64. New Year, new you? Nope! Not for ADHD entrepreneurs. Here's why!

Katie [00:00:00]:
2024 is nearly here. New year. New you. Nope, As we come up on the end of the year, we are entering a very special time in the anxiously ambitious ADHD entrepreneur's brain.

Katie [00:00:21]:
And that is New Year's resolution time. And in this episode, I'm going to preemptively bust whatever you think you are going to be doing in the new year, because it's not going to be new Year new you. It's going to be new year. Same you like it has every single year of your life. Just because the calendar reflects the new year doesn't mean anything is going to inherently change about you unless you actually change something about your life. So we're going to dive into what you can actually do to actually stick to your goals in the new year. For the most part. Most New Year's resolutions are absolute crap.

Katie [00:01:01]:
They are an intention that you're going to set one day a year that is going to make you feel like garbage for not sticking to it for about eleven months, which I don't know about you, but that does not sound like fun to me. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I'm not a big fan of the word motivation. I don't think motivation is actually a driving force to get us to do anything, at least not consistently. A lot of my listeners have asked how they can build discipline as an ADHD person, and we did a whole episode on it, episode 59, if you want to go check it out. But the key to setting a goal for the new year and actually following through on it is creating momentum. And not only that, but actually creating fundamental change in your life so that it's possible for you to reach that goal. Before we get into how you can actually stick to this thing, I want to talk about the different flavors of New Year's resolutions that people set for themselves. Two that are very closely related is finding a word for the new year or setting an intention.

Katie [00:02:12]:
Now, your word could be something like brave, dedicated, believer, have faith. That's two words. So it would just be faith. I guess usually this is a New Year's resolution that is symbolic of some kind of spiritual awakening that you've had or a lot of personal growth that you've been working on. Maybe you're committed to being braver in this new year. I actually have a friend who every single year she gets a new word tattooed on her wrist. And she gets them small because she's going to be alive for hopefully a really long time. She needs space, but it's a great reminder for her that when she looks down at her hands every single day, she sees this word.

Katie [00:02:52]:
And I'm not telling you, you need to go and get a tattoo to do this. You don't. One of the things that gets us into trouble with setting New Year's resolutions is the whole object permanence thing. Setting a goal is a very nontangible thing. So whenever you're setting, giving yourself a word for the new year, an intention or a big goal, you have to create some kind of physical representation in your space that you're going to see every single day. Without this, it's going to be so easy for you to forget about this resolution a week into January and then remember it in April at some point and be like, oh, crap. Well, I failed at that, didn't I? So while getting a tattoo might be a bit extreme, some other options might be you could make one of those Taylor swift friendship bracelets that has the word on it. You could put post it notes all over your house with that word on it.

Katie [00:03:47]:
I want to remind you that after a while you will become blind to them. So you're going to want to put it in your calendar to refresh whatever this is from time to time. You can write on your mirrors in lipstick or in glass pen, whatever this new word is or whatever mantra you want to do. If you do this, I'll tell you from experience, you do have to tell your housekeeper to not wash it off every single week. I went through a lot of lipstick because I was also very self conscious about rewriting I'm enough on all of my mirrors. I didn't want to tell her, have to explain it to her because I also think she thought I was a little nuts for it. I think she thought I was kind of a sad lady. I think she actually was very concerned for my mental health.

Katie [00:04:38]:
Anyway, to your comfort level with this one, you can also put it on the background of your phone for the lock screen. That is an option. But if you don't do this, if you don't create a physical representation of it, guess what? You're going to forget about it. I guarantee you, out of sight, out of mind. If you don't see it, it does not exist. Just like the 17 pairs of headphones that you lost that are in pockets of your favorite jackets that you've never checked the pockets of. Similar to setting a word? You can set an intention. I'm setting the intention that I'm going to be more present.

Katie [00:05:12]:
I'm setting the intention that I'm going to have more fun. I'm setting the intention of enter whatever your intention is here. Intentions are beautiful things. I love them. I think they're way better than goals for long term things because it takes away that all or nothingness that we tend to attach to goals. And what I mean by that is, I'm sure you've had this experience of thinking, like, I'm going to get in shape. And then you create a workout calendar for yourself that has you doing cardio Monday Wednesday Fridays and doing weightlifting Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday Sundays, and then yoga on Sundays as well. And you're like, I'm going to do this.

Katie [00:05:50]:
I'm going to go full throttle every single day. I'm going to work out. Well, you get a few days in and you're sore and you're tired, and instead of going to the gym after work, your friends were inviting you over for dinner, and you're like, that sounds like more fun. And so you skip your workout on day four of the new year, and the next day you think, oh, no, I ruined the plan. I didn't go to the gym yesterday. I didn't work out. Okay, well, I've already kind of failed at it, so I guess I won't go today also. And then the next day, oh, no, I'm really off the rails.

Katie [00:06:27]:
This is not working. God. And then before you know it, the whole plan is tainted with failure, and you don't even want to go back to it because you feel like you've already failed. You don't get any dopamine from it. Whereas if you set the intention of working out three to five times a week, there's a lot more forgiveness, there's a lot more flexibility, there's a lot more ability for you to rationalize with yourself that you just showed up. Some days you're going to be tired and sore from the workout the day before, but you're still going to make it to the gym. But you know what? Instead of sprinting, instead of, like, punishing your body, you're going to go for a 30 minutes walk, and that counts. So, intentions are beautiful things, but the only way they get to be successful is if you make structural changes about your life.

Katie [00:07:17]:
Intentions are usually about saying yes more to a certain thing. I'll bet you like $20 that you're already probably pretty busy. Like, there's a reason you haven't done this thing already. There's a reason you haven't done more fun things. There's a reason why you don't go to a museum once a month already. You don't have the time for it in your schedule. You have other demands, you have family obligations, you have things at work, you have maybe some volunteer stuff that you do for you to stick to any intentions that you set for yourself for this new year, you're going to have to start saying no to something you I'm going to tell you the least sexy intention I set for myself one year. I was 26 years old and I decided, you know, I used to be one of those people who I convinced myself that I would sleep when I was dead, I would stay up late and then I would get up super early and I'd be exhausted all day long.

Katie [00:08:20]:
And I'd do this to myself several nights in a row until I'd crash and I'd need to sleep 12 hours. This is kind of how our culture has taught us to treat sleep. It's something that you can steal from yourself. It's the thing that you can most easily sacrifice to get things done, to spend time with people, to get to work early, whatever. And also our brains don't have a way of cleaning itself without us sleeping. So the rest of your body, besides your brain, when there are dead cells it needs to get rid of, it, has the whole limbic system that will actually clear out these dead cells, get rid of them 24 hours a day. Your brain does not have that system. They actually aren't really sure how the brain gets rid of cells.

Katie [00:09:06]:
But one thing is clear is that the people who sleep more have less dead cells in their brains. So the only conclusion scientists have been able to make on this, and there may be more research, and if there is, please send it to me. But the conclusions that they've come to is the only time the brain can actually offload dead cells that no longer serve it, that are maybe clouding your judgment and making things harder for you to learn and do. And all the things is when you're sleeping. So I heard this and I thought, okay, well, that's absolutely not me. I'm not sleeping enough. And I set an intention for myself that new year that I was going to sleep at least 8 hours a night. Now to do this, I had to cancel hanging out with friends later in the evenings for me to do this consistently.

Katie [00:09:53]:
I actually, at 26 years old, gave myself a bedtime of 09:00 p.m. And in planning this out, I knew that I wasn't going to fall asleep at 09:00 p.m. On the first night or on the second night or on the third night. But I made myself go to bed at that time and just rest without the tv on, without my phone with me until my circadian rhythm started getting acclimated to going to bed at 09:00 p.m. And I actually started falling asleep really quickly. But it took some time and I planned this out after doing some research on it. After doing this for five months, I realized how unhappy I was in my job. I realized that I needed a break from city living and I was able to strategize my exit from working at the company that I was at and from living in the city.

Katie [00:10:46]:
The other crazy thing about forcing yourself to sleep 8 hours a night is once you start, you can't stop. So this is something I have to be very conscious of in the now because if I have to get up early, I genuinely have to go to bed super early because I will not wake up at my alarm. My body has grabbed onto these 8 hours of sleep it gets every single night and will not let go. So I highly recommend this. If you're someone who steals sleep from yourself and you find that you're eating poorly, you can't stick to workout regimens, you have a lot of anxiety. Try this. Try sleeping 8 hours a night. It's not sexy being single in a city like San francisco and getting asked out on a date and being like, okay, but I need to be home by 830.

Katie [00:11:35]:
Not a cute look, but you know what? It was one of the best things I've ever done for my health, my career, and my life. But it was also an intention. There were nights where I didn't go to sleep at 09:00 p.m. I built in that failsafe that if I fell asleep at 11:00 p.m. Or maybe something happened that I stayed out later than I intended, that was okay because it wasn't a I have to do this every single day or I fail thing. It was. This is the intention I've set for the year, that most nights I want to be asleep by 09:00 p.m. There's a lot of research that suggests that those of us with ADHD actually do need an hour or two more sleep than neurotypicals.

Katie [00:12:20]:
Maybe this is because our brains have to work harder throughout the day to kind of conform into this world that's designed for neurotypicals but prioritizing sleep will actually make you better able to manage your ADHD symptoms in your day to day life, including your business. And then finally, let's talk about goals. Ooh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. And then finally, let's talk about goals. I'm a coach. I love talking about goals. I love goal setting.

Katie [00:13:00]:
I love dreaming up how you can create an action plan. I love looking at the big dream and then reverse engineering what the action plan is so that it stops being a dream and it starts being a realistic goal for my clients. The problem with how a lot of people set goals, however, is that they set the goal around the result, which absolutely, like, 100% it worked for Jim Carrey. He set a goal of making a certain amount of million dollars in acting by a certain date. Squirrel, squirrel. So didn't you write yourself a check? I heard that you did. Is that true?

Jim Carrey [00:13:36]:
I wrote myself a check for $10 million for acting services rendered, and I gave myself five years or three years, maybe, and I dated at Thanksgiving 1995, and I put it in my wallet and I kept it there and it deteriorated and deteriorated and stuff. But then just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out that I was going to make $10 million on think it was dumb and dumber.

Katie [00:14:04]:
Dumb and dumber. Yeah. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. And he worked at it and he manifested it and it happened. Absolutely. However, oftentimes when people set a goal around a result, they don't do the necessary steps that will allow for them to get to that result. So I always love prioritizing setting a goal around the actions you're going to take in the spirit of reaching that result again, you want to be really careful here, because when we set goals around actions, we can be very all or nothing. You either stick to the plan and do everything on the plan and you never fucked up, but, oh, no, you just fucked it up because you didn't do it that day.

Katie [00:14:47]:
Oh, no, now the whole plan is garbage because you're a failure. We're not doing that to ourselves. Right. We need to create flexible goals for ourselves that can evolve and change throughout the year because we understand that we need variety. And sometimes the action that we think will get us to the goal loses its mojo. There's no more juice in that goose. I love that saying. And then we completely drop off the map.

Katie [00:15:12]:
So when you're setting a goal for yourself this year, maybe it's that you want to sign ten new clients at your new retainer rate of 2500 a month. That's an incredible goal and I want that for you. And also that in itself is not enough for you to actually reach that goal, you're going to have to commit to doing the actions that will actually get you there. Now, oftentimes people set themselves goals like this and they don't set themselves up for success because if they knew how to do this, they would have already done it. If you've never gotten a high ticket client before and you're setting yourself this goal of signing ten of them, but you're not giving yourself the tools to be able to know how to do that. Honey, we need to have a talk about realistic goal setting. This is like setting a goal of saying, I'm going to learn how to play the violin but not having a violin. You can't learn how to play a violin without an actual violin to play.

Katie [00:16:08]:
On. Side note, my parents and my school when I was in fifth grade tried to make me play the violin. I ruined every single concert because I refused to learn. The only song I learned how to do was twinkle, twinkle little star and not, well, squirrel, squirrel. Hi, guys. I'm going to be giving you a little concert. I learned this when I was about eight years old. What year, Catherine? Eight years old.

Katie [00:16:30]:
How was my 22? I think I was 96. So listen to me now. I'm great, right? You razors like that was the only song I knew how to play and I was still bad at it. They were so happy when I was able to quit the violin. So please, for the love of Dolly Parton. Well, I have love for you too, honey. If you're committing to doing something you've never done, set yourself up for success. Invest in something that is going to help you reach that goal.

Katie [00:17:30]:
Because you can't go to a place that you've never been to before without directions. If this is a fitness goal, I want you to invest in something that will show you the way to reach whatever fitness goal you have. If this is a creative goal, maybe you want to learn how to paint. Don't just buy a paint set. You don't know how to do this. Go and sign up for a class. Learn something. Go to an expert who can show you.

Katie [00:17:55]:
Here's the best way to do it. We have ADHD, so we learn things really fast. We get good at things really fast, but when we're trying to do something that we've never done before without any guidance on how to do it, we're bad at it. And that's really frustrating. And that's where we tend to give up on our goals. Because who wants to be bad at something for longer than a day? We learn things really quickly. Set yourself up to learn it quickly. And if you're wanting to sign high ticket clients, if you're wanting to start or scale your business and you've never done it before and you're not really sure what you're doing, then this is the time for you to go to the link in the show notes and book a generate income strategy call with me, because I'm not okay with you setting yourself an unrealistic goal about your business, not knowing what to do for it, floundering for four months, wasting money, time and energy and tanking your self esteem in the process, and still having nothing to show for it.

Katie [00:19:02]:
If you want ten high paying clients in 2024, I want to help you get them. Hell, if you want two high paying clients in 2024, I also want to help you get them. But again, if you don't make structural changes to how you run your life, to the time that you make available, to the energy that you reserve to do this thing, whatever it is, I have bad news for you. It's not going to be new year new you, it's going to be new year old you. Who's frustrated that you didn't do the thing still? And who's starting to make up a story that you fail at everything that you set your mind to? And who probably needs to sign up for therapy and go on a whole spiritual journey and go to one of those silent yoga retreats, which, I'm sorry, it does not sound like fun. Think of everything you can avoid going through if you just commit to getting the right guidance for whatever you want and making some scheduling changes. It's so simple. And if you're ready to book that call with me, I want you to go to www.weeniecast.com strategycall.

Katie [00:20:10]:
And again, that link is in the show notes. Regardless of what you're doing for the new year, remember, you're going to forget about it if it's not visible to you every single day. So whatever it is, if it's a list of your goals, you're doing that on the background screen of your phone when it's in locked mode. If it's a word, get a bracelet or a tattoo, or write it in lipstick on your bathroom mirror. If it's an intention, maybe set a calendar alert for yourself that every single day to journal on that intention. Maybe go in right now and schedule in time every single week or every single month for you to do that thing. What we don't want to happen is that it goes out of sight, out of mind. And around June you think, oh, fuck, I really failed at that one.

Katie [00:20:55]:
I guess we'll just have to set a new resolution next year. And while you're deciding what you want to do in this coming year, get really connected to what your why is. If it's an arbitrary thing that you think sounds impressive and will make you look more cultured, smarter, fitter, whatever, but you don't actually care about it, that's not a good goal. Find something that will actually make you happier, that will make you feel healthier and more grounded in your body and more aligned to whatever gifts you've been given in this life. Because believe me, the more you have in your cup, the better able you are to pour into others. And that's what you're here to do. Squirrel, squirrel. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going to weeniecast.com strategycall.