Restart Habits You Gave Up On #227
When you feel like a BIG loser and failure…
Eryn asks for help: “I'm always disappointed in myself that when faced with one small obstacle, I give up and cave on everything I've worked so hard to build and then it takes me WEEKS just to summon the effort/courage to get back on track - whether with diet/exercise, my small business, supporting my husband in his own business, or keeping a consistent routine for my 4 kids. It's so defeating and, as a wife & mom, makes me feel like the BIGGEST loser and failure.”
Struggles and frustration are bound to come while parenting, especially with ADHD in the mix.
It’s especially frustrating when you’ve worked so hard to establish habits and they seem to fall apart when the slightest thing changes!
How can you pick back up where you were and feel successful in the habits you’ve built?
Today, I’m covering 3 questions I ask myself when things feel too hard and I want to give up. I hope they help you get back on the horse, too!
Ready to get away?
Our annual ADHD Moms Luxury Weekend Retreat is October 11-13, 2024 in Houston, Texas! Grab your all-inclusive Early Bird ticket now!
“Honestly, this was one the best weekends I've had since becoming a mom. I've never felt so seen and understood. I would hop on a plane and go again. No hesitation! I'll follow y’all anywhere, moms.” –ADHD Mama J.Q.
I’ll take care of all the details - you simply show up and enjoy.
Because you deserve to take care of yourself too. Sign up here: patriciasung.com/retreat
Patricia Sung 00:00
Eryn recently shared this. She says, “I'm always disappointed in myself that when faced with one small obstacle, I give up and keep on everything I've worked so hard to build and then it takes me weeks, all caps mama weeks just to summon the effort or courage to get back on track, whether it's with diet, exercise, my small business, supporting my husband and his own business or keeping a consistent routine for my four kids. It's so defeating and as a wife and mom makes me feel like the biggest loser and failure.” Let's discuss. 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.
Patricia Sung 00:58
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. Over the last couple of months, I've been asking the moms on my email list. What do you want to hear about on the podcast, and I got so many good ideas from you. And so if you might have an idea that you have not yet sent in, please email it to me at hello@patriciasung.com because I want to hear from you. But before we jump into Eryn's suggestion, I want to remind you that the early bird tickets are going on right now for the Fall Retreat for ADHD moms. And the theme is “Be True to You” named by Rachel, who attended last year and it's coming this year. Shout out! Hey Rachel!
Patricia Sung 02:06
So come sign up. It's patriciasung.com/retreat. Early bird tickets are on sale until May 30. And the price goes up in June. So when you buy your ticket, and you arrive here on property from then on, you're done figuring anything else out, I will take care of everything. I'm taking care of your hotel, your food, your activities, literally all you have to do is show up and meet me and voila, the rest of the weekend you get to rest. So go to patriciasung.com/retreat and come join us for the third annual retreat this fall. Oh, and I also have to tell you, when I asked the moms what their advice was after attending the conference, well, they said to tell you was stay an extra day. Actually, they wanted me to make a longer retreat, but I was like let's baby step y'all. They're like okay, then fine. Tell them to stay an extra day coming in early. Stay a day late.
Patricia Sung 02:55
But like you will want the time once you are here. So book your ticket if you're flying or figure out your road tripping plans, come a day early or stay late. That is our advice to you enjoy the peacefulness with nobody bothering you like it is an entire vibe to be responsible for nobody. You don't even have to be response for yourself while I'm in charge. Like just relax. You don't have to worry about the clock running. What time is it? Oh, man, we'd give snack soon. Oh, I gotta pick up somebody from school. It's nap time. Oh, it's lunch? No, you don't have to worry about any of that. You get to just relax. No responsibility. So go get your early bird ticket now at patriciasung.com/retreat. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great. All right, let's dive in. Eryn. Oh, my gosh. When I read Eryn's email, I was like, Oh, I totally get it. How many times have we gotten to the place where we're like, alright, this is working great. And then something happens. And that all falls apart. And then it feels super overwhelming to try to like, get it back together again. Example, I was just telling you, I was at a conference.
Patricia Sung 03:57
Earlier in April, I missed one morning of my kids after school. I kid you know, on Monday, you would have thought I never got my kids off to school before. I was like, what's going on? What are we doing? Water bottles? What? Breakfast? I was like, No, I was out of it. And I only missed one day. Like, that doesn't make any sense. So I feel Yeah, because I literally just did this. And let's talk about like how we figure out like, what is not working for us so that we can figure this out? So the first question is, when you are trying to get something to happen, and it's not happening, it's falling apart. So the first thing you're gonna ask yourself is do you have the skills to be able to complete this task? Sometimes the situation has changed and you no longer have the skills you need to be able to do the thing.
Patricia Sung 04:42
So I want us like not to beat ourselves up if something's changed. You no longer have the skills, that's okay. Sometimes things change and you don't have the skills anymore. Example Oh man, I just spent the last week doing tax stuff. Like I said, I'm recording this in April just had to finish all my taxes and like, normally I'm really good keeping up with the tax stuff because I know what a bear it can be. Now, as you might know, I had to deal with this whole frozen pipe at one of our rental properties, it was a big giant disaster. And I kept up with all of that, because I had to with the insurance and getting the reimbursements. But that means is that I did not keep up with the stuff like marking down the basic bills of having a property like the electricity. And the internet, I didn't keep track of any of that I was so focused on the insurance stuff. And the giant construction project that I didn't keep up the other stuff. And so I have been overwhelmed with all of this stuff. And there is no way that I could have gotten through all this on my own.
Patricia Sung 05:38
So like in this example, that I did not have the skill to be able to do all of this tax stuff in the way that our taxes are set up. Now, now that I have multiple businesses, we have investments, like it's too many papers, too many things, too many state filings like no, I'm hiring an accountant, that person is far more qualified to do this for me. So I still have to do the basic accounting every day. But I know that once I have my piece done, he's got the rest covered. So like this is an occasion where like, I used to do my own taxes. And now I no longer have the skills to do this. And I don't want to learn them. So here's the question to you is like, do you have the skills in the current situation to be able to do it? Because if not, we can get the skills or we can find somebody else with the skills.
Patricia Sung 06:21
But that's step one isn't just do you not have the skills for this task? And that's okay, we don't have to be experts at everything. I want to normalize us being okay with not being good at everything. Because I'm really great at some stuff. And if I'm doing the things I'm not good at, I am not then doing the things that I am good at. So I want to live into who I am and what I do best. And it's not accounting, ma'am. It is not accounting. I don't want to do that. Can I do it? Yes. Do I want to do it? No. So that is something that I am going to figure out how to pay someone else to do because realistically, I don't have the skill set to handle my taxes at this point. I don't have it and I don't own it. That's okay. So that's question number one is do you have the skills to complete this task given this current situation? Before we continue on I want to say thank you to our sponsors who support allows me to bring you this podcast for free. I've got a podcast for you to check out. I'm so excited to partner with Understood Explains this month.
Patricia Sung 07:17
This season of the show is hosted by teacher and special education expert Juliana Urtubey and it's all about how to navigate IEPs or individualized education plans. This latest season of Understood Explains covers things like how to tell if your child needs an IEP. And it busts through a bunch of misunderstandings about special education. I especially appreciated the episode that explained the difference between 504s and IEPs. Because when you are the one advocating for your child, the more knowledge that you have on this confusing subject, the more confident you will feel in being able to advocate for your child. All of this season's episodes are available both in English y Espanol. So if you have a child who you think might need an IEP, or maybe your child's IEP is ready to be updated for the upcoming year, head to your podcast app search for Understood Explains and add it to your downloaded episodes so that you can take the listen later today. Again, that's Understood Explains right here in your podcast app.
Patricia Sung 08:17
Then we want to look at, okay, if you have the skills, do you number two, do you have the resources or capacity to do it. So resources can be anything that it takes to be able to make this happen, the time, the energy, the money. When I look back at the last year, I know that the reason I didn't keep up with my taxes was because I didn't have the capacity anymore. All my capacity was being taken up by this giant construction project and all the insurance paperwork and chasing them down literally for months trying to get my money back, I did not have capacity to do regular accounting. And that's okay, I'm not mad about it. So I made this concerted decision to be like, this is not happening. I can't do both of them. And more important right now, when I look at the prioritizing, which is a skill we often need to work on. It's that the stuff for the insurance is more important. So I'm going to have to do this other stuff later. Unfortunately, that meant I was doing it the week before April 15. But that is where I needed to be in order to do it. So is there something that you need in order to get this done? Do you need more time? Does that mean we're not to let something else go to make time for it? Do you need money? Does that mean we need to rearrange our budget to make money for this? Do we not have the energy like if you're trying to do it at 10pm? And it's something that takes a lot of brain power? It's not going to happen? Can we do that at a time where you do have brain power?
Patricia Sung 09:32
How do we make sure that you have the resources and capacity to get this done? Now given that we now know whether or not you have the skills and the resources or capacity to do it, how can we make this easier or more doable for you? And this is like often when we have something that's working in place and then it stops working. It's usually that something happened and it's no longer easy and it doesn't feel very doable. There's three options we can add something we can delete something or we can change something. So when we Understand, if we think about like, when I started working on the taxes last weekend, I did not have the capacity because coming back from that conference I got in at like 2:30 in the morning, by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, I was like, I'm on like three hours of sleep, I, this just isn't happening.
Patricia Sung 10:17
So what I need to do is change the way I'm doing it. It's not happening on a day where I don't have enough sleep. Let me look at my schedule for the week ahead and be like, Is there something I can do that doesn't take brain power that I could knock out now. And then I'm going to put this task when I do have brain power. So that's like, I'm changing the way I'm doing something. I also added an accountant, granted, that's been years ago, but like, I've added an accountant, great, he's got the skill set to be able to do this. Another thing that I've done to make my business taxes easier is deleting using an Excel spreadsheet, I now use this free program. It's called wave, it connects all of my bank accounts into like one app. It's kind of like QuickBooks, but the basic version is free. So I have deleted the manual way of doing it. And now I run it through this app that categorizes things for me. And it's so much easier. So I guess you'd call it we'll call it like a change. Like I'm deleting this tedious process of Excel spreadsheets, and I'm moving to, I guess, changing to an easier way of doing it. So like, where's that part that felt hard? Where did the obstacle come in? And how do we make it easier and more doable? When I think about like the example I mentioned earlier about, like, I missed one, getting the kids off to school, and I was like a hot mess. My support there is I use Alexa to run the morning. So she says it's 6:30 it's time to make breakfast, it's time to brush teeth. Do you have your water bottle snack and your backpack, she keeps me on top of everything. Because I am not going to remember all that.
Patricia Sung 11:43
I'm not in my brain is very good at a lot of things. And it's not good at holding on to information. So I don't need to waste my brainpower trying to remember what happens in the morning, I'm going to put the support in place for Alexa says, Do this, do this do this. I don't have to keep any of that in my brain. And what I noticed is like in that day where I was, like falling apart, I didn't have an earlier reminder to do the water bottle, it was just the check of like, do you have your water bottles, and I'm like, okay, cool, I gotta go back to my Alexa routine and tell her about 10 minutes before that to be like, fill the water bottles, Patricia. And that's where I can put the support in place. So it happens inside note like my you know, Alexa routine runs at a certain time. But you can also make a routine in there that like you can push the button and say like, I want to do this now boop, that hit play. And it will run that and so it doesn't have to run at a certain time.
Patricia Sung 12:27
You can set up the routine. And then when you decide to start bedtime, push start and run the bedtime routine. If you're like, I don't want to start bedtime read it's 7:02 Every day fine girl don't pay the time you want to do hit play. There are also times where the thing that's holding us back that obstacle is our mindset unless like you know those voices come in of your parents saying you're not good for anything, you can never get stuff done. You're so dumb, like all that stuff that comes up is also something that is an obstacle, and it's real, and it matters. And we can do something about it. We can think about all the ways that we can prove that that's wrong. I'm sure our brains, you can always come up with reasons that we can prove ourselves right when we start talking crap about ourselves. But we can also come up with ways to like, look at all the cool stuff you've done. Look at everything you've accomplished. Look at how you did this or this.
Patricia Sung 13:12
It can be something as simple as you know what you fed your kids today. Good job, nobody went hungry. It can be the basic things that you're doing day in and day out to remind yourself that you do things and you can get stuff done. But we need to look at like what's going on underneath. There's a reason that that obstacle is coming in. How do we get around it? Do we need to add something, delete something, change something, but we can get around that obstacle? We can go through the obstacle? Maybe we need to hacksaw the obstacle. But like there's a way we can make this happen. Maybe we need to build a bridge. Maybe you need a pogo stick? Oh, no, but we can figure it out. And we understand what is the obstacle, we can look for the patterns that appear. And once you know what works for you over here, then we can apply it over there. And continue to build your way of life that makes sense for you and what you need, because it is so frustrating when we have something that works and now listen, it doesn't. But that is not a reflection of our character. It's not our moral failings like there's nothing wrong with you that you had a routine and now it's not working. Something changed.
Patricia Sung 14:12
I don't know what it was, but let's figure it out. What's the difference? And how do we get around it? How do we get over it? How do we get through it? I'm like remembering that a day like can't go over it can't go under it got to go through that was going on a bear hunt going on a bear hunt. It it's time to be true to you. You're invited mama to this year's third annual Successful as a Mother weekend retreat. It is time to relax, unwind, rest and take care of a very important person in the family which is you. This year's retreat is on October 11- 13, 2024 And you're invited. This is an all inclusive retreat. It covers your meals, your hotel, all of our activities, all you have to do is show up. And I take it from there. We are staying in the historic boutique hotel, the Sam Houston, in downtown Houston, where we will learn about our ADHD tune in to who you are and what you need so that you can trust your gut.
Patricia Sung 15:19
All while eating delicious food you didn't cook, you didn't clean up, hanging out with awesome other moms who are just like you in their ADHD journey, trying to make things work, fill out the permission slips, do all the things, but not this weekend, this weekend, you get to relax, I will take care of everything. And you get to focus on you. Head over to my website patriciasung.com/retreat and grab your ticket. This is a small group. And we already have five moms from last year coming. So I don't have a ton of spots left. Do not wait. Do not procrastinate. When you hear this and you say this is for me, go grab your ticket, you can use a payment plan. I don't charge extra for that. Go sign up, get your ticket, and take a weekend to take care of you while I do other work. So head over to patriciasung.com/retreat and get your ticket for the third annual ADHD moms amazing getaway weekend and relax, patriciasung.com/retreat.
Patricia Sung 16:22
We can figure out how to work around these things when our goal is how do we make this easier for you? How do we work with what you need? Can you look at the other ways in your life of the things that feel really easy for you and see a connection between how you've gotten through that obstacle and how you could use it to get through this obstacle, those patterns will help you and we don't have to use the same solution across the board. Like, for example, one of the moms in successful mom made up to their day was saying that she was struggling with getting the kids out the door, obviously, because she has ADHD. And you know, she was using a checklist it worked really well for one kid, but it wasn't working for the other one, she like me may just need to get the checklist out. But it doesn't work for this kid. So they called up if the checklist works for kid number one great, like hit number one use the checklist.
Patricia Sung 17:06
That doesn't mean that kid number two also has to use the checklist. Yes. Would it be easier if everybody had the same solution? Of course it would. But if we look at this, like how does this make it easier? It's like well, if a kid number one has a checklist and it's working for them, then great, they can do more stuff on their own. And you can use your energy to figure out what's going to work for kid number two, instead of trying to find a solution that's going to fit two different humans plus you that's three, you're trying to find a solution is gonna fit three different people, that's a lot harder to find, then you find one situation that works well for kinver. One, great, now we only have to find a solution that works for you with Kid number two, it's a lot less variables to figure out. And it's gonna be a lot easier to try to figure out what works for like that one kid, especially given the first kid is already doing all right, you have a spectacular brain that can do some really cool stuff. Yes, it has some issues, but it can do some really cool things. And we don't have to expect our brain to do the things that it's not grayed out, we can find workarounds, we can find support, and we can make it work for us. And that doesn't mean your brain has to hold on the information, find the tool that will work for you and use it. So to sum it up, we're looking at how do we make this easier for you? How do we make it more efficient? How do we make it better for you,
Patricia Sung 18:13
not because we want to be 100% efficient humans is because I don't want to waste my energy trying to remember stuff I don't want to remember, I don't want to use my brain for carrying stuff around. I want to use my brain for thinking of like cool new workshops to teach you or writing this fun podcast or been down the rabbit hole where I should host the retreat this year. Because this is still April not. I already know now it's May, that you're listening to this, I know what I'm doing. I've been learning how to play Mahjong, with my neighbors, like I would love to spend my brainpower doing fun things. So I'm going to let Alexa run my mornings and I am going to use my brain power for the things that it's gonna.
Patricia Sung 18:48
Like we're currently learning how to play scram with the kids. It's super fun card game. Pretty simple, highly recommend. That's what I want to spend my brainpower on in the afternoons, not taxes, and not memorizing routines. Let's take that load off your brain and support you in the way that feels good. Alright, so there's your questions when something's not going well anymore. Do you have the skills to make it happen? That's number one. Number two, do you have the resources or capacity to make that happen? And then given those two pieces of information you've gathered, how can you make this easier or more doable? Can you add something, delete something or change something so that you can still get to the goal in a way that feels great for you. Let your brain do the things it's good at Oh, let go of all the rest. Let something else handle those. Alright, so don't forget to get your retreat ticket earlybird ends at the end of the month. So go grab it get your ticket. There are already five moms from last year that have signed up to come and I can't wait to meet you in person. So patriciasung.com/retreat. Big hugs and I will talk to you soon successful mama. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website. motherhoodinadhd.com.