Give Yourself Some Credit. Notice Your Successes

So let's talk about why it's important to give yourself some credit and really notice your successes.

So here's the problem.

The bad stuff,

The mistakes,

The failures,

The slips,

The like,

Oh I shouldn't have done that.

That's really easy for us to see and then to remember or it's hard to like not remember it if you know what I mean.

You know the problem is just for most of us the way that we're wired is that those negatives they really kind of grab our awareness and they stick in our memory really well and you know maybe there's some protective factor to it right like we want to notice and then you know reduce the negatives in the future or something maybe that's why we're wired for that but like regardless it is a thing and if you have ADHD and especially if it's not being well managed or if it's undiagnosed and therefore untreated like you definitely are gonna have more of those negative experiences and they're probably gonna be more visible like more noticeable to yourself and also to others and then there are of course there's times that like you actually do pretty good right like you pull it off and other people like hey that was great but on the inside you're like oh man yeah but you don't know how I got there like you don't know what it took to make that happen so like it looks good but like mmm it's not actually as good as all that right so you sort of give away or cut down your successes so all of this then makes it a whole lot easier to not notice the improvements that you are making right that like you are legit doing some things a bit better doing some things a bit different you're trying harder you're doing different things right to just sort of not notice them or to discount them because it wasn't perfect or there was a little bit of this or a little bit of that so I think it's important then especially if you're kind of trying to make some changes and improvements in your life to really be intentional and to actively look for and give yourself credit for the effort that you're putting into it right whether it's this course or whatever other things that you're working on in your life right so the effort that you're putting in on like I don't know the same old stuff right the stuff you're already doing that tends to work pretty well but you're trying to do it more or you're trying to do it a little bit better or maybe noticing the effort that you're putting in on the new stuff right again whether it's from this course or whether it's from wherever but like you know the new things that you're trying to do and the reason why it's important to focus on the effort and not the outcome is that sometimes the outcomes often the outcomes involve things that we can't really control so for example let's say you're working on getting to work more you know on time more often cool that sounds good here's the problem though getting to work is not just about what time you left it's also about what's a condition of the road so like if there's traffic if there's a big accident you could have left 20 minutes early and still be 20 minutes late so in this case then the better thing is not what time do you get to work better question is what time did you leave the house because that's the part that you can control so look for also not just the things that you do beforehand that set things up better but also really look for and give yourself credit for the times that things don't go well and you sort of do the things to bounce back and you know get yourself back on track right so how do you rescue those you know partial failures or those like whatever moments and what are the lessons learned right like that didn't go well but now what do I know now what am I gonna apply and maybe do a little bit different next time right there's also the question here if we're gonna talk about this of like what should progress look like do it once or twice and then you're awesome at it like is that is that what project progress looks like probably not you know so like what actually is reasonable to expect for a new habit so for example you know if something worked well in the past how have you adopted you know a new habit before or in terms of what you're trying to do now like how big a change is this right if you're trying to do things a little bit different probably it's easier it's gonna come more quickly if it's some big big change usually those take a bit I don't know they take more effort and more tries before they really stick I think there's also the question if you're trying to do something different is you know are there some existing habits or some existing systems that can support this you know so for example you know if you're trying to remember to take some medication in the morning well if you already take one medication or your vitamin or something in the morning it's pretty easy to then like just add a second thing on to it on the other hand if you're trying to do something like all by itself that's probably gonna be harder to do right so let's really get clear on what is reasonable to expect here because the expectation that you have is half of what tells you whether you know you should call it a success or a failure now I think it's important also to really sort of like look at what the motivation is right what is the benefit how have things worked out before how might this work out now and in that process to not pay too much attention to how other people would do it I mean on the one hand like I'm all in favor of getting good ideas from watching what other people do fine awesome but what I'm not a big fan of is looking at other people and saying like oh they do it like that why can't I do it that way and the reason is people are different and they do things different ways so figure out really really for you what's gonna work best all of this this is a process right you keep working at it you keep trying stuff you keep learning things life keeps changing anyway so it's not like you're gonna figure it out and be done so just you know keep chugging along and whatever happens whether it's things worked out well or things didn't work out well what is the next good thing that you can do right don't get freaked out don't get overwhelmed don't get cocky what is the next good thing that you can do and I think in general like that's a pretty good question to ask yourself so back to you here's your homework let's put it to work first notice when you get stuck on a negative thought about your performance is it helpful as in like yeah I really should work harder at that or like that doesn't really actually work I think I should do something different or is that negative thought just sort of making you feel better you just sort of beating yourself up and you don't really have anything better to show for it number two today specifically notice three good things that you did that helped your productivity right like really sort of look for them notice them and kind of let them sink in right really sort of feel that like yeah that is good that is better and then finally really think about what's reasonable to expect of yourself in learning these new productivity habits again from this course or wherever else you get them right really kind of think about what the reasonable expectation is because like I said a minute ago you know how how good you feel about it depends half on what your expectations are and half on how you do with it so you can put in good effort that's the thing you can do also what you can do is be reasonable about what good effort is actually going to get you so I want you to persist I want you to feel good about it I want you to feel like you have something to show for it so let's be really intentional about this stuff and like let's put it to work