Following the Wrong Leader: Are You Choosing Wisely for your ADHD Family? #180
Ever follow a friend’s advice only to realize that it was never gonna work for you?
They meant well, but all you got was frustration and heartache.
Who do you look to for guidance on your ADHD?
When you want to learn how to swim, you choose a swim instructor who knows what it’s like to be in the water.
Are you looking for someone on dry land to give you swim instructions?
When you have ADHD, comparing yourself to anyone who doesn’t have ADHD is a surefire recipe for low self-esteem. And taking advice from them is good in theory, but somehow never comes together.
So how do you find the right person to help you be successful? Let’s discuss.
Instead of spending the first hour and a half of your day spinning out with indecision paralysis, let's make an ADHD-friendly plan for your day that makes sense for both you and your family.
You know how to do that because you understand how your ADHD affects your day and you've learned the skills you've been missing to work WITH your ADHD instead of against it!
How'd you learn all that? In Time Management Mastery for ADHD Moms in only 11 weeks. Ba-bam! Learn more about Time Management Mastery for ADHD Moms by clicking here or join the waitlist and be the first to know when registration is open by clicking here!
Patricia Sung 0:00
Are you drowning? Are you barely keeping your head above water? Are you treading water but you never get ahead? When you have ADHD, it's like living life on the sea. I am here reaching out my hand and saying Hold on, I will help you stay above water.
Patricia Sung 0:18
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home or your family? I get your mama. Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung 1:24
Before we jump into this week's episode, let's read our review of the week. This one comes from Stein entitled Thank you. I discovered you through the women in ADHD podcast where your interview made me cry. Your description of ADHD and motherhood was the first time I heard someone else explain what I had been experiencing my entire adult life. Wow. And now into ADHD fashion and binge listening your wonderful and loving podcasts with all the advice I have been in need of this podcast is a life vest. Thank you. Well, thank you Steen. Also so excited because it's totally on time to the episode. Let's make it happen.
Patricia Sung 2:02
Hey, they're successful mama, it's your friend Patricia Sung. When you have ADHD, it's like living life on the sea. We were talking back in episode 177 about how life is just different on the water. You have to do things differently when you're building on the sand. You have to do things differently when your supplies need to be waterproof and withstand the soul hotter and the hurricane force winds when you have ADHD you need to learn a different way of doing things that the people on the prairie don't necessarily get when neurotypical people want to build foundations. They build them and then they turn around look you and go Why don't you just build it like a belt? It worked for me and you're over here on the water been like Dude, it didn't work? Why does it doesn't work? It's not working. Why isn't it working? And you start to think that it's you instead of thinking perhaps the plan for the house in the prairie did not work on the water.
Patricia Sung 2:55
When a neurotypical person wants to build their house, they go and gather their wood, their nails are hammer, they get their blueprint, they find a nice little plot of land, and they build their house today. They got it but when you have ADHD and you're barely keeping your head above water, you feel like you're drowning. You're treading water, but you can't get ahead someone can hand you those seem planks of wood and the hammer and the nails and the blueprint for the house. And it doesn't matter how hard you try. You will never build a house while treading water while drowning. It's not possible even if you figured out how to build that house underwater. You can't use it because it's underwater.
Patricia Sung 3:37
Meanwhile, you're over here shouting like Help Help I'm drowning. I'm drowning. Or maybe you're so far underwater that you can't even yell and then people are going well but but I gave you the wood gave you the screws or nails gave you the hammer gave you the blueprint. Why can't you build it, just try harder. Follow the plan. Get out your hammer, just you know hammered together in here you are soaking wet, the planks of wood are floating away the needles are sinking in the water. You can't get any momentum because your arms underwater, so you can't swing that hammer. Your blueprint is all soggy and floating away. This is why it doesn't work. Because your plan is made by someone who lives on the prairie. As someone with ADHD you need structures and allowances that make sense for living life on the water. When you come to somebody like me who knows how to build a raft who knows to hand you a life preserver before we start? Then you can actually get something done. Hey, maybe you're not ready to build a house yet because you're still drowning. Maybe we could just like throw together some kind of raft to get you out of the water. Then we can figure out how to build you a house but we can't build a regular house. You need a house boat.
