How to Make a Plan When You Stink at Planning: Goal Setting with ADHD - Part 1 #167
When you have ADHD, you often know what you should do and why you should do it. And yet, you still don’t do it. Ugh.
This week on the podcast, I’m sharing a mini-series on Goal Setting with ADHD. But I’m not talking about the usual advice about consistency and breaking it down into steps. You’ve heard all that before. We’re talking about how to make Goal Setting an ADHD-friendly process.
Today is Part 1, planning when you stink at planning. I’m sharing 3 critical ingredients to making an ADHD-friendly plan, so you’re not beating your head against the wall using the advice that doesn’t make sense.
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow when we’ll discuss finding your motivation.
It is possible to learn how to set a goal, like planning your week, and achieve it, even with ADHD.
When you have ADHD, you often know what you should do and why you should do it. And yet, you still don’t do it. Ugh. For the accompanying questions for this mini-series, download the worksheet at patriciasung.com/adhd-goal-setting
Patricia Sung 0:02
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess, Mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung 1:08
Hey there successful Mama, I want to take you back to the first year that I had my son, I had awful postpartum anxiety. The hormones were everywhere I wasn't sleeping is an absolute mess. And I was living the whack a mole lifestyle. Like something pops up, I won't get something pops up. I like it because I didn't have the capacity to think any farther into the future than what was happening right now. And if I didn't take care of what was happening right now I knew I would forget. And then I would panic about it later, or go down the shame spiral just like, like, why don't I just tell myself all the ways that I'm an awful human? You can get together? Why can't you figure this out? This shouldn't be this hard. And I truly forgot who and what really mattered. because I spent so much time beating myself up for what I didn't do, right. And if you're in that same spot where you're constantly beating yourself up for what you don't do, right, and all your energy is going towards replaying the mistakes, and worrying and panic and shame. Know that it can be different, that you can feel confident in how you show up every day, for you, for your family, for your friends. But most importantly, you you deserve to love your life. You deserve to like your life.
Patricia Sung 2:21
You deserve to wake up and be happy or even just neutral if it's not such a great day to feel neutral about the day. Yes, seasons of hardship are expected and life is hard. But when you're in that season for years like we got to wrap this biz up and make some changes, because that's not the way to live life and you don't have to whether you are a stay at home mom with littles who can't see the floor of your car, or your home, you're a homeschooling mom and your kids are always around, you're working outside the home and you never have enough time to plan or you're an entrepreneur, Mama and you're trying to build your business and be a present parent, this is the place to be to get your ish together. I have been teaching my ADHD friendly planning system for over two years to over 150 moms. And I've also been using it myself for the past five years. Before that I taught middle school.
Patricia Sung 3:12
So I was teaching 12 year olds how to plan. I have ADHD myself. So I understand how hard it is to figure out the steps that makes sense. The way that I plan now is so different than how I had planned before I had kids and so different than how I planned when I was just learning about my ADHD because I didn't know what I didn't know about ADHD. And I was trying to do everything like everyone else did it. But here's the thing, this works. This week, I'm sharing a series that will help you set up your week. Well, it's all about goal setting with ADHD. And specifically, the goal that we're talking about is planning your week, I want you to be able to feel less stress every day, because you have a plan that you know is gonna work. I'm going to be sharing several strategies this week. So if you want the notes, go download them over on my website, it's patriciasung.com/ADHD-goal-setting. So patriciasung.com/ADHD-goal-setting. It will also be in the show notes here in the episode so that you can follow along and know the questions that I'm asking and jot down your thoughts, making it super easy to work through this ordeal.
Patricia Sung 4:21
Now I'm always super straight with you. So this mini series is kicking off the start of a meetup that I'm going to be hosting coming up in December. I've been meeting with my students every week for over a year and a half. And it is so good. Being able to hear other moms who are dealing with the same issues that you are means you know that you're not alone. You're not broken. Like there's nothing wrong with you. There are other people whose brains work just like yours does, or very similarly, and you know, it's not you. So starting in December, these meetups will be open to anyone, not just the students in my class and I'm going to share all that with you very soon. And if you're ready to meet up, like, Hey, let's go, you still gotta wait to the end of the week to sign up.
