NEAT & SIMPLE LIVING

Best Kept Secret for Overcoming Perfectionism is....

Be Kind to Yourself!

Are you surprised that this is actually one of the most effective strategies to help you Overcome Perfectionism?  It's true!

In the midst of pressure and stress, or when we make mistakes, or forget something important, it's all too easy to berate and criticize ourselves. How can you focus on your strengths, get things done, and expect others to treat you with respect if you are constantly beating yourself up?  

When you constantly criticize yourself without compassion and forgiveness, you are literally training others that's its okay for them to criticize you and not be compassionate. 

If you can't be kind and patient with yourself, how can you be truly be kind and patient with others? 

 I Propose a New Golden Rule: 

 Treat yourself as you would like others treat you. 

Try this strategy just once as an experiment, and you'll see for yourself:   

Every time you criticize yourself, try countering it with a "Yeah, but..." 

 For example, here's a typical self-berating rant:

"I can't believe I was late AGAIN! Sigh, no matter how hard I try it keeps happening.  What's the use.  What is wrong with me!  Why am I so defective!"  

[I know, if you are anything like I used to be, the above statement doesn't even compare to how harsh you can be with yourself, but I know you get the point. : ) Now, here's the "Yeah, but..." strategy at work....]

 "Yeah, but, look at how much better I'm getting at this. Where I used to be late 80% of the time, now it's only 20% of the time. I'm really making great prgress and that is good enough! As long as I'm making a sincere effort, and make an effort to make up for whatever hardship my mistake causes, people will have to forgive me and move on.  I'm doing really great in the big picture.  I will take a lesson from this relapse and next I will {fill in effort you will make to be more on time]  I CAN and will do this!   

There now.  Doesn't that feel much better?  Here's the thing.  It's a verifiable truth: 

  PUNISHMENT DOES NOT WORK 
 TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR
 FOR THE LONG TERM.

Compassionate reflection, making amends, forgiving and encouraging yourself to do better work MUCH better.   How would you treat your child if they made a mistake?   If you treat yourself kindly, you'll be amazed how much kinder you become to everyone around you.  You can't help it. 

As you develop a better relationship with yourself, your relationships with others improve.  I GUARANTEE it. 

With this lesson in mind, I'm preparing to take a mini-vacation to Maine for the holiday and to focus on writing for the next week.  I'll need to remember this lesson often as I write my drafts and try to perfect them. I hope this helps you remember to be gentler with yourself, too. 

Would love to hear about ways you will commit to being kinder to yourself as well as any successes you are having in doing so.  Just click on comment below. 

And if you like this post, please share it with others using the SHARE, RETWEET or FACEBOOK "Like" buttons below.  Thank you!

I wish you all a happy and healthy July 4th Celebration!

p.s. 

I'm celebrating the whole month of July as "Freedom from Perfectionism" month!  Our country was founded on the ideal of "liberty for all" and as we know, freedom is not "perfect."  It comes with lots of "taxes" and responsibilities. 

 As creatives and ADDers,  our price for freedom is that we have to learn to live with imperfection.  

So, I'm extending the $10 Sale price of my newest Audio Class program till July 30th!

"Overcoming Perfectionism: Everything I Know about Perfectionism, I Learned from my Breasts"

 

 

ADD - ADHD is real

 Kalstolyn, a college student shares her reality of ADD.

ADHD is real.  As you listen, notice the painful awareness and how acutely she realizes that she is so differenct.  Notice the impact of what it's like to have people constantly say things like.

 "All you have to do is...."    or "Why can't you just...?"  

 Imagine being diabetic and having someone say, "Why can't you just produce more insulin yourself? 

Well, we can't "just produce" the brain chemicals we need either.  We can only influence. 

As you watch, note that her views on ADD medication are her experience...she is right that people without ADD respond to ADD meds differently but just for the record, people with ADD also have a variety of responses.  Medication is also not a CURE.  It doesn't make you suddenly like every one else...it just makes it a wee bit easier to manage the ADD. 

There are several types of ADD and what she describe is the Hyperactive type ...not everyone develops Anorexic symptoms like she describes...and there is another type of ADD which is very quiet called Inattentive.

With that in mind...Everyone who has ADD or knows someone who does will benefit from listening to her description of ADD is for her. I cried while listening...it reminded me of when I was college and what it was like for me. I"m going to stop now to pull myself together...but please...do listen if you can. 

And to  Kalstolyn - Thank you so much for sharing your story and experience so that other's could learn.   I know how embarrassing it feels to admit the simple things that are hard for us...but you have NOTHING to be ashamed of and MANY wonderful qualities to focus on! 

Thanks to Bryan at ADDer World for sharing this. 

Check out ADDer World here

http://adderworld.ning.com/video/add-is-real

FOR MORE ARTICLES AND INFO ON ADULT ADHD 

 "What is Chronic Disorganization vs. Situational Disorganization?"