Patricia Sung 4:51
So I can still like help you figure out how to build the house but we're doing it differently. Like you need a boat. You need a hole. Yes, you still need one In a hammer and nails, but instead of the blueprint for a house, you need the drawings for a boat, you need to be able to tie up to the dock and use that dock as your study point or drop anchor to have something holding you in place so that you're not floating off. You need different kinds of tools you might need like a boat hoist, you need special paint. The person who knows that you need those things is the person who's been there before you want the coach who's going to say, hey, maybe you don't need a regular house. Maybe you need a raft or a boat, a yacht, a cruise ship, I don't know, but definitely not a regular house. But see, here's the thing, like when you're building a regular house, it sounds like a good idea. And you know what 80 90% of what you're going to learn and the instructions you need to build a house are also in that plan for the house boat, but it's missing this vital 20% Like how to build the home and how to make things waterproof. Where to grab a life preserver so that you can actually be successful in building your house boat. And honestly, like people with ADHD because there's so much varying what we're doing it's like yes, some people need boats. Some people need rafts.
Patricia Sung 6:18
Some people need house boats, some people need those pedal boats that have all skill swans on them, but also some people they need chi or like our building houses on the beach, but they need like the special piers digging down to like hanging out on the sand or like maybe they're building those super cool Overwater Bungalows they always see like in Bora Bora, where you just like walk off your deck and jump in the water in some of you are straight up mermaids trying to build a house underwater. And like you need sand castles. You need to know how to scoop sand and something that can deal with underwater tides. If you are a mermaid trying to build a regular house, you will never be successful. But that's not your fault. It's because somebody's telling you some goober is like build a house underwater. It doesn't make any sense. You need a teacher, a coach, somebody who's there with you that understands how to build foundations for water. Patricia Sung 7:13 The person who knows how to account for the tide, you would never hire a swim coach for your kid who's never been in the water. I'm probably gonna get some hate for this one. But in my opinion, if you are learning about ADHD, learn about it from somebody who has ADHD, it doesn't matter how much they've studied in books, or watch their kid go through it or their spouse go through it like yes, that's lots of valuable stuff. But they've never been in the water. You wouldn't even hire a swim coach for your four year old who's never been in the water. Why are you looking to people who don't understand how to swim and how live on the water to teach you how to build your life. It doesn't make any sense. I want to teach you how to build your foundations in a way that makes sense for you. I want to give you the boat blueprint and say here's what we do. Oh boat blueprint doesn't work for you. Cool. Here's a scene Castle blueprint like I get it because I've been in the water my entire life. I can teach you how to create the foundations for your family for your day in a way that makes sense for you.
Patricia Sung 8:25
Do you wish there was a way to feel like you're not failing at life and motherhood every day? I know what it's like to run around all day like a headless chicken stressed because you're late to everything. And when you finally sit down after the kids are in bed, you think about how you didn't get anything done. And somehow your to do list was longer than when you started out this morning. You're tired drowning in feel like you'll never catch up. But imagine this. When you sit down at the end of the night. There's no mount laundry, you know what's for dinner? You spend some quality time with your kids and Medusa mom didn't even rear her ugly head at bedtime. And you did something kind of just for yourself today. If you did even one of those things today, you'd be thrilled right? It's not a fairy tale mama. There are other moms with ADHD getting their days together in you can do that's why I created time manager mastery for ADHD moms where I teach you how to create a rhythm for your day in an ADHD friendly way. The puts the lengthy To Do List of motherhood on automate. So you don't have to think about when you'll sleep next or how you will find time to pay that bill you've been putting off you'll be able to make a plan for your day that is fluid enough for your ADHD brain to stick with been structured enough to feel like you're in control. Remember our rhythms and routines serve us not the other way around. Over the next 11 weeks you will create a flexible framework for your day and walk away with a community of moms who understand you enter cheering you on and say I'm right there with you. Because being a mom is hard, we will get off track that's just part of ADHD.