Patricia Sung 5:07
But I want you to know that this is for you. It's here, this community is waiting for you. It is $27 for the month, which is less than a coffee run each week. So, you know, I'm not telling you not to have your coffee, what I'm saying is, you're already spending a couple dollars on something that makes you happy and is gone in a couple of minutes, or sits there cold and you forget about it. Like this meeting, hanging out with people who get you is so valuable, hands down. I know, it's sort of that couple of dollars that you're spending every week, having ADHD friendly accountability and community matters. And because I like to reward the impulsivity that usually gets us in trouble, you will also be getting a VIP bonus a very impulsive person, bonus at the end of this week to try it out for just a couple bucks. So if you're listening in real time, you can find that coupon code in your inbox, make sure you're on my email list. We're gonna talk all about it later this week.
Patricia Sung 6:07
Now I know that you could possibly be thinking Patricia, next month is December, the holidays are too hard. I am not learning anything new, like I can't possibly put anything else on my plate, it's too much. I don't have time to plan. I don't have time to build a new habit. Like it's too much. And what I want to say to you is, first of all, this is not complicated. You can totally do it. Like if I can get fifth graders to figure out how to plan I promise I can help you do it. Second, I have ADHD. So this is super ADHD friendly. And third, when you are overwhelmed, that is the season that you need it most that busy stressful time is when you need the most support, not the least support the most support, back to school, summer chaos holidays, new kids like that is the time where you need more support, not less support. Figuring out how to plan your week has never been this easy. I'm going to show you how. And we are going to make a difference in your life. We're gonna make it happen.
Patricia Sung 7:08
Now, this is a multi part series, we're going to have an episode multiple days in a row so that you can dig in and figure out how do you make goal setting ADHD friendly ADHD style, and today is just part one. So I figured out today's step through years of teaching middle school. So little known fact, I actually taught an all boys school for several years. Middle School, I taught public school before that. And I always say that if I can teach a bunch of 12 year olds how to plan to use a planner to get their crap together, I can surely help you, I promise. So the goal of today's episode is to show you the three critical ingredients to making an ADHD friendly plan one, learning in a language that makes sense to you to proactively lowering your stress and three, using your strengths. This is what I've learned, and what I'm sharing with you how to make an ADHD friendly plan. Step one is learning in a language that makes sense to you. You have probably heard 100 different ways to plan, people have explained to you that you should use a planner that you'd use a calendar or that you should plan this or that you know all of this. But when people whose brains don't work like ours, try to explain it. It's like you're trying to learn in French when you speak Russian. And it doesn't matter how well they explain something.
Patricia Sung 8:27
When you don't understand the language they are explaining it in, it doesn't matter, you're not going to get it. When you learn how to do something from someone who speaks ADHD, it's in your language, you understand what they're saying? It just makes sense. That's why you're here why you listen to my podcast and not the other 47 million parenting podcast or productivity podcast, because this one makes sense to you. Because they speak your language, I get what you need. Because I think like you do, our brains speak the same language. And then it makes sense. You can do all of these things when you're not trying to make it look like what everybody else makes it look like when it makes sense for you. You know, you need a plan, but everyone's explanation of like, how to plan. Does that make sense? Because they're speaking a different language. But why do we need to plan like we know this, but like really why? Our goal is to be proactive versus reactive. When we're proactive. That means that we are creating or controlling the situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it already happened. So being proactive means we're choosing how things go. being reactive means we're just dealing with whatever pops up. And that feels very out of control. That's where we get the whack a mole lifestyle like this problem popped up and pop it on the head. This problem popped up. I pop it on the head. When we are proactive about it. We are then imparting some level of control. Obviously there's some things that we just can't control life. But on the things that we do control like we're choosing When laundry pops up, we're choosing when dishes pop up, we're choosing when we're going to decorate the house for the holidays pops up. That means that we can do it in a way that fits us, rather than reacting in the moment and trying to figure it out on the fly, we are creating our reality more than the reality is creating our situation that we then have to figure out a way to deal with.
Patricia Sung 10:20
Now, I've said this before, like every time you plan, one minute of planning, saves you 10 minutes later on, which you know, is great, that's super valuable. We all want more time, especially as moms, we're always on a time crunch. There's always so much to do. But there's a piece of this that's more valuable, that I don't think I've touched on before. And that is that when you are planning, how do you feel? If you feel panicked when you're planning, then that means that you don't actually know how to plan like you don't know what to do. Because if you knew what to do, you wouldn't be panicked about it, right. So when you know how to plan C point I just made, I explained it in a way that makes sense. When you know what to do next, and you're like, Okay, step two, I got it know how to do that, that planning? Well, yes, it's like brain work, you're doing it from more complex, because you have the time. And the space to think I'm talking about this a lot in therapy is that I need a lot of time and space. To think to process, I need a lot of time and space. You probably do too.