 "Is it Adult ADHD or Creative Personality Type?"

 "Myths and Facts about Adult ADHD" A Free 4 Page PDF Chart

What it takes to "Overcome Perfectionism"

What a great call this was!  We were so moved by the response to this call...over 220 people signed up and I'm still getting lots of emails from people who missed the registration window. 

I really enjoyed how Debbie and I riffed off each other and explored this topic so deeply.  We covered lots of strategies for recognizing "blindspots" and letting go of perfectionism.

If you would like to listen...it's not too late.. you can own it for just $10 (price goes back up to $27 on July 10) 

"Overcoming Perfectionism: Everything I Know about Perfectionism, I Learned from my Breasts" (Audio Class + Handout)

Professional Organizer, Debbie Jordan Kravitz, and author of the book,"Everything I Know about Perfectionism I Learned from My Breasts" and Coach, Ariane Benefit teamed up to share with you what it really takes to overcome perfectionism. They discuss: The power of embracing imperfection The surprising costs of perfectionism How having ADD actually sets you up to become a perfectionist 10 powerful strategies you can start using immediately to start recognizing the "blindspots" created by perfectionistic thinking and shifting to more empowering ways of thinking  much more Did you know? Your purchase of this class enables us to create and deliver more free live classes for you!  TO BE NOTIFIED OF FUTURE EVENTS & CLASSES  SIGN UP HERE Thank you!

How do I know what I want?

This question was asked by several participants in my latest program on "Embracing the Power of Good Enough".  It really got me thinking....  This question gets to the very heart of life!  It sure is relevant to my life right now.  Maybe yours too? 

I've been rethinking a lot of my needs and wants, lately.  Like this blog, for example.  

• How do I want to express myself with it?
• What purpose do I want it to serve for me and my tribe? 
• How do I want to share my point of view?  In small, realtime chunks like Twitter? or with well thought out inspirational and educational articles?  Do I want to be more transparent and share my thought processes about my work and about my own life with ADHD and a hyperactive creative brain? 

One thing for sure, I want to reflect on and write more about all aspects of life with ADD. In my coaching, I help people with all areas of life...so why aren't I talking about all of them on this blog?  

Almost 5 years ago, this started out as an organizing blog...but living with ADHD is SO much more than that. So I want to talk about all areas of life with ADHD, Creative Personality Type, and Highly sensitive personality including, Relationships, Career, Money, Health, Eating, Addictions, Emotional Self-Regulation, Boundary setting, and more.  

I want to talk about the meta-cognitive skills that truly empower us to live more effectively with ADD, not just the technical skills of organizing.  

Meta-cognitive skills like Decision Making, Filtering, Establishing Criteria, Prioritizing, Planning, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Goal setting, do not come naturally to creatives and ADHDers who prefer to open up possibilities,generate ideas, and keep options open. 

( Metacognitive Skills = The ability to reflect and assess the quality and process of one's own thinking, beliefs and understandings.) 

Skills such as Inner dialogue, listening, Motivating Ourselves, Valuing ourselves and embracing our imperfections and well as our strengths also do NOT come naturally to us.  We have to learn them from the ground up. 

So.this blog is going to shift again.  I'm getting ready to share a lot more...and I hope you are ready to go on this new phase of the journey with me!  

I'm not going to post stuff that I think can found all over the web...I'm going to post stuff that I don't hear people talking about very much.  Or, I might just start pulling out some "quotes" from conventional tips I find around the web and post how and why they do NOT apply to people with ADHD or how they might actually be biased against people with ADHD without even realizing it! 

I'm not interested in writing "tips" anymore.  5 ways to do this, 6 secrets to that...  UGH. I'm so tired of it.  It doesn't inspire me...so I think that's why my blog has been rather quiet.   If I'm not inspired, why would you be?  

I'm also rethinking my whole business and my role in it.  I'm working on hiring a Business Manager so that I can truly devote 80 - 90 % of my time to coaching, writing and creating while someone else handles the technology and business aspects.  

So how do I know what I want?  One way I know is by how I'm feeling.  Another is to listen to my own complaints and excuses to figure out what I'm really frustrated about and use them as a stepping stone to get to what I DO want.  E.g.  If I don't want that, why?  what is it I really want instead?  And sometimes, I have to look at my wants and expectations to see if they are realistic...or need adjustment. 

If I want to hire a business manager tomorrow...well, that's too bad.  It just ain't gonna happen.  I have to allow time to become ready to welcome the new Bus. Mgr. into my life.  "Become ready" means I have to organize and rethink everything I do through the lens of "what if someone else could be doing this for me?  What would that take? 

