Constantly Feel Like You’re Behind? 4 Lesser Known Reasons Why & How to Get on Top of Your Day #222
What “should” you have done already?
Finish your degree?
Pass your driver’s license test?
Make that doctor’s appt?
Left the house for school pickup?
If you’re constantly thinking “I’m behind!”, this episode is for you.
Often it’s literal, as in, “I’m 20 minutes late to my appointment!”
But it’s also in the big things, like you “should” have more kids by now or gotten that promotion.
You’re not alone! Feeling behind has come up in several discussions recently both in my Lighthouse Group ADHD Coaching, and in Successful Mama Meetups. What are the patterns showing up in this pervasive problem among women with ADHD?
Here’s how to move forward both logistically and mentally.
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Patricia Sung 00:00
Before we jump into today's episode, here's our review of the week. This one's from NotYourAverageMom, entitled always learning. I've been diagnosed with ADHD since I was in my 20s. I was just put on meds and continued bad habits leading to self-medicating. And now I'm sober, and a mom with ADHD and other disorders. This has helped me give perspective and understanding and it's informative. Glad I found this. Well, congratulations, NotYourAverageMom. That is a huge milestone. I am so proud of you. And I hope you are too. And Mama if you have not left your review for the podcast, please head over to your podcast app and let me know what you think and hopefully give those five stars. 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.
Patricia Sung 00:53
You can 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 01:49
Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. Today we're talking about a topic that has come up multiple times in Lighthouse group coaching over the last week, and I was like, man, we're talking about this, this is the thing, do you feel like you're running behind? Or you just feel behind? In general, like it's weird. I'm just behind feeling. Sometimes we're really running behind because like, one of the moms mentioned in coaching this morning was like, we're running behind because everybody in my family has ADHD, like the routine never get stuck to like we're always behind schedule, we never get to everything. She's like, What do I do? The little things we talk about a lot is like the obstacles in your day when you're trying to get your routines in place. Like we work through what those obstacles are like, where are you getting stuck. And sometimes the obstacle is the fact that you have children. Like if you have a kid who is like always like can't find his shoe doesn't know where his backpack is.
Patricia Sung 02:44
Or you have a kid who's like, well, I don't want to go to piano lessons. So like they're dragging their feet to get out the door. And so you just be like we're always behind. In these cases where we generally are running behind and we need to be somewhere, we need to look at a few things. One is, are we making this routine or this plan accounting for like what actually happens? Like, are we looking at your real life when we make this plan? Or are we looking at like, ideally what we would like this plan to look like or like, according to this Pinterest chore chart, this is what our afternoon would look like. When we start making a plan, we have to start with our actual life, the actual humans that you know, with which we are trying to accomplish life with what's going on. Most of the time, we make a plan for ideal world not for what's actually going on because nobody wants to make a plan that's like my routine is we're going to take 45 minutes to find everything and get out the door. Nobody wants to like, ah, it makes me like pain just thinking about it, right. But here's the thing, if we start our plan, making it for people that don't exist in our family, like our family is never going to be successful with this routine, because it's not for them.
Patricia Sung 03:54
So we want to start with our plan. And like what actually happens in our lives? Who are the people who are actually walking out the door with us? Like, did we make the plan for that. So maybe your plan doesn't need to be a 45 minute run through of how to get out the door because we're trying to get three kids under three out the door. Or we're trying to get this kid who never knows where stuff is out the door. In those cases, we start with like real life, here's where we are. And then once we look at like what's actually happening, then we start looking at the obstacles we want to overcome and like how are we going to get through those. And when we start tackling the obstacles one by one, it's a lot easier than trying to be like, Oh my gosh, how are we ever going to get out the door on time before taekwondo class because we're always 15 minutes late.
Patricia Sung 04:34
When we look at the obstacles one by one then it's not so overwhelming. Then we start looking at the pieces of it's like well if the issue is one of the kids never knows what that new stuff is. That's like a whole bucket of problems in itself of how can we help our kid learn the skills that they need in order to keep track of their things and granted that will then ripple out into all the other places in the week where a big can't find their things. But we have to look at these pieces one by one. We can't look at the big picture. It's way too overwhelming. then we can look like oh, okay, well, one of the issues is like traffic's unpredictable, sometimes it takes us 10 minutes together, sometimes it takes 20 minutes together, maybe the answer is like, well, it takes us 10 minutes when we leave early enough.
Patricia Sung 05:11
And when we don't leave early enough, that's when we get caught in traffic, and then it's like, then it's 20 minutes to get there. So we're gonna be look at those little pieces individually, that's when we can start working through the actual obstacles that we're struggling with to keep everyone on time or on the rhythm or on the routine. The next part about looking at like when we're running behind is, I have noticed a theme that when we say it's time to go, some people when they ask, like, are you ready to go? They mean like, literally, are you ready to walk out the door? Some people when you say, Hey, are you ready to go, that's their cue to be like, Oh, now I have to get ready to leave. So there is a difference in the people who think it's time to leave is actually like I'm exiting the door versus it's time to leave. Now I need to get ready to leave because it's time to leave.