Patricia Sung 11:22
So when you're planning and you have the time and space to think about something and think about how you want it to go and what you want it to look like that planning time is more call. So if you think about like next month, so you have three birthdays that you need to prepare for, if you are preparing to go get that gift for somebody, when you're doing it ahead of time. It's like okay, cool. I'm gonna go look online, I spend 15 minutes doing a little Amazon perusing, and figure out what I'm gonna buy. Click purchase, here we go. It took me 1020 minutes, depending on how much you like to research, maybe you went down a rabbit hole. But let's not get on that tangent.
Patricia Sung 11:58
So if we consider that even if we went down the rabbit hole, that time that we were considering, like what we want to get that person is a lot more calm. It's leisurely. I'm like, do I want to get on this one? Maybe I should get in this color. And it's a calm minute, when you think about when you forget about the birthday. And then you're like, Oh crap, that birthday today we saw about a present in here you are, you know, a couple hours before the party starts, you gotta run to the store. You're looking around aimlessly. You're kind of panicking as you run around target. And then you're like, oh, I don't know how to get them this is and they just grab something. And then it's like, Oh, this isn't thoughtful. You're such a jerk. Why don't you think about people more? Oh, you forgot to gift bag, now you're going to be late to the party, you still have to get the other two gifts that we haven't even talked about yet. And all that stress in that time where you're buying that present, took extra time, because you're wandering aimlessly around Target. You had a drive there, all of a sudden, you just picked up the gift on whatever run you were making three weeks ago. It's all done in a panic. It's stressful. And that's the part that I don't think we think about enough is that yes, having one minute plan saved us 10 minutes, that's great. I do appreciate that as a mom. But more importantly, that one minute I planned calmly, is a lot better than the 10 minutes or ran around like a lunatic stressed out beating myself up telling myself I'm an awful human being that 10 minutes is very stressful.
Patricia Sung 13:26
So if you're spending 10 minutes to find the gift in a calm way, times 10 That's like the hour and a half that you're running around in a panic on stress that you didn't need. Like this is the ADHD tax in a nutshell. Not to mention, like I said, you haven't even gotten the other two gifts yet. So you could have shopped for all those things at once ordered them all wrap them all at one time and save yourself a lot of time, effort and stress. And instead, you're making three different panic target runs, and then telling yourself you're an awful human, this matters so much. And I'm like Patricia, don't get off on a tangent today. Stay with the point. But the stress level that we carry really influences our ADHD symptoms, like the more stressed we are, are the front of our brain shuts off. That's where we do all of our executive functioning. And our logic brain is doing that the critical thinking the problem solving. And when we are stressed all that part of our brain shuts off, not to mention like the physical implications that come with all that stress. When we are stressed, our body carries that it affects our blood pressure, our immune system, our like every part of our body is affected when we're feeling that extra stress we get snippy at our family then we feel bad for being like how can you talk to your family like that? What's wrong with you? It's like all those things layer in and create more and more stress.
Patricia Sung 14:51
So when you can do the planning ahead of time, and you know what to do you know what step one is, you know what step two is? Then that each differently VN is saving you time. But it's more importantly saving you stress in that. All that like negative self talk just reinforces how we don't trust ourselves, you know you best when you're beating yourself up for not doing it how everyone else does is it like, that's such a waste of energy, instead of moving forward, you're using all that energy to take yourself down and like, I don't blame you. Don't get me wrong, I did that for like the first 40 years of my life. So I get it. When you can lean into doing things the way that makes sense for you, then you're taking that energy, and instead of telling yourself how terrible you are, you're using that energy to move forward. So I want you to think about how can you make the plan for your goal setting fit what you're already doing? And then make it better to fit you better? How do you lean into, like, what you need, what fits you best? What makes sense for you, and do more of that?