Patricia Sung 10:00
But now you will have the support to get back on track. When you are struggling we meet weekly to help us remember, oh yeah, we're working on a goal. Most importantly, you'll learn about how your ADHD brain works so that you make decisions from a place of competence because a healthy mama leads a healthy family. Being proactive comes from a place of strength, which takes a ton of strain off your relationships because you are in a better place. When you're ready to lighten your load. By making a daily plan and figuring out what makes sense for your ADHD brain and enjoying more of your motherhood, it's time to sign up for the time management mastery for ADHD moms program to program starting right now. Hello, immediate gratification. So sign up right now at bit.ly/adhdframework, that is bit.ly/adhdframework. And that's all lowercase letters bit.ly/adhdframework. So sign up now before you forget. Okay, I can't wait to help you feel good about your day. But more importantly, I want you to feel good about yourself. Sign up at bit.ly/adhdframework.
Patricia Sung 11:17
When you're creating this basic structure for your day in creating these rhythms, and these daily routines for your family, you need that balance of somebody who yes knows how to build a house, but knows how to build it on the water. What I love about time magic mastery for ADHD moms, is that I give you everything you need to figure out how to build a system that makes sense for you. We go through figuring out the anchor points in your day that are gonna keep you from floating off, we figure out how much chain do you need, how much like wiggle room do you have, where you can account for the rising tides and the winds and all that where you're not getting into trouble, but also, like aren't so rigid that you don't have any wiggle room, how to group your tasks together, so they make sense for your brain. And in all of these suggestions, there's always more ideas of how to make it work for you. I'm never gonna see her until you you should do this. Like the only time I should people is when I Mike you should listen to yourself instead of listening to this person like or you should stop comparing yourself. I do say that sometimes, like I'm here to help you figure out what's the way to make this make sense for you. So that you have these skills built in so that you can then take them and modify them every time a new season comes. So when it's hurricane season, you know how to adapt when it goes from summer to back to school to the holidays. You know how to adapt when your kid drops a nap, you know how to adapt when they enter middle school, you know how to adapt because you have the skills to be able to build a boat for whatever season you're in, you can build the canoe for your summer vacation. And you can build the yacht for when you're cruising and successful. Like you have the skills and then you can teach them to your kids.
Patricia Sung 13:18
Because if you can build a household you're sure as you know, can build a regular old house. So doesn't matter if your kid has ADHD or not. You know how to teach them because you've mastered the skills when you have mastered your daily rhythms, you have so much more space to enjoy your life. Because the things that need to get done, get done. And you have space in your schedule to throw together an impromptu picnic and go to the park one day to meet up for that playdate or that lunch day to do something good for yourself and rest because there's not that guilt and shame hanging over you. They're like, well, you should have been doing this you should have been doing that. That has been the biggest gift for me in this process of implementing rhythms and routines that makes sense for me is that that guilt when I'm at work, I feel like I should with my kids or when I'm with my kids. I feel like I should be at work getting stuff done. Like I don't think it's ever possible to like totally get rid of it. Maybe someone has somewhere you have let me know. But like, Yes, I'm always going to be thinking about the other thing because they're both important to me. But I don't have this shame and this guilt because I know that the pieces of my work, stay in my work zones and my family gets present me when I'm with Family time and like I'm not perfect. There's still times where things bleed in and I'm working on my boundaries, going to therapy, but knowing that I'm living so successfully with my ADHD, like I want that for you.
Patricia Sung 14:52
I want you to feel confident and capable in your day. I want you to know that you have space to be present with your kids when you're talking into them, I want you to not have this shame over all the things that you should be doing, there's always going to be more stuff that moms have to do, or should do or think we're supposed to be doing, there's always going to be more things. But when you make a concerted plan for your week, those are the times they'd be like, hey, this matters, this does not I'm cutting the thing that does not like you're making these like purposeful decisions about what you're putting in your week, because you know, what matters. And you've created this schedule for you for your family in the season that you were in to make sense for your brain. The beautiful support system that this comes with. You have a community bulletin board, you can post questions, I answer the other moms the answer, it comes with three months of successful mama meetup, so you have accountability to come and show up and plan your week. Or use that time to watch the lesson or plan your daily rhythms in you can join time measure mastery, whenever you listen to this episode, it's always there.
