444. ADHD and Habits

On this episode, Nellie focuses on the challenges and strategies for managing habits with ADHD. She emphasizes the importance of habits in achieving health, wealth, and happiness, noting that ADHD individuals often struggle with consistency due to boredom and the need for constant stimulation. Nellie shares her personal experiences, including a diagnosis in 2021 and the benefits of medication and lifestyle changes. 
Strategies highlighted included gamifying habits, automating tasks, and creating instant gratification to maintain motivation. Nellie also stresses the importance of simplicity, predictability, and spontaneity, and offered resources like a free habit tracker to help others improve their habits.

We will touch on:

• ADHD and Habits: Introduction and Personal Experience
• Understanding the Challenges of Habits for ADHD Individuals
• Strategies for Gamifying and Automating Habits
• The Role of Predictability and Spontaneity in ADHD Management
• Creating Instant Gratification in Habits
• The Power of Simple and Intentional Habits
• The Role of Habits in Achieving Long-Term Goals
• The Importance of Support and Community in Managing ADHD
• The Role of Automation and Outsourcing in Managing ADHD
• The Power of Small, Consistent Actions in Achieving Goals

Transcript

Unknown: 1:23

We have a very, very important topic to talk about. When I say we, I mean my assistant right here and my other assistant right over there. Tough crowd already, but the important topic is ADHD and habits, because they can feel like enemies. But when your ADHD can become best friends with habits, you truly, truly, truly can create anything, health, wealth, happiness, all the above, big things, small things. I have really found, through all of my learnings and all of my success is it really comes down to habits, because habits create patterns, and patterns are either getting you closer to what you desire or further away. Yes, honey, is that a note for me? Oh, thank you. Open it right now. Okay, I'm on a live video, but it says, Mom, that's cute with a heart. Thank you. Okay, so habits, let's talk about it. Why? Let's first talk about why habits are challenging for people that have ADHD, or people that they like, they think that they have ADHD. I don't believe that you need to be officially diagnosed to think that you have it. Can it be helpful? Of course. Oh, I love it. I love you. Love Emma. Thank you. Okay, can I finish this chat real quick. Thank you. So I had, well, when my nails, one of your nails that was so creative. So even if you're not officially diagnosed, but you're like, I have a hunch. I have a hunch. I think that that is more than enough to at least start exploring life with ADHD, because it is not just it's not a trendy thing, it's not a cool thing. It truly is a lifelong struggle, truly, and we want to turn that struggle into your superpower, because it can feel like a struggle. I'll never forget, before I got diagnosed, I was just feeling so overwhelmed with my life and my business, and I woke up one day, it was so interesting to me. I woke up and this was back in 2021 I woke up and I was like, I wonder if I have ADHD. It must have been like an intuitive download, but I pursued getting diagnosed, and I did wait for medication, because I just was like learning the news about ADHD and life. Life got busy having ADHD got distracted, then I got pregnant, so I waited on medication until 2023 so I've been on ADHD meds for about a year now, probably like a year and a half, actually, now that I'm like, doing the math and even just learning that I have ADHD has been so helpful, because I feel like I can go with the current versus swimming upstream decades upon decades of not being diagnosed, you can feel like something is incredibly wrong with you. You can feel like, well, it's so much easier for everyone else around me. You can have you can have success, but it it comes at a price, at least based on my experience and so learning who you are with ADHD is so powerful. And so, you know, even just for a couple years, that's pretty much what I did is just like started to learn more about myself. And I will say, medication is a personal choice, and it has been incredibly helpful, like incredibly helpful for me, along with many, many other things that I do, like working out, like happy juice, you know, sleep, there's so many things that we can do to help our ADHD. So anyways, going back to the topic of ADHD and habits. So for the last six months of 2024 I have really realized, although I'm super consistent and have had great success, I want more success, and I want more success with ease, and I want it faster. So I've been on this quest to figure out what will help me do that, and what I keep coming to and back around to is certain habits, when done consistently, literally, I can do anything, whether it's health, health related, wealth related, or. Anything in between. And So habits are hard for ADHD ers, because you get bored. There's no way around it. You get bored. This is why people with ADHD have a hard time finishing things, whether it's a project, whether it's cleaning the house, a movie, a show like, if it does not keep your interest, it is so challenging to get something done equally, something could be fun, and then you just kind of like, got over it, and then you're like, moving on to the next thing. So when it comes to health and wealth, this can be so challenging to stick with habits and stick with like goals that you have, whether it's losing a certain amount of weight, gaining muscle, building up your savings, paying off debt, making a certain amount of money in your business, because it it, there's so many moving parts, which is also hard For ADH Dears, and we get bored, and so I've really been working with a recipe of, how can I gamify habits to make it fun, get so many things on autopilot and automate them that It is incredibly so much easier even with ADHD to really manufacture anything that I want. And so that's really the like the last six months of what I've been focusing on, from a savings challenge to even as recently as doing a 10,000 a day step count goal to staying consistent with live video and reels. I have been so consistent with income producing activities more than I ever have, and I'm reaping the rewards. I'm