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Delayed Gratification? What is that?! As an ADHDer, we really don’t know.
It’s October now and looking back at January of this year fills you with regret and self-doubt. You began the year with great intentions, planning to finally have the body, life or financial status you wanted and now…It’s almost Halloween and if you are lucky you’re halfway to your goal.
If you have ADHD, like me, then you know that the idea of a Long Term Goal doesn’t really exist for us.
No matter how bad we want something, delayed gratification just isn’t something we have. We tell ourselves we want it, but our brains aren’t wired to carry one steady train of thought through to fruition. We often end up with well-intentioned aspirations that are only ever half completed or never acted upon at all. At the end of many of our years, we have little to show for the mentality we started the year with. Because of
Click Here to Join the Mothering the Storm Facebook Group! An Encouragement Group For Parents who have ADHD and are also caring for an ADHD Child!
What if I told you that you could meet your goals by the end of the year, despite your ADHD slump?
“Well, Lacy, I’d bet your lying. But tell me more.”
The truth is, ADHDers, aren’t lazy, or innately unsuccessful. We really do want to achieve all the things we set out to achieve but our brains don’t know how to keep us on track. Not in long stretches anyway. We live in the now, and not now mentality. It’s why so many of us struggle with impulsive decisions, living paycheck to paycheck, or starting projects and only finishing one out of ten.
Delayed Gratification is not in our DNA.
It’s really not our fault.
I’ll say it louder so your brain can hear me: It’s not our fault. It’s how we are wired.
But do you know what we are super good at? I mean amazing & awesome at? Hyperfocus!
Ever heard the riddle: How do you eat an elephant?
The answer is: One Bite at a time.
What if we did that with our goals?
Let’s be clear here, a whole year is simply too much time. Consider this; how often do you, ADHD single mom, realize you have more time than you anticipated; then overuse the time and still end up late to your next function?
Read How to Organize Your Life with ADHD!
It’s similar to those moments you find yourself with a spare half hour between work and college classes. So you go to target to pass the time, and don’t leave for two HOURS!
Our brains don’t feel time passing. Not at all.
So what do you think our brain does when we have an Entire YEAR to complete something? Answer: It assumes we have all the time in the world. It’s not until October that we realize “Holy shit, we put off that goal for 9 months!”
Read 7 Reasons You Keep Failing to Achieve Your Goals
Lucky for you, Hyperfocus is like a
Shorter Time Periods!
Nothing like pressure from procrastination to kick our ADHD butts in gear.
From this week until the end of the year is roughly 12 weeks. 12 Weeks is similar to 12 months. (If you’ve read the 12 Week Year, you’ll pick up what I’m putting down.)
What we must do is take what any neurotypical person would set as a monthly goal and set it as our weekly goal.
Are you paying attention?
Let’s use the example of growing a business you have;
You have a thriving business built on Live facebook sales and face to face interaction. You also have a website where potential customers can buy your products.
You do fairly well, bills get paid. Business is busy, but you’re struggling to reach new customers. You realize the only way to reach your 20% growth goal is to increase your reach.
Let’s map this out, using a Goal-Bite Strategy:
To hit 20% Growth in three months, you will need to grow roughly 7% each month. How do we grow 7% each month? Answer: By growing approximately 1.75% each week.
If you have 20 Customers per week purchasing from you, you only need to increase your purchasers by One to Two per week to make your goal of 1.75% growth each week, and overall 7% for the month.
Does One or two new customers per week seem a lot less daunting than 20% growth for the year?
If it does, it’s because it’s supposed to.
By doing this, we can trick our brains into delayed gratification. By measuring our goals in smaller and smaller bite-size pieces, our brains think we’ve broken the mold. That we are achieving what we set out to achieve.
We as ADHD People, are so great at so many things. Entrepreneurism being one of them.
What we are not good at is delayed gratification.
The process of continued forward movement toward a goal. We prefer progress and results now or even better; yesterday.
If it’s not happening now, it’s not happening at all. Says the ADHD Brain.
When we break our goals down into Goal Bites we can digest them. We can consume them, act on them and use the progress for fuel. We can applaud our growth and not feel defeated by looking at how far we still have to go.
So what will you plan? You have 12 Weeks until the end of the year and that’s plenty of time to get where you wanted to go in January!
Need some extra inspiration?
Read This:
12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
Listen to this:
Rachel Hollis RISE Podcast
Rachel Hollis is kicking off her Last 90 Days Challenge. A free challenge to help women live their last 90 days of the year as intentionally as they started living their first 30 days into the new year. Her Podcast is encouraging, real and always easy to listen to on the work commute. You can grab it on the Itunes App, or the Google Play app.
Ruth Soukup Do It Scared Podcast
Ruth Soukup is a New York Times bestselling author, and a Multi-Million dollar business female entrepreneur. The best part? She helps other women build their own Multi-Million dollar companies! She’s getting ready to launch her new Book title Do-It-Scared! You can listen on Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Play.
Jenna Kutchers Goal Digger Podcast
I must admit, I have yet to listen to this podcast. (Shame on me! I know!) But it’s been recommended to me not once, not twice but at least 10 times! So I know it will be good for you to hear too! Besides that, Jenna Kutcher is a good friend of Rachel Hollis and anyone on Rachel Hollis
Watch this:
The Secret- The Movie
Not into Spirituality, or the Law of Attraction? I understand, but this movie is short and to the point and when you are done you might just ask yourself: Have I been the creator of my own fate? Is my mindset why i’ve failed? Could it really be as simple as changing my own mind and the stars will align? The answer is yes and no, but you won’t know the how until you watch it.
Get This:
Beyond simply telling you where you can find the inspiration and teaching you how to map out your goals for your ADHD brain. I’ve designed YOU a planner! This is the first time on the blog that I am talking about it.
The planner is laid out similar to our brains. An organized chaos design with midday random notes in mind. It will help you break down your goal-bites and the best part? It’s only a 12 week planner! When the 12 weeks are over; Get a new one, work on your next 12-week plan!
Grab a Free Copy
I’m looking for feedback and ways to improve it. The beauty of it being a 12 Week planner and not a whole year planner? I can change it, improve it, build on it every 12 weeks. If it goes well, I may create one specifically for the ADHD Entrepreneur in mind. (I will debut the ADHD Entrepreneur Planner in January 2019!)
If you need help knowing where to start when it comes to cutting into your goals and breaking them up into bite-size pieces message me. I love to help!
Oh, Did I Mention I created a Pinterest Community for the ADHD Business Owner? You Can Join it here: Join the ADHD Business Owner Community
You can also Join the new Mothering the Storm Momma’s Pinterest Community Here: Join the Mothering The Storm Momma’s Community
In these Communities, I plan to add inspiring pins from other bloggers, as well as my own to help you in your life’s Journey. I’m new to Pinterest communities so give me some time to work out the kinks but I can’t wait to help you on a more personal level. Don’t worry, they are free to join, all you need is a Pinterest Account.
Don’t forget to Share this with that friend of yours. You know the one planning to set a million goals next year, but you know she didn’t finish her goals from this year? She needs to read it. 🙂