Patricia Sung 16:00
Okay. So for example, if we're talking about planning, and a lot of moms will be like, I really feel like I need like a different planner, if I just had the right planner that would solve my problem, or like, I really need the right app if I just had an app to keep track of everything. And we're like looking for these different systems to solve our problems. And never do we start with what what do you do automatically? When you think of something on your to do list? You're like, Oh, I gotta make sure I remember this. What do you do? If you need to think about it for a sec, like, hit pause, think about for a second and keep going. What do you do when you think of something you need to do? Where do you put it? What do you do with that information, so you don't forget it. Some people will do it immediately. Some people will write it like on a post it note and add it to the collection of the other 47 post it notes they've got sent around. Some people will make a note in their phone. Some people will just keep it on their hat. If you're somebody who doesn't immediately. Sometimes that's really great. Like, if it's something that takes you less than two minutes, they say like, Hey, just do it right now. But if it's something that's going to take you more than two minutes, are you asking yourself like, Does this matter right now? Is this urgent? Is this important? Does this like is this the thing I need to be doing right now? We don't that's how our brains work, right? That's how we get on these rabbit trails of like, Oh, I was supposed to be doing something else right now. And no, look, I just spent an hour doing this other thing. I was supposed to do the laundry. Instead, I realized my pantry. Or I remember that I forgot to order school pictures. Then I got on my phone. And I looked at this thing, the nothing and follow this rabbit hole all sudden, I'm like, I still have an order pictures. And I also did not remember to go pick up my kid. Like, is that working for you? Some people write it down? If you're someone who writes them down? How can you get all those notes in one place? Or how can you set a timer to go around your house and collect up all the notes. So they get to one place.
Patricia Sung 17:45
If you'd like to keep everything in your phone. If that's your go to place, pick one place for all your notes to go and keep it there. Whether that's your notes app, if you're dumping everything on your calendar, which if you've ever heard me on that, soapbox your calendars on a to do list, but if you are, put them in one spot your designated spot for like when you're actually going to go deal with those things. Don't just throw everything on your your whole to do list on the calendar expect you to get it all done. Put them in one place together, and then move them where they need to go later. But where's the one place that it can go? Some people like oh, I just keep it on my head. It's not working for you? Do you actually remember all the things I don't streamline yourself down to one system for each type of information? It doesn't matter which one, but pick the one that makes sense for you. It always baffles me when Why don't it doesn't baffle me. I'm never surprised because I see this all the time. And maybe maybe I should say like it makes me kind of chuckle when I have a mom who has like 57 posts and notes that she brings to our meeting. And we're like sorting it out. And she's like, Well, I really want to find the right app. And I'm like, but you're a paper person. Why do you want an app you paper or you're a paper person you don't need nap. I don't yell at people like that. That's what I yell in my head. And then I calmly talk about how we want to lean in towards making sense and how can we make sense for you? Just FYI, there's a lot of yelling in my head. Sometimes I'm like, Ah, doesn't know what we need. Focus Patricia, how do we get there? Let's make it happen. Okay? Find the system that works for you. It doesn't matter which one you pick, pick the one that you're already doing. don't invent a new system, take what you're doing, make it work for you.
Patricia Sung 19:21
Now, a very key piece of information for those of us with ADHD is you don't have to have the exact same kind of system for every piece of information. So like, if you are the kind of person who Okay, let me show you what I do. For me when I write down events like time sensitive events, they always go into my digital calendar because I always have that with me so that way I know where I'm supposed to be. And if you're like what is this magical system you have Patricia I teach it in daily planning if you want to learn it, okay. Now, for me though, like I am also a like a paper person when it comes to my to do list. So my to do list goes on my weekly schedule. For paper, and then I sort them out leader. So all the key infos for two dues go in the paper, and then they sort them later. All the key information for calendar goes in the digital calendar, they don't have to be the same thing for all the things like they're different kinds of information.
Patricia Sung 20:16
So I have them in different places, that's okay to lean into your natural choice. Do not redo all of you to fit some new system you think you need, you can apply this to anything new that you're learning is learn how you learn best. Lean into your natural gifts. Now, I'm sure you're thinking like this sounds great. Patricia, I'm gonna gather all this stuff together and I'm never going to look at it again. I got you covered. That is coming. In the next episode, hang tight, we're going to talk about that today is all about creating the ADHD friendly system that makes sense for you.
Patricia Sung 20:48
Tomorrow, we're gonna talk about following through and making it happen today it's about is the plan something that makes sense for you. So we learned today that one, the first critical step in making an ADHD friendly plan is learning in a language that makes sense to you, like learning for someone who speaks ADHD. Number two is proactively lowering your stress so that you can keep your thinking brain on line. And step three is using your strengths and leaning into that to make the system fit you not change you to fit the system. So if this was helpful for you, I hope that you will share it with another mama friend who feels like a Hamas because we're changing the world one family at a time. I will see you back here tomorrow and I will talk to you then successful.
Patricia Sung 21:32
For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com