Patricia Sung 16:03
It's an 11 week program that walks you through step by step how to set up rhythms and schedules that make sense for you. I pride myself on being very ADHD friendly. So in every one of my courses, you get the video, it has captions on it, you can speed it up, you can slow it down, there's a transcript there, so you can read it. If you're not into watching the video, you can just read the course it comes with activities for you to think through and an ADHD friendly way of how do you want to set up the schedule that makes sense for you. There's a workbook that you can make your notes in, you can print it out, you can write it on it, like you can jot it in the computer and save it like I want this to be as ADHD friendly as possible for every one of my students to be able to be successful. So you have all the learning modalities, you have the support of the community, you have a way to ask questions and get answers. Because I don't ever want you to be stuck in give up because it feels too hard. It doesn't have to be hard to make a schedule that fits you it is totally possible to set up your day in a way that makes sense for ADHD. I know because I've done it. And I've been living this way for years now. Like we're Buddhism like Trinity, the math, like at least three solid years of doing it. And like probably five years including all the like, probably longer than that actually, probably my whole life of like finagling and trying to, you know, make it all work. And it's like, I finally figured out how to make it work. I want to give that gift to you. Because you also learned so much about your ADHD and how your brain functions like why do I do that? Oh, that's why I do that, like such a gift. And to be with moms who understand you.
Patricia Sung 17:43
You can ask questions of them and like, nobody's going to give you side either all just like yeah, totally been there. Got it. This is what works for me or hey, do you just want me to Lesson like, this is a beautiful space for you to learn how to swim around a whole bunch of other people who are also learning to swim, so you don't feel like the one broken person who can't figure out how to make a routine for their family. But speaking of routines, I am running a promotion next week, it's running March 21 to 23rd You have three days to jump in and get access to not only time management mastery, but for the exact same price. You will also get my morning and evening routine courses. So the evening routine goes through all the things that you can prep and prepare the night before to feel really good about being ready for the morning. The morning routine is for both you and your kids walking through how to set up the morning routine. I have like charts in there where you can like, literally you write in your routine, you figure out how long it's going to take you to do stuff you put in the time of how long like what time you need to leave and it does all the math for you and tells you what time you gotta wake up. You might not like the answer because a lot of us are night owls, but her sequencer like it also comes with the smart speaker support. So I have templates in there. Like if you use an Alexa, I have a template in there that you literally can copy and paste and add to your app. And my Alexa runs my morning. She's the one telling me like it's time to brush teeth, it's time to eat breakfast, it's time to do that she keeps me on time. That's the reason that we have been on time for school for three years in a row.
Patricia Sung 19:16
So when you buy time management mastery in those three days next week, you get both the morning routine course and the evening routine course that are over $100 as part of the promotion that I'm running next week, so you're getting time management mastery, three months of successful mama meetups, the simple morning routines course and the simple evening routines course like y'all now that I'm saying this out loud, I'm like this is too good to be true. Maybe I shouldn't meet it that great. Like, this is such a deal because these skills are going to change your life. I've seen it in mom after a mom of like going through this course and being like oh my goodness, I get why I am the way that I am. I know how to put pieces together and make sense for me.
Patricia Sung 20:00
Like, it's so doable, and you have forever access. So like if you start during the course and something happens and you need to pause cool, your course will still be there in a week or two weeks if you want to continue doing successful mama meetups after your three months complimentary membership, like I say, keep your subscription stay here for as long as you like you don't have to solve all of your problems at once I know with are now not now thinking that we feel like we do. But you have so much time and space to build your day the way that you want it in a way that makes sense for your family. Every little bit of this that you do is good for you. Every little bit is helping you every little bit is making your family life more peaceful. You can join time management mastery at any time you just go to bit.ly/adhdframework. It's all one word and sign up. And if you're listening to this between March 21 and 23rd You are also gifted those two courses for the morning routine in the evening routine. Like I genuinely want to be the person who's holding out my hand in giving you a life preserver and being like we can do this. It is possible you can learn to swim, you can learn to build the boat, you can learn to build the cool Tiki hat you can learn to build the cruise ship, you can do this. When you have the right person guiding you cheering you on having a community there to support you. You can do this head over to time management mastery for ADHD moms sign up bitly.com forward slash ADHD framework and join us in making your day a better fit for you and your family. I'll talk to you soon successful mama and hopefully I'll see your face at next Wednesday's meetup. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com