Patricia Sung 06:01
These are two different mindsets. FYI, my husband has one of those. And I have the other one, which has been quite the progression and trying to figure out how to make this work. Because when he says, are you ready to leave, that's me going, I'm ready to stop what I'm doing. And now go find my purse and go to the bathroom, and tell my kids to put their shoes on. And so like now when I'm saying I'm ready to leave means I'm actually ready to stop the thing that I was doing and get ready. So I still need 1015 minutes to get out the door. When you asked me am I ready to leave? Where's my husband? If you say I'm ready to leave, he's like, and my foot is outside. So which version of are you ready to leave? Are you working with here and then we need to, like all be on the same page of like when we say ready to leave are we talking about we're actually going to get in the car and buckle up. Or now everyone needs to get their stuff and find the book they want to read in the car and blah, blah blah. It's almost time mama.
Patricia Sung 06:57
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Patricia Sung 07:54
Okay, so that's part of the problem is the actual I am running behind. What do we do about this? On the other side of are you feeling behind? Is the question of are you actually behind. Sometimes we're just accustomed to always being running behind that when we are getting ready to leave. And we don't actually have to be anywhere in particular certain time that we have now just assumed the posture of I'm behind any time I leave, and we're stressed regardless of where we're going in what's happening. Example, you want to go to take the kids to the library, you don't have to be at the library at a certain point, you would just like to go to the library this afternoon, when we start to feel like we're behind on getting out the door to the library, we get stressed. And when we get stressed, we start getting more snippy with people, our problem solving brain turns off our logic goes out the window. And we're just trying to get everybody out the door. And where are you? Where's your shoes? What do you mean if your shoes anymore, they were just on your feet? How'd you lose one of them and like we get into stress mode. And sometimes we've just adopted this posture because this is how we always leave the house. And we aren't actually behind if we got to the library at 315 or 330. It wouldn't matter at all. But we feel like we're behind. So in these times where we feel behind but there's no actual deadline. What I want you to ask yourself is like, what's the goal here?
Patricia Sung 09:12
Who decided the goal? Who decided you're behind? And if it turns out that you're feeling behind? Because you just can't seem to get all these kids out the door? Then what can you do in that moment to center yourself and calm yourself and be like, Oh, hey, it's totally fine. If it takes us an extra 15 minutes to get to the library. Do I wish we were there sooner? Yes, I do. But it's okay. Take a deep breath and say, All right, it's gonna take us a few more minutes to get out the door. What do you need? What are you missing? All right, let's go find the shoe.
Patricia Sung 09:41
When was the last time you saw the shoe and be able to approach the exit in a very different mindset with a very different attitude so that we can leave the house in an unhurried fashion and be present in the moment instead of hustling everybody out the door because that goal was made up and the You get to decide what's the goal you actually want? What matters to you in this situation? Do you want to choose like, Hey, I don't have to be stressed about this. I am feeling stressed about it. But I don't have to be. So what can I do to take care of myself in this moment to be able to settle in and be like I am present I am Here I am ready to take a deep breath.
Patricia Sung 10:20
So that I can show up in a different way for my family. This idea of being behind, I think, is really hard for us when we have ADHD, because we often feel like we're running behind, we missed something. There's often times in my business where I feel like I'm behind because there's so many ideas, I had so many ideas, Mom, I got so many ideas, and I want to do them all. And I can't do them all. There's only one of me, and I only got school hours to do it in. But the fact that I can see 47 ideas sitting here on touch makes me feel like I'm behind. But actually, if none of those ever happened, nobody's ever gonna know. I know. And that's why I am stressed about it. That's why I feel behind. But in those moments where I can stop and go, Okay, am I actually behind? What's the goal here? What's important to me here? Am I actually behind in being able to reframe that situation so that I don't feel like I haven't gotten anything done today allows us to get out of that pattern that we've adopted, that we're always behind, there's always so much to do, I'm always missing things I didn't get this time.
Patricia Sung 11:15
And when we can slow down and be like, Hey, it's okay that I didn't get those things done today, I recognize that I did a, b and c, I didn't have time for E and F. It's okay, I can do those later. Because the goal here today is to be present with my kids. My goal here today is to fill in the blank, whatever thing you're working on today, so we can start to change their mindset around am I am I actually behind? Or can I let those goals that came from somebody else from some unrealistic expectation? Like can I let those go because you get to decide what's most important for you. And you get to decide what the goal is. And you get to decide what matters in this moment, then it's okay to take a deep breath and remind ourselves that the goal today is to be present. Then whatever it is that is on your heart today to get done, to accomplish. If it's not checking off a whole bunch of to do lists. Maybe it's an hour of present time with one of your kids who really needs some extra love today. What matters to you. Let's make that the goal. Because you get to decide. I'll talk to you soon successful mama. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com.