September 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Accountability is a powerful tool for accomplishing your goals and staying consistent, but only if you do it the right way. In this episode, Renee shares six practical (and doable) ways to make sure accountability works for you.
If you’ve ever struggled to stick with a plan, this episode will show you how you can set up an accountability plan that helps to form new habits and get things done!
You'll learn simple ways to set up your accountability system to give yourself a path to success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be healthy.
I got sick last weekend or a week ago, from the weekend,
two weekends ago. And that I was getting better and I
made a podcast episode, thought I was doing better.
And it's not like I relapsed, lapsed.
(00:49):
I just never completely got better and then it got worse.
Is that relapsing? And I thought about it and I've
listened to podcasts where people say, oh, sorry if I
sound stuffy, stuffed up or stuffy, or if I have
a horse throat or whatever. And I thought I'm achy.
Like I'm, I'm a. I'm kind of a wimp when I'm sick.
(01:10):
I don't know if you are. I feel, I don't know that I'm a
wimp. I just feel very complainy because I either want to be
able to do something or I just want to lay down and either give
up or watch TV or take a hot bath or something.
So I didn't come on the podcast, but I'm here now.
And I actually got a little confused because I
thought this was episode 104. I thought I recorded 103 and
(01:34):
I didn't. But I really want to talk about 104 right
now. So don't even pay attention to what number it
is. I'll probably just release them in the wrong
order. Because I really wanted it to be the fourth thing on
the 10 things that I talked about on episode 100.
And I know it means nothing to anybody but me, but the fourth
(01:57):
thing was accountability. And when I looked at that,
I thought, oh, I've talked about accountability a lot.
Ways that we can
get things done by having somebody else to help us with
it, or being accountable or having a reward or all those different
ways. And I thought, well, let's
(02:21):
find what are the best ways to be consistent with that and
what are the methods of doing that? Not, not just the methods
of like work with somebody that's body doubling or have
a coach that you report to, but what are the ways
that you can fine tune this to you so any of those methods
will work? Because sometimes a coach could work well, that could
(02:44):
work really well, or it couldn't. And what's the difference in
those two? Or there's a reward system.
You've paid into something. Have you ever done that?
There used to be this thing. I don't know if there still Is.
But it was called DietBet, and my daughter and I did it.
You had to pay money. I think it was an app or something,
and it was kind of in the early days of apps, so it wasn't like
a very good one or anything to look at.
(03:05):
It wasn't. It seemed very,
you know, just not designed very well.
But, you know, it still worked. She told me about it, and what
you did is you paid money. I think it was
$40 to do it for four weeks or six weeks.
And you set your goal of how much weight you're gonna lose.
And you weighed yourself, and you had to have, I don't know,
(03:28):
maybe a photo of the newspaper. Did we have newspapers back then?
I don't know. But you had to have something that proved the date.
And then at the end, you did again. And if you lost a certain
percentage of your weight, you got your money back.
If you didn't, your money went into a pot and it went to
everybody else. So if you paid the $40, you might get extra
money, because if people fail, you get some of their money split
(03:50):
up. First time we did it, we both got money back.
We did it two more times, we didn't get money back.
So the motivation of losing money to me
was going to make the difference that the body doesn't always
respond like you want it to. Or maybe your habits aren't always
as consistent as you want them to be, so that they're actually
not habits. But anyway, so what made that work one
(04:14):
time? What made it fail? It could be banking on the
wrong thing, on a result instead of an action.
That's actually not one of my six things.
But the progress that you make, you have to be realistic
about it, and you have to make it more about what you're
going to do and not. Not what the action, I mean, not what
(04:35):
the consequence or the result is, because the results
aren't always guaranteed. So you have to weigh that out.
But let's just go to
the first one. So the first tool. It's not really
a tool. The first guideline. The first guideline in making sure
that accountability works is to
(05:00):
make it something that's out there, that it's out there.
It might. You might not even be working with somebody.
But you don't just keep your goal in your head, especially if
you have adhd, your. Your head, your brain doesn't always remember
everything, even goals that set. Have you ever set a
goal and thought, yeah, I'm going to start this on Monday, and
(05:21):
then a few weeks later, or Maybe next Thursday or something.
You think, oh, yeah, I was going to start that on Monday.
Because you kept it in your head. You didn't have a way for you
to remember it, besides relying on your own brain, which
isn't very reliable, to store information.
So you can keep a promise to yourself, you
(05:42):
can make a promise to yourself, but it's really easy to talk
yourself out of it or it's easy to forget it.
And if you bring somebody else into it, whether it's a specific
person, it becomes more real and they can help
you remember. And then you also feel some kind of obligation
to do it. I've seen people, seen friends who start
(06:04):
an Instagram account just for their weight loss journey, and
they still have the regular Instagram account and they just say,
hey, everyone, I have 150 pounds to lose.
And I decided to make an Instagram account so you
can follow my progress. Part of that is to share their
progress, but a big part of it is to get that accountability.
(06:27):
Is anybody telling them you have to do this?
No, but they know that people are watching and they might feel
some sense of shame if they don't keep up with it.
And not that we want to induce shame on ourselves, but that fear
of feeling embarrassed that you didn't do it, or, you
know, I feel like a loser. You know, whatever it is that you
(06:48):
put in your head, if you have other people watching you,
you might be more apt to do it. Letting someone else
know, know your goal, whether it's public.
It doesn't have to be public. That can.
That can be hard,
but it can be public. I set a goal last year to
use my spin brush and my water pick every night
(07:12):
for a month. And I did it. It's amazing.
I had been trying to do it for years and I just said
it out loud to you, but to nobody in particular.
Right. It's not like I knew you or knew who might even
listen to it, or maybe nobody listens to it, but I said it and
I felt like I should do it. There have been other things that
(07:32):
I've said on here. Like before the end of the day,
I'll finish this on my website, so when you go there, it'll be
there. Sometimes I forget those things.
It's awful. I feel really bad. So my apologies if you ever
gone to my website. Or sometimes I go there and try to finish
it and I can't for some reason. Whether it's a time restraint
or I just can't figure it out. It was a big mistake to switch
(07:53):
My website from one host to another because I'm still
not done with it. But I will get there.
I am determined. I do need some accountability.
Okay, that'll be my accountability here.
What is it? September 1, by the end of the month to have
that hopefully before then, but have that where I never have
to apologize for that again.
(08:15):
And like I said, it's not like you're all running there to look,
but it does make me think, yeah, you say this,
you need to do it. So actually I was working on it today
and I thought that's really not as hard, but it's just hard for
me to wrap my head around it. I need to write down the steps
for sure. That comes later. But so yeah, letting somebody
else having a person an extra layer to either
(08:38):
follow through, that is better than just saying it out
loud because saying it out loud can, can lead, lead to
a level of accountability. But if you have a method for
follow through of every day, I'll go on Instagram
and I'll post that or I'll check in with you once
(08:59):
a day and just text you and let you know what I did.
I actually did some nutrition counseling with.
Not a nutritionist by any means, but I did it more
as a coach
and she knew that. I'm not saying I'm a nutritionist or I'm
a fitness trainer, I'm a yoga teacher and I have a lot
(09:19):
of experience with healthy eating and every kind of
dieting that's imaginable, eating whole foods, healthy
eating too. But anyway, that's what we did.
I, I asked her what, how would you like to report?
Would you like to text me? Would you like me to text you?
Would you like to email? Would you, you know, do we want to
(09:41):
talk? How often do we want to talk? She came over once a week
and we, we set up a plan for reporting and
if you have a plan for follow through reporting, that would
be really helpful. Just saying you're going to do
it is not helpful either. If you want
accountability, you have to. Number two in the guideline is
(10:04):
to say exactly what you're going to do.
And if you're not sure, get out a notebook and start writing
some ideas. But if you just say I'm going to work on
this, I'm going to do better. It works better
if you are clear, if you have clarity about what
you're going to do. If your goal isn't vague, if it isn't just,
(10:25):
you can have a vague ending, you can have, well, you
know what I mean, a Specific ending, but maybe you don't know
what I mean. But you can have an end date and
a set. I'm going to complete it by this time.
And you may not be sure how often will get done the
first, you know how much will get done the first week.
(10:45):
But you might have something specific.
Like every day I'll do 30 minutes. Every day I'll
do 60 minutes of this, or I'll work on this on my
computer for two hours. Whatever it is, you can set your
goal just to be the time commitment involved, not
the actual result. Because sometimes, like I said, with the weight
(11:06):
loss, you can put in the effort and you don't know the result.
But if you know, if I give it five hours of time, I'm
going to get this project finished, then give it five hours,
set aside six hours, seven, whatever you need.
If it takes you a while to focus or if you need to
get up and walk around, you can kind of see as you go or
(11:26):
look at what has worked for you in the past.
Can I sit and work on something for two or three hours?
If I know I won't have any interruptions, if I have some
caffeine, if I have a drink ready with me, can I get
a little more awake and work on this?
And having that clarity of exactly what
you'll do and how you'll accomplish it is extremely helpful
(11:51):
with accountability. The more specific you are, the easier it
is to measure what you're doing and to stick with it.
And sometimes we start with very lofty