163 - When Our Awesome System Thing Stops Working!

Sometimes we get systems and routines in place, and they are just amazing! And they serve us well for a time...and suddenly that awesome system stops being awesome. What to do?  Let's talk about it! 

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So what happens when we we have a system that's been working for us for years and then the system stops working? The routine goes away. Or does that mean that we're losers? I mean, I don't think so. No, sir. No, sir, indeed. I do not think so. But how about we unpack the suitcase and see what kind of clothes we're dealing with? Wanna? You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and comorbid depression symptoms. I'm your host, Russ Jones, author of The Standing to the Top, believer that you can actually have a smile in your life despite this diagnosis. So let's make some sense out of this struggle. Let's learn some stuff. Let's laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Okay, welcome to the podcast. Welcome. It's my high-pitched voice today. Hey, oh my goodness you guys showed up. Welcome to uh the podcast. Should we just dive right into what's the mental health update? You know, every week we talk about mental health, the good, bad, the weird. Just to normalize talking about our skull spaghetti. Um, what you you want to go first or you want me to go first? You guys can literally email me and give me your mental health update. I would love it. It's fun to hear from other wackos. You know what I mean? It's just like, what's going on in your wacky, whack tastical skull spaghetti? Mental health report for me is uh here's the good and the bad. It's like a little bit, it's a two ski. The uh the bad is that every day I tend to have a period of downness. Uh, you know, depression's dumb. Uh it's I take Lexapro for my depressive disorder. Uh, and I think it helps because I'm not I'm not sunk by it. You know, very high functioning. If that's if that's yeah, I'm a high functioning depresso. And you know what? I think it could be it's that sometimes it's hard to take my own advice. And I, you know, avoiding burnout, taking proper breaks, and like right now I'm I'm so invested in the ADHD Big Brother stuff, you know, and the coaching by community, and it takes a bit out of me mentally because a lot of it is marketing. I almost said fucking marketing because that's how it is. It's oh, there's always marketing. Solo preneuring can drain you, even though it's purposeful and glorious, you know, running a business is a lot of fucking marketing, and I just want to live in the community and help. So sometimes the marketing work it can get a bit uh, you know, like and then so the go juice for is gone and I'll feel down. And I mentioned this in a previous episode, but uh it's about napping. And so I'll take a nap. And man, if na if I nap, I usually end up staying down. Like I keep napping. I snooze the nap. Do you guys do you guys snooze your naps? Like, what the hell's going on there? But these are moments in in the day. Like my main mental health, I would say, is good. I have some good externalizing structure going on, which I that's what I'm gonna talk about today. I'm in love. Oh, and that feels good. That feels I like how how mediocre I made it sound. I'm in love. And it feels all right. You know, it's okay. That's I'm underselling it big time. Uh I feel glorious in the heart matters. The oxytocin is really great. And I'm also like I am getting a lot done during the day. So I'm using this self-awareness to make a couple of iterations in my life, which I'm we'll talk about. That is the mental health report. All right, let's go to the business-y business stuff because I'm running a business and this podcast is one of the my marketing for my business-y business. You know, the expansive sales reports are coming out of it, come and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the business stuff. Uh, I'm doing a momentum intensive in November, which is gonna be awesome. Uh, for those of you that are looking to get, it's like accountability on steroids for a goal. You want to make significant progress on a goal, this is for you. Get some ADHD education and an insane level of support and accountability to ensure that you're doing the work. And this is it. And my mentor, Dana Rayburn, who is a super successful ADHD expert and coach, she's phenomenal. She's helped me build it. So you'll determine a goal, and I have a visualization exercise to help pinpoint a long-term goal. And then we use the smart goal formula, which I've adapted and I've adapted? Yeah, adapted. I almost said adopted, which I've adapted to be more ADHD friendly. And so then we'll do two group Zoom calls per week. Uh, and you just you all you have to commit to is 30 minutes a day to work on your goal. Um, if you don't have 30 minutes to commit to the goal, then this isn't gonna work for you. Um, but it's only 30 minutes. And by the end of this, you'll have made a phenomenal amount of