What do I want?  I want to stop saying: 

 "I can't do that project, or finish that book, or that audio program because I'm too busy trying to keep up with email, setting up autoresponders for classes, sending out reminders, fulfilling orders for products" etc.  Why?  Because I don't have a system for delegating these jobs to someone else.  

But I can't just STOP saying that....I have to do something differently. I have to replace those thoughts with something positive AND specific.   Like "How can I create a system for delegating?  Who would be the right person to help me do that?" 

I WANT to be INSPIRED...to have time to really think, reflect, and express - whether writing or teaching. I want to be able to put on more classes and coaching groups.  I want to MAKE the time to do it by giving over the actual implementation to someone else.

So, for a while...I'm going to experiment with using this blog to inspire myself to make this happen and hopefully inspire you too.  I'm going to use it as more of a journal of how my thinking is evolving...what I'm learning...what I'm clarifying for myself. 

With that intention and inspiration in mind, here are just a few of the "bullet points" I'm incubating in preparation for the final session of the Getting Unstuck coaching program on June 17.  It's been a year and a half and I have learned and grown so much along with the members of the program.  I'm going to keep the community of 70+ people going for free for now...but I'm working on a sustainable way to keep the connection, healing, learning, safety, sharing, love and support going.  Once I have a Business Manager on board...there will be many new possibilities for me...and my tribe...to learn and grow together.  

So here are more of my thoughts on "How do I know what I want?"

• First, this is a much better than the all too common complaints "But I don't know what I want" or "But what if I don't know what I want?"  The trouble with those statements / complaints is they tend to cause people to give up in frustration and overwhelm.
• The question  "How do I know what I want?" is a great one because at least now your brain is inspired to start thinking about ways to figure out what you want!
• The question can also be very overwhelming though.  Why?  Because it's very broad. It's not quantified or contained in any way.  There are so many ways to answer it that we freeze up...it makes our brains explode or maybe even implode : ) 
• So what's the first step to dealing with anything overwhelming like that? Start narrowing the question itself.  When? where? in what part of life? for whom? from whom? emotionally? physically? materially?  Then keep narrowing it down till you get to question you CAN answer  : ) 
• Another thought....Keep in mind that what you want or need varies hourly...our whole lives are a journey of noticing and assessing what we want / need now vs tomorrow vs. next week or month, etc.  Where we have trouble prioritizing is in deciding which need is more important at any given time.  This hour you may NEED to eat...so your question might be:  How do I know what I want to eat?  Next you may be tired and need rest...your question might be "How do I know what kind of "rest" I need right now?  a nap? a change of scenery?  a walk?   Still not easy to answer for some of us, but much more doable.  
• Even more challenging, how do I know if what I want or need right now is just as important as what others need?  How do I balance my wants / needs with those of others? 
• Because we have to make SOOO many decisions like this every day....the more we can automate "templates" or guidelines for making wise choices the more we can lower our stress.  To make templates for decision making we need "criteria". Like "Even though I love to research every option, sometimes I need to limit my number of choices, without sacrificing my need for adventure, so that I make sure I have time for ALL my needs...not just the needs of the moment."    : )  
    

IThanks so much to my clients, blog readers, subscribers and fellow learners who continually inspire me to reflect on what I know and put it to good use helping others navigate the challenges and adventures of life with ADHD!  : )

Motivating Yourself to Organize + Chance to win a copy of my book - No Charge!

This week I gave a 30 minute mini-class on ADHD Coach Talk with Tara McGillicuddy.   We discussed "Motivating Yourself to Get Organized with Adult ADHD" plus a few of the inspirational concepts, tips and strategies from my book "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing your Home Office" including how to get motivated to organize (and build your self-esteem along the way.)  We covered how organizing empowers you to improve your health, shed weight and so much more. 

Enjoy the class!  

p.s. If you would like to see more classes like this, leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts and comments on this class...

Listen to internet radio with ADHD Coach Talk on Blog Talk Radio

 

BONUS - Win my book free!

Listen to class to learn where to send a quick email to enter your name in a drawing to win a free copy of my book!

Deadline to enter:  Monday, June 7
 

 

Neat & Simple Organizing Strategies for Adults with ADD / ADHD

I'm giving a class for ADDClasses.com on 5/27.  I'll be sharing simple strategies that make it easier to organize when you have ADHD.  

REGISTER FREE HERE or to download this program and many other wonderful ADD classes,  join the ADD Audio Library!

Organizing with ADHD - Listen to recording of my guest spot on ADHD Coach Talk

This week I appeared on ADHD Coach, Tara McGillicuddy's Blog Talk Radio Show called ADHD Coach Talk. We had a fun and educational conversation about topics from my book "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing your Home Office" like:

- What works best for organizing when you have ADHD

- Myths about organizing that hold us back

- Organizing for "innovating" and "harmonizing" personality styles

- Learning to use organizing as "stress relief" and a way to build your self-esteem

- How to become your own "designer" of solutions

- much more!

Thanks Tara for your great questions and making feel right at home on your show.  

Listen to "Organizing to Build Self-Esteem and Confidence with ADHD" or get the download.  If you like it please do share it with others!

 

Neat and Simple Guide to Organizing Your Home Office is now on AMAZON.COM!

I've been quiet for the past month but I've been a very busy girl! I've had a very full client workload, plus teaching and group coaching, plus my book is now finally AVAILABLE on Amazon.com!   (By the way, what a LOT of work to make that happen! I was really surprised by the hoops I had go through.)

I am so thrilled that I just had to share some amazing news with you --- to my astonishment it sold out over the weekend! I'm now busy making sure it gets restocked ASAP! 

I was also totally blown away by the outpouring of support from colleagues, fans and clients who have taken the time to post reviews that literally brought me to tears.  People often say thank you etc., but taking the time to actually write about it and post it in public is just beyond supportive and inspirational to me.  There just aren't words to describe how I feel right now! It makes the thousand + hours I put into creating the book over several years  all worthwhile.  

Thank you all from the depths of my heart.  I will remember your support for a long time to come...and when you need me, I'll be there for you, too!

Here's the link to check out the reviews.  And if you have read the book, would love to get your review too!  My goal is to get at least 50 reviews...there is no more powerful way to market the book than for readers to express their appreciation.  

p.s.  The book doesn't say it outright, but it was definitely written for ADDers and creative personality types.  After all, what works for us works for anyone!  Who doesn't like SIMPLE, FAST and EASY ways to organize?  : )   

   

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Neat and Simple Guide to Organizing Your Home Office

www.amazon.com

If you are looking for a simple, intuitive way to organize not only your office, but your LIFE; look no further. This is the ultimate guide to organizing with purpose. Something I didn't expect was how ...

Evernote system for organizing your notes - One mom tells us how she uses it

Last week I interviewed Heather, a mom and former teacher who is a raving fan of the www.Evernote.com system for capturing notes. She shared how she uses it to capture Recipes, Favorite Quotes, do Shopping Research and more.  And we talked about:

• Uses
• Organizing strategies
• Backing up
• Using with Google
• Ways to ease into using it without wasting a lot of time. 

To me, it really does seem to be simpler and therefore more ADD-Friendly than Microsoft's One-note, so I'm giving it a try. I like that it is available over the Web and not just on one computer.   

So far the biggest drawback for me is that I can't set the DEFAULT FONT to whatever I want.  I really don't like reading serif fonts on a computer screen because of my vision issues because they blur more.  I prefer san-serif fonts.  

Thanks Heather for responding to my call out for people to interview on  tools to organize notes online!  It was a big help to me personally and I hope to my readers as well!

Here's the Audio Recording of my interview with Heather about Evernote on March 11, 2010.  Enjoy! 

 

Total Running Time: 23 minutes

OneNote Podcast coming soon!  

Site Mentioned in Interview to help plan your meals, automatically generate a Shopping List is www.tastyplanner.com 

Ritalin may increase Brain Growth, Learning Ability and Brain Plasticity

 "...Ritalin, like anti-depressants, appears to encourage not just an enhanced ability to focus, but an increase in brain growth, learning ability and plasticity." **

Please note that this is only one aspect of the latest findings in neuroscience research.  It does mean that there aren't other significant and potentially harmful side affects - particularly for children.  Also, there are non-pharmaceutical ways to stimulate brain growth and plasticity including exercise, certain kinds of games, meditation, mindfulness work, possibly neurofeedback, and probably many more yet to be discovered ways.

**Source: Bill O’Hanlon wrote about the latest research on Ritalin on Ruth Buczynski's blog.  He was also a speaker in NICABM’s learning series on brain plasticity and depression. Read the Full Article by Bill O'Hanlon here:   http://www.nicabm.com/nicabmblog/?p=722#

Free Teleseminar Series on How Brain Science is Changing Psychotherapy and Mind Body Medicine

Mind Body Medicine | Continuing Education Workshops and Conferences | Mind Body

Thanks to The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine for putting together this excellent series!

The sessions are broadcasting free Wednesdays beginning February 24th through March 31st, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm EST. You can purchase the MP3s as well.

Sessions Include:

- The Brain Plasticity and Depression Connection, Bill O'Hanlon, LMFT

- The Neurobiology of Mindfulness: Clinical Applications, Ronald Siegel, PsyD

- How We Can Change the Wiring of Our Brains, Daniel Siegel, MD

- The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, Louis Cozolino, PhD

- How the Mind Changes the Brain, Jeffrey Schwartz, MD

- Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Rick Hanson, PhD

Addressing Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in Later Adulthood

via www.clinicalgeriatrics.com

Very interesting article about ADHD and people over 50.