seeing the growth, I'm seeing also the happiness when it comes to, like my health, and it's really, really motivating and giving me so much dopamine. So there's that balance for people with ADHD, of you don't naturally produce your own dopamine, so we're always chasing the dopamine. This is why people with ADHD, typically, they need multiple projects going on. They have multiple drinks, like beverages. I a lot of ADHD ers move furniture around. That's been a big thing that I've done since I was little. They need constant movement. They need constant change, because we are always chasing the dopamine, and so this is incredibly challenging when it comes to your health and it comes to your wealth, because if you're constantly needing to change things, that that makes it hard to stay healthy, it makes it hard to build a sustainable, scalable business. So I have found gamifying my habits and automating as much as I can is key. I've also found that when I can outsource anything and everything, it's super helpful. So like, I have two team members that I gladly pay because I'm so much more consistent with them on board, because I will I will lose interest, or I will get overwhelmed and then freeze right like so it's just knowing you so well and making it foolproof so that way you can get what you what you desire, so much easier. So gamifying has been huge. I did that. I continued to do that with a savings challenge, anything that we can automate the better, because automation, we can get enough dopamine to get things in place, and then from there, you don't really have to think about it. So like, I have a transfer that goes into my savings twice a week, so I don't even have to think about it. And that has been so helpful. Like, my bills are on autopilot. So it's like, how can we make things easier for you in the health category and in the wealth category to keep it simple and sustainable and help you, like, literally, be successful. Like, that's the whole goal here. So it's this is why knowing you is so important, because if you're like, Oh yeah, I'm going to lose interest, the step count has been great, because it's an everyday goal right now, and it's like, simple, right? Like, simplicity, like does not get enough credit, like there is so much power and things being simple, because one, it is easier to scale them, and two, you. Don't need a lot of brain power to implement them. So I want you to, just like, start with one habit, whether it's in the health category or in the wealth category. And I want you to think about, how can you keep it simple? Is there any opportunity to automate it, and equally, how can you gamify it? How can you make it so fun for you that you're like excited to do it? I think that there's the there's power in playing with things being spontaneous too. So a lot of times I don't know what I'm going to talk about on my lives, but yet, I've been doing a live every day for a long time, but I need the spontaneous of like, what am I excited to talk about? And that makes it easier to continue to do it. If it's the same topic every single day, I have found that that is challenging for me, because I want to talk about a variety of things I have also found like getting creative with reels, getting creative with stories. So it's like allowing myself to still have fun and creativity and spontaneousness on top of the predictability. So we want that beautiful blend of predictability and spontaneousness that typically ADH deers are far like they're pretty much 99.9% spontaneous, meaning like you are flying by the speed seat of your pants. But yet, then we get overwhelmed, then we get, you know, exhausted, and then we're frustrated that we I have to move my unicorn. It was like trying to stab me in the face. Um, oh, now she wants to come back in. You're, you're an important person in this family, but I need you to go over there. Okay. Um, so I'm like trying to regroup and be serious now, so when you're when you have ADHD, and you're flying by the seat of your pants, I I can say that because I know what that feels like. You can have great success like I did, but I got to a point where I was like, what if it didn't have to feel so overwhelming it's hard for a team to support you when you are constantly flying by the seat of your pants. So we have this agreement on my team that like they know I am spontaneous, and they may not know every move that I'm going to make, but there's a lot of foundational pieces that they are aware of. And so there's been that beautiful blend of they know the baseline, and they also give me space to be who I am and roll with it. And so I have found that to be a really powerful sweet spot, because it's not it's not neglecting who I am, but it's also being respectful to a team that genuinely wants to support me, but yet doesn't always know how to support me. And so we have found that to be a really powerful blend, where we've got content in the pipeline, 24/7, like our podcast right now is, I believe M said it's scheduled out to, like, November. So like, we're constantly ahead, and a part of that is because I am producing so much content that then they can go and repurpose it. So again, it's like, Are you swimming upstream where you're so exhausted and maybe your team can't even fully support you. It. It's costing you time, it's costing you money, it's costing you energy, and it is slowing down your results. So when you can just pause for a second and go with the current of like, okay, how can we get ahead. How can we make things simpler? How can we, you know, have the predictability in place? How can we automate things? How can we systematize things like, I know that these things aren't so sexy, but they are sexy. They allow you to actually live your life. They allow you to reach more people and create more impact and make more money faster and easier, and typically, that's what people want, but then they're confused why it's not happening, and we get to take just so much more responsibility, like Sure does. Does the industry that you're in play a part in it? Does the economy play a part? Does copywriting play a part? Does pricing play a part, and your offer and all of those things? Yes. And equally, there's so much within that, and more that you have so much power and. And authority that you can really change, whether it's your health or your wealth. There's so much that you can do when you're willing to lean in. And this is not a like do it all overnight, either. We want to do those small steps and get things on autopilot and like what I was thinking about before I went to do this video, was, are habits challenging for people that have ADHD I would I would say, yes, I think they are harder. I think they're hard and challenging for all humans, if not everyone, would be a billionaire and have six pack abs, right? Like habits are the thing that most people struggle with, and so when we can master them, you're already in the top 2% and so what was interesting to me as I was preparing for this video was I take showers regularly. I change my clothes regularly. I brush my teeth regularly. I clean my house regularly. I check my phone, I check my computer right like I drive. There's so much that I do that is mundane, if you would think about it that way, but yet, since it's so habitual, my brain doesn't have to think hard about it. And if your brain doesn't have to think hard about it, it doesn't have to produce dopamine, right to do it, it's just simple and easy. I grab my toothbrush, I put toothpaste on it, and I brush my teeth, right? And if you're in our world, Kristen, one of our students, does squats while She brushes her teeth, which I think is really genius. And so there's so much that we do day to day that we don't have to write on our to do list that we don't like, whine and complain about, typically, right? Like, unless it's like dishes. But for the most part, there's so much that we do in a day that is so autopilot because we've done it for so long, and it doesn't typically take that much energy to do it. You can do that with saving more money. You can do that with live video. You can do that with creating content. You can do that with reaching out to people. I know it may not sound like you can or feel like you can, but it feels so challenging just because you haven't done it enough. And so it's not a habit, so you have to think harder about it. And if you haven't done it enough, you have to, like, put in more energy, because you're like, Okay, but what do I do? What do I say? You know, how, how do I do this? Right? Like, what are all the steps? And so you do have to produce more dopamine to even get yourself, like, hyped up about it. And if we don't see any, like, immediate results around it is not so motivated, motivating to do it again. Like when you brush your teeth, you get the dopamine of like, Oh, wow. My my breath feels smells good, My mouth feels good. Like when you shower, you feel clean, right? There is some instant gratification when you make a meal all the smells right? Smell so good. You get to eat the food, although, like laundry and dishes can be a little like exhausting. The dopamine at the end is so nice. Or vacuuming your carpets, I love vacuuming carpets for like a fresh like those carpet lines are just so amazing. When you drive from one place in to another, typically, there's like, this relief of like, okay, I can, like, take a mental break, right? So there is so much that we do habitually, and we do get some sort of, like, instant gratification. So when it comes to more income producing activities, I want you to think about, how can you create that instant gratification at the end? Because you may not get the instant gratification that all of your debt is paid off, or you've saved the amount of money that you want to save, or when you reach out to people, you may not immediately get the sale. So what you need to do for your brain is create a instant gratification moment at the end. This can be as simple as you rewarding yourself. This can be as simple as like jumping up and down and creating like energy and endorphins of like, oh my gosh, we just did the thing. It can be a gold star. Like, I'm not even joking, like, there needs to be something that is like instant gratification that you did the thing. If the thing isn't going to produce like instant gratification, this will be. Helpful for you to want to do it again, because over 90% of our actions are subconscious, meaning we don't even know like that we're doing it like there's so much happening underneath the surface with with us, that when we can like, have that instant gratification, your brain will be so much more on board to do it again, to do it again. And you can trick your brain by creating a protocol around like, Okay, if I don't, if I don't get an immediate result from this thing, then I'm going to create an instant gratification moment of some sort, and then that will be so helpful for you to want to do it again. And so these like habits take a while, especially wealth, like based habits, like your debt didn't get there overnight, so it most likely is not going to be paid off overnight savings, like getting a hefty savings takes time, right? But again, if we can, like, get the train moving, it does create momentum, and that is super powerful. So habits are what I'm obsessed with. We're doing some things with our students around habits and gamifying it and creating like prizes and making it fun. So if you want to join us and you're not one of our students, let me know. We've got scholarships thanks to our sponsors, but at the end of the day, at least grab my habit tracker. It's totally free. Grab that and start to see the magic happen truly. There's so much power that you have at your fingertips. And when we can create those super simple habits, especially health related and wealth related, you can create anything truly there. There's, yes, there's beautiful, amazing strategies out there. But at the end of the day, nothing beats habits, simple, powerful, intentional, health and wealth habits. There'll be any algorithm, there'll be any you know person that has talent that is not like utilizing it like habits, good old fashioned habits go a long, long, long way, and there's always room for improvement. Like that's exactly why I started the 10,000 step step count a day because I was like, I can totally up my game. And it's been so helpful and so fun. So if you have any questions on any of this, let me know. Join us. Become a student. We're having so much fun, and I can't wait to you know, just have some friendly competition around habits and help support them. Yeah.