reflect on something that's been bothering me and then I will make sure that I have time to create a to-do list for the
day so that I feel prepared and set up for the day and I try to get to my emails on a day that is ideal when I have my most energy I love to start my day by knocking that task out and then I move forward with my day this is my ideal routine do I do this very frequently no and I think that's important to put out there because when I first first began doing routines when I was in my teenage years I thought that I could only do an ideal routine I wasn't allowed
to have any other version of it I could only have the ideal routine and this is the change in mindset that was necessary for me to maintain routines here's what I did I took my ideal routine and thought okay that works great on a day when I super high energy what about an average day what about the days when I wake up and I feel totally normal I don't necessarily feel super motivated to do all of these things but I also don't feel unmotivated well I'm going to adjust that routine I am now making a
second version of the same routine we call this the most likely routine this is probably the routine that you will have on most days it's probably your average day and so for me on my most likely routine the morning tasks stay somewhat similar I still go to the washroom first thing grab my phone I'll brush my teeth I'll wash my face and then I'll still go and walk my dog but instead of 45 minutes to an hour on an average morning I probably have closer to 20 to 30 minutes so I adjust that's my goal
for my average day then I'll come back and I'll make myself breakfast but on an average day I do not have the energy necessarily to make like a gourmet meal so I adjust my expectation on the average morning routine in my most likely morning routine I am having a breakfast but it doesn't have to be over the top it doesn't have to be crazy it can be realistic something like avocado toast feels way easier to me than making bacon eggs and hash browns and doing the whole thing the next piece is I will go and
get ready I'll do my hair and makeup as usual but maybe I don't put as much time or effort into it I actually have really curly hair and so straightening it takes a long time so on an average day maybe I just put my hair in easier curls or maybe I just do my bangs and I put the rest back and that feels easy I to me then I'll maybe not do my journaling and maybe I don't plan out my entire day and maybe I don't get to my emails cuz all of those things require
me to have really high motivation to get to and so if I don't get to it that's okay because this is my most likely routine so you'll see I have adjusted my ideal routine to fit into a most likely routine it is the same routine but reduced to be more realistic based on my energy levels now here's the fun part there is one more routine and we call this the minimum routine these are the days when I wake up and I feel like ass I don't want to get moving I'm completely unmotivated and I'd rather
stay in bed and so the minimum routine is designed for days like this where I can still feel like I am doing the minimum on my routine and I'm still keeping up with the habit but I'm not expecting myself to do something crazy like the ideal routine so for me my minimum routine still includes the bathroom tasks because I'm in there I will do them anyways but maybe on a minimum day depending on how I'm feeling I'll either walk my dog around the fast loop around my house which is maybe 10 minutes or I will
let him out in the backyard he will play by himself and I'll decide to walk him later in the day for food on a minimum day I'm talking as easy as possible something microwavable is ideal um or having something that's quick to grab or something like cereal where I have to put no energy or effort in and I can really just grab and go and then for getting ready I don't expect myself to do anything crazy sometimes I stay in my pajamas on a day where I don't feel very good um or I put my
hair in a ponytail and put a hat on that's a minimum day for me and that's totally fine and I have learned to accept the fact that my energy levels being different is not a bad thing I simply need to work with it not against it this was genuinely life-changing for me because I now hold a routine every single day and I stopped making myself feel guilty on the days when I was in a minimum State now my routine the one I've explained to you will look different than yours and so I suggest you sit
down start with the ideal and then cut down and then cut down again I will sa for the minimum routine some of my clients when I worked with them directly we had to really make it bare bone if you are a person on your minimum day where you feel like you can almost do nothing my suggestion to you is to make your minimum fueling yourself have breakfast something easy something quick but if all you do in the morning is give yourself fuel that's a success that's a win that can be your minimum routine I would
love for that to be your Baseline because now you're going from having this big expectation of well I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this nope all you have to do is feed yourself and it can be something small it can be something easy you can door Dash it to your house but eat something if you start your day with that you're setting yourself up way better than on a day where you're just scrolling and feeling guilty that you're not doing anything in the morning so this
is how I have built out my routines I do this for both my morning routine and my evening routine I've built out an ideal a most likely and then a minimum how crazy is this it feels so so simple when I give it to people as a suggestion when I work with my clients individually or in my programs but it blows people's minds because it's wild that we are told routines look like one thing but when you have a neurod Divergent brain they don't always and I will tell you that by having three versions of
the same routine my autism oh loves it feels so good that I have structure in my morning and my evening my ADHD has the freedom to be flexible with it which is necessary so this is how I have built out routines I'd be so curious to hear how this works for you and if it's something that you can replicate in your day-to-day life if you have questions comment them below would love to hear and I will connect with you guys next time thanks [Music] bye
