Business Strategy for ADHDers
Hey there, I'm Sky! As an ADHDer I have always been passionate about business and doing things my way. It wasn't until later in my adult years that I finally had the balls to take the leap, ditch the people pleasing, give fear the middle finger and start my own business!
With four kids under five (one with ADHD and Autism) I quit my 9-5 government job, encouraged my husband to do the same and we went all in on creating my own psychology practice.
What started as an idea has now become a 7-figure business, allowing my husband and I to have more time with the kids, holidays, choosing our own hours and has set us up financially in investment property.
Now I want to help you too. Because here's the thing if my ADHD brain can do it, so can yours!
I am here to teach you step by step how to start and grow your business in a way that suits your ADHD brain. It's time to stop doing things the neurotypical way and start doing them your way.
This podcast is the perfect place for you to connect, learn, and see that your ADHD business dreams get to become a reality. So come and hang out and let me share my journey with you!
Business Strategy for ADHDers
Ep 11 - ADHD Self-Improvement: Learn How to Rewrite Your Stories
Share your thoughts with us (click here)
In this episode, I want to talk about the stories we tell ourselves about ADHD and how they can limit us. These stories can make us feel stuck in a box. Let's overcome ADHD rumination and self-destructive thoughts today!
We didn't put ourselves in this box; society and others did. But it's our job to break free. We can choose new, positive stories about ourselves.
Think about the old stories you've heard or told yourself about ADHD. Write them down. Then, choose new stories that empower you.
By changing these stories, you'll experience growth and freedom. It's okay to feel uncomfortable; it means you're growing.
Share your old and new stories in our Facebook group, "Living with ADHD." Let's support each other in rewriting our stories and embracing our potential.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
02:39 - The boundaries with your ADHD that you're living by
04:34 - Why a disability doesn't define you
05:22 - It's our responsibility to move ourselves out of the box that keeps us stuck
06:38 - The messages that we get about ADHD
09:23 - What are you missing out on in life because of the stories you think you have to live by?
10:12 - Here's what you need to do to rewrite your ADHD story
12:30 - What we naturally do as we move through life
12:54 - The same story will not create something new
14:27 - It all begins with believing your new story
14:57 - Start practicing these...
17:18 - Jump into our FB group "Living with ADHD"
18:01 - Outro
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Need ADHD coaching support? Feel free to DM me on Instagram @adhdcoachsky for personalized assistance and guidance.
Together, let's navigate the journey towards managing ADHD and unlocking your full potential.
I, I woke up this morning and I was just like, for whatever reason, like I'm in my hypo mode, right? And I was like, Oh my God, I get to go, um, and share again about ADHD and all of the things. And I had something else planned, but then when I sat with it, I just kind of was really feeling into like, what is it that I wanted to share with you? And what do I think is going to be super helpful? And important for you actually on your ADHD journey and something that has been coming up for me, for the clients that I've been working with, and even a conversation that I had with my coach this week was around the stories that we create around our ADHD and how those stories that we create actually keep us stuck in this box Right? It's almost like the stories in our mind of what we think ADHD is, of what we think ADHD means for us, of what we think ADHD then means for like what we can be, do and have. It creates almost like these parameters or these boundaries around us that keep us stuck in this version of who we think we are and who we think we need to be. And for me, what I have learned is that that can be really fucking limiting, right? If we get caught up in a story of, for example, me, it's always been like, I'm too much. Then the story for me has always been, I need to be smaller. And so for me, the box grew even smaller again. And so I wanted to have a conversation today. From a place of you being curious and getting to see for yourself, like, what are the boundaries or the parameters around your ADHD that you've been living by that maybe aren't yours and maybe aren't fucking helpful? And then what can we do about it, right? You know, if you think about ADHD and You know, it's a label, right? And I love fucking labels, I think it's useful, don't misunderstand the sentence, like it gives me a foundation in which to understand myself and which to work from. But the flip of that, if we get really, really rigid in somebody else's view of ADHD, or somebody else's view of the label, what that can then mean is that I'm put in a box that doesn't necessarily fit for me. You know, ADHD is a disability. It comes with deficits. We struggle, we have problems. Like some days it's fucking hard work. And though, none of that necessarily means anything about who you get to be, what you get to create in this lifetime, what you get to have, what you get to do, what kind of relationships you get to create. Like you get to do all of the fucking things with ADHD. You know, I dare you to, after this conversation, go online and do a Google search around people with disabilities and the amazing things they've achieved, right? Because there are so many people in history who have had significant disabilities, significant Who have gone on to be more, do more, and have more than what the disability defines for them. And that is what I want for you. That is what I want for you to start thinking about. Right? Now, here's the thing too though, right? Like, you being stuck in this little box over here around what ADHD means, it's actually not your fault. Right? Like, you didn't put yourself there. Okay, the environment, the people around you, um, society, culture, like all of the research, everything around you has put you in this box. So it's not your fault you're in there. Like I find myself sometimes hopping back in there like a fucking jack, you know, like was it the jack in the box, but I keep trying to escape it, right? Um, it's not your fault you're in there. Like, please hear that from me. And equally though. It's your responsibility, it's my responsibility, it's our responsibility to move ourselves out of that. To see more for ourselves, right? To see ourself as more. To see ourself as worthy of having all of the fucking things, like whatever it is that you want. Now, take some time for a moment, and I want you to cast, like, if you're a young person watching this, you won't need to cast your mind back far, but if you're older like me, like, I want you to cast your mind back to when you were younger, when you were the child, when you were the teen, right? Even now, like, what are the messages? That grow come from and what they fucking are. It's going to be really hard to kind of move against them and kind of almost stretch the boundaries of the world that you've had created for you. You know, I know for me when I cast my mind back, things like you're too loud. You're too much. Tone it down. You're lazy. If you just, this is the fuck. How many of you hear this one? If you just. Tried harder. Motherfucker, I try hard and it's still the same, right? If you just planned and organized yourself better. If you didn't leave everything till the last minute. Like there's so many messages that we get about ADHD. Right? Maybe for you it's like things like, I'm not smart enough. Right? Or I can't do that. Yep. I'm not good enough. Right? If I try, I'm just gonna fail anyway. Right? And maybe you start to develop rules like, I have to get it perfect, and I have to get it right, or somebody's gonna judge me. Okay? Or maybe it's something like, I'm a bad person, because I know for me, it's like, I talk over people, and I forget their birthdays, and they'll tell me important things, and it'll just go completely out of my head, and I won't check in with stuff, right? Or I'll go and make a decision, and I'll be really impulsive, and I won't take into account anybody else's feelings. And so I get into this sort of like, Oh, I'm a bad person. Maybe I'm not kind. Maybe I'm not loving. Maybe I'm not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Like we start to create this story around who we are. And I want you to think about that for a minute. Like if you are listening to this on the replay, like press pause and go away and write all that stuff down. Like really brain dumb. All of the things that you've been told about ADHD, all of the stories that you've attached to your worth that you now make something mean about you. And what I want you to do is once you've written that down, I want you to think for a moment, like, now that I've put myself unintentionally in this box, now that I'm living by this story of I'm too much or I can't or I have to or I should, what does that now mean for my life? What is that now stopping me from being able to do? What is that stopping me from being able to have? What is that stopping me from thinking about myself, right? Like I don't know about you, but when I thought of the concept of like, I'm too much, what that meant was I had to be quiet. And I wasn't allowed to give my opinion and I wasn't allowed to be on Facebook lives, fucking sharing shit all of the time. Right. I wasn't allowed to be seen. Like I started to hide my personality. Right. And what happened from that is I shrunk, I got small. And then what come with that was things like massive anxiety, you know, really angry and frustrated mood. Like I wasn't, So much depressed, but I was fucking angry. I was resentful. I was like the cranky bitch to my kids and to my husband and to the people I love. Like it, it had me be this human that I didn't want to be, that I knew I wasn't. But when I was pushed into this box, that's what got created. I lost my creative spark. Right? So for you, think about it. Like what are you missing out on in life because of the story you think you have to live by? right? And get really clear on it. Look, look, look at it, write it down, read it out loud, talk to someone you love about and go fuck like this is the story I'm living in. This is the place that I've been in for maybe for you. It's five years, 10 years, whatever it is, right? But coming from a place of curiosity coming from a place of like, Oh, isn't this interesting? Like what can I learn from this? Because anytime you come from a place of like I'm such a fuckwit. I can't believe I've done this to myself. This is all my fault. Like, we're in the same bullshit. And you're not gonna grow and you're not gonna get yourself out of the box because again, we're fucking stuck. Right? Then what I want you to do is once you get this idea of like, Oh my god, this is the shitty story that I'm living in. I want you to think about like, How do I want my story to be created? Right? Because all of our thoughts, like every single human, ADHD or not, your thoughts are recycled. Your thoughts are not your own. Your thoughts have come to you from other people in your life. The TV, social media, the football coach, the teachers. Like they're not your thoughts. And unless you are stopping and consciously choosing, we're just gonna recreate the same. So really giving yourself a moment to stop and check in and go. What do I want to be thinking about me? What do I want to be thinking about what I'm capable of? What do I want to be focusing on? You know, what kind of create like relationships do I want to be creating? What kind of careers do I want to be entering into? What kind of, um, I don't know, things do I want to be doing in life? What kind of health do I want for myself? Like you get to start thinking differently. Because you're not going to action things differently. Until a lot of the time we check in and we recognize that we get to think differently too. Right? In order to recreate your life, we need to not only change behavior, but we need to change the story in which we tell ourselves. Right? If you have a mindset of, Okay, I'm going to start that uni degree and I'm going to go and do that thing and that's going to be fucking amazing. But the story in the background is still around, I can't study, I can't concentrate, I'm not good enough, I'm lazy, I can't plan. Then you can go and start the uni degree, and what will happen is you will recreate a cycle and pattern of whatever's come before that. Right? Like, I often think about it as a fucking upgrade. Right? If you think about it, like, you don't have the same mobile phone now that you had when mobile phones first came out. You don't have the same TV now that you had when TVs first came out, right? You don't have maybe the same, unless you're a mom, maybe you fucking do, right? I was going to say clothes, but you might have upgraded your clothes or upgraded your hair or whatever the fucking thing is, right? But in life, what we naturally do is we upgrade things as we move through life, right? So you think about trying to go on Facebook, right? With the fucking dial up phone. You can't do it, right? So how are you going to expect you to create something new from using the same default back here? We just can't do it. The same story will not create something new. Just like the same phone will not allow for something new like Facebook or social media or whatever the fuck, we're just making it up now, right? That's what I do. So I want you to think about yourself as like having opportunity to upgrade, right? It doesn't matter if you have ADHD or autism or schizophrenia or bipolar or eczema or fucking, I don't know, insert anything in there, right? What you absolutely get an opportunity to do in life is to upgrade, right, is to grow, is to move forward into something new. But to do that, right, in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, like, please challenge me. What we need is for ourselves, right, and I put my hand on my heart because that's connection to self. Is to really lean in and trust that you can do the fucking thing, right? I want you to start seeing these stories as something separate to you. You don't need to own them anymore, right? Like Brene Brown, she talks about, um, languaging things in a way that separates you from the story. And the way that she would do that is like, Ooh, I'm noticing the story of I'm too much showing up when I'm just about to go on a Facebook live. Okay, that's the old story. That's okay. But what do I want the new story to be? Right? Or you might be in a relationship. And you're having a conversation and you're like, Oh my God, I'm noticing the story of I'm not allowed to share or this person's going to leave me showing up. Okay, I'm noticing the story and that's okay, but I'm going to trust within me that my new story is I get to share. And I get to be too much. And if that's too much for them, then that's not my problem. That is a them issue, not a me issue. Right? So it's almost like we're taking the story from inside of ourselves and putting it out over there, and we're languaging it now in a way that has us not own it anymore. And this is what I want you to start practicing. First thing is check out what are the ADHD stories? What are you telling yourself that is keeping you stuck and playing small? Write it down. Secondly... On a piece of paper, what do I want my new stories to be? Okay? For me? You're allowed to be yourself. Be loud and fucking proud, right? I am so loud when I wanna be. Right? And then the third thing is from a place of compassion and kindness and curiosity. When you notice the story showing up, when you notice the story gonna dictate your behavior, label what's going on. Oh, I'm noticing the story, blah, blah, blah. I'm noticing the story, blah, blah, blah, right? And in our mind, it's a practice of like, okay, and I'm not going to make it mean anything. It's the old stuff. Feelings are still going to be there. That's okay. Right. But we're just noticing. And I want you to start seeing what happens to the constriction in your life. When you start to do that, when you start to put stories outside of yourself, when you start to push the boundaries of who you can be, of what you can do, of how you get to show up, you know, what starts to happen to how you feel, what starts to happen to how people perceive you and your energy, what starts to happen in relationships, in the choices you're making in the world that you're creating. You know, for me, the word that constantly shows up when I shift into like, like moving my stories around is expansion, right? My stories, a lot of the time they feel really constricting. They feel really boxed in. It's like there's these parameters and I'm walking into walls and I know I want a door but I can't find it. And then when I start labeling and seeing the stories for what they are. I start feeling lighter and having more freedom and expansion and there's terrifying feelings in there. Don't misunderstand. Right? Anxiety shows up. Cause like, Oh my God, I haven't been here before. This is a bit scary. Right? And there's almost this feeling sometimes of like retreat, retreat into safety of my little box. And sometimes I do that and that's okay. And it's okay if you do that too. But what's more important is knowing that when you're in there, you know how to move and get back out. So I'd love to know what you're getting from this conversation, you know I'd love to hear from you like jump into the Facebook group living with ADHD Let us know like what are the stories that you've had created for you around ADHD? You know, what are the stories that are keeping you feeling small playing small feeling not good enough? you know, let us know like what box you've been put in and Equally, I'd love to hear from you is what are the new stories that you want to create for you and for your life moving forward so that you get to be do and have all of the fucking things that you want to do with your life. I'd love to hear from you.