progress. You'll have tools and strategies to keep going. And during the four weeks, you'll have access to the whole ADHD Big Brother community as well as a private space inside that community. All the workshops in the community, I'll have a body doubling. It's all yours for the duration of the program. And then prior to the program starting, you and I will do a 15-minute uh Zoom chat just to go over your goal, make sure it's clear, actionable, so you can start off strong. Oh, it's gonna be a good one. And so if you want to participate, it's starting November 4th. Uh, you can sign up now. I'm gonna take the first 10 people uh who sign up, first come, first serve. And the links to learn more about that will be in the show notes. So let's get some shit done together this November. And then if you have any questions, just feel free to reach out. It's gonna be so much fun. This is the stuff I love doing. So uh we're gonna have a good time. Can I just say something uh before we get started? And this is this is a side note, and this has nothing to do with anything, really. Uh, it's kind of based on the phone call I had with my mom earlier. I have this thought. Every time I see bananas going bad, like uh like today. I and I don't know why I buy bundles of bananas. They always go bad. The answer would be okay, just buy one, but I I don't ever want to buy one because I don't want to just be like, okay, so now I have to go to the store every time I want a banana all the time, and then I'm the guy that always buys one banana. I just that's I don't want that. That sounds like a total waste of time. So I should buy more than one, but I'm thinking like buying two, maybe that would cover it. I don't know why I think I have to buy the whole bundle. Like I just reach in, grab a you know, a pack of six or whatever they you talk about, bundle of six. You know, why don't I just tear off two? And then maybe and then maybe only one goes bad. But oh my god, man. I'm trying to save on that ADHD tax. I know I'm overthinking bananas, but groceries is a big one for me. Uh, that struggle is real, man. We were talking about this. I was on the phone with my mom. It's her birthday. It's birthday today, but for you guys, it's it's past due. So when you call her to wish her a happy birthday, just make sure you apologize for missing it and say happy, belated. Uh, then you should be you should be good to go uh with that. We were talking about the banana situation, and I was telling my mom all about like I I waste a lot of food. That is one of the struggles that I have. Anytime there's a drawer in the refrigerator, it's like that's welcome to being spoiled drawer. It's like this is where food goes to you know turn to mush. And she was telling me one of the issues that she has is like with is with leftovers, not knowing, like, oh, there's pork chops in the fridge, but when did I make them? I don't even remember when I made them. So how do I know if they're good or not? And she's like, you put painter's tape on the Tupperware or the storage container, and then you can write the date on the tape. And then that way you just pull the tape off when you're done with it. And I thought that was genius. So there you go, guys. This this is your your your mama Jones, Mama ADHD hack for the week. You welcome. Make sure you thank her when you call her. Okay, so let's talk about this ADHD thing a bit. Most of you know that I'm not in love with my ADHD. I s I accept it. I don't love it. I don't hate myself anymore because of it. And I I don't I also don't think of it as a superpower. I think I have some gifts. Yeah, they're pretty rad. Some creative ways of seeing and being and doing in the world. Cool. Maybe that's directly related to how my brain is wired. All right, great. Uh I don't love the debilitating aspects of ADHD. This shitty working memory, it blows. Uh, I don't embrace. Sorry, I do not embrace. If I say what was I talking about one more time, if I have to apologize for a brain fart one more time, I'll just I'll do it one more time. I'm cool with myself about it. All right, so however, the workaround for the working memory has worked for me. I use a bullet journal to externalize my planning and to get my brain out of my brain and onto paper where I can see it. That's textbook. That's ADHD textbook. Get it out of your head where you can see it and do something about it. Do not rely on the brain. So normally, for the past five years, the bullet journal has done the trick. There have been ups and downs, you know, stops and starts, but it's it's my old reliable until recently. And what we normally do when it when a thing stops working is we beat ourselves up about it and we struggle, we fight tooth and nail to get that thing back on track. But that's not the ADHD way. That's not from my education, from my lived experience, this is not the most effective way to handle this. The most effective way to handle this is to be curious and to ask questions. What's going on? What's getting in the way? What is the obstacle? And when we do that, we're open to insights, and our brain may actually do its fucking job and give us a proper answer. And in being curious about what's going on, for example, with my bullet journal, I realized a couple things. Uh, one is that even with the bullet journal open on my desk, I wasn't looking at it. And when I was looking at it, it was sloppy. My handwriting sucks. And I don't enjoy looking at it. So it was taking me a few seconds to realize what I was writing, and then that few seconds, that's already too many seconds. I bet you know what I'm talking about. Like that in when you get instantly tense about a thing, whenever there's a tension, it's like an automatic repulsion and to the thing. So the answer is just to move on, do something else. So the answer that came up for my uh my bullet journal, my externalizing, happened accidentally. Uh, in frustration with not remembering certain marketing activities, because there's so much shit to do. Uh, I printed out uh the checklist that my marketing friend helped me with, and I put it on my whiteboard next to my desk. And we both agreed. We're like, how are you gonna remember to do this shit? And so we printed it out, put it on my whiteboard, and the words were printed, and so they were crisp, they were easy to read. It took no effort to read, and it was eye level, right next to my head. So at my desk, I could just turn my head a little to the right, and there it was, and it worked. I achieved everything on my list and fast because it was all right there, ready to reference. So I thought about well, how can I do that with my daily to-dos? I use a program now called X Tiles. I'm not gonna promote it, I'm not gonna link it up or anything. I'm just telling you, I use it. Uh, and I set up a template. It kind of works as an easier version of Notion. And I apologize to you, Rachel. And if you're listening, she's the Notion wizard in our community. Uh her Notion templates are glorious. When you see what they can do, it makes you want to use it. And then when I try to use it, I'm instantly like the learning curve is too curvy. I can't do it. I don't want to say I can't do it. I want to say I'm not willing to put in, I'm not willing to put in the effort to do it. So anyway, so I put my daily schedules uh and the times and the the top priority, the to-dos, and a big space for my brain dump because shit pops up all day. And I have that on my whiteboard, clean and crisp, and it's been working amazingly. When something pops into my head, oh I gotta do that, I just reach over on my whiteboard there and I write it sloppily over there, but everything else is nice and crisp. So I know that the stuff that I said I was gonna do is nice and crisp. The big question, I think it's on everybody's mind right now, is how long is this gonna work? I don't know. I do not know. Maybe it's my new system. Sorry, bullet journal. Maybe this is the way it's gonna be from now on. Maybe the bullet journal remains my like my one notebook to rule them all, but I take the time to print out my day as either the last thing of my day or the first thing in the morning. We shall see. But the bigger thing here that I wanted to share is that ADHD, it's an interest-wired brain type situation, right? And novelty, interest, excitement, newness, all these are the things that keep us moving forward. So if a system that you have had for a while, if it stops working for you, it's not because you suck and that you can't make anything stick. If you take the time to be curious and ask yourself some questions, then perhaps you uncover maybe the sticking point or the unsticking point. And from there you can determine if this is something to keep trying or something new and exciting is the order of the day. And there are some caveats, like there's a balance to be struck here. If you try a thing for a day and it doesn't work, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. And if you've been doing something for five years and it stops working, doesn't mean it's bad. Do the curiosity work first, non-judgmental curiosity work, uh, and take things from there. My challenge to you this week is to be curious. Ask yourself some coaching questions when you come up against a challenge and see if you can get your brain to give you some insights. It's like, let's go, brain. Do your job. This is what I pay you for. And if you have any questions about this, reach out. Linker in the show notes. Do I have to is that something that I have to say? Like linker and links are in the show notes. Does I you guys know, don't you, that stuff is in the show notes? You don't need to be like, oh, where where would I find it? He just told me about a thing and I don't know where to look. It's getting so old. Hearing myself say links are gonna be in the show notes. But anyway, the links are in the show notes. Um, and reminder momentum intensive November 4th, let's go! And with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic week, and I will talk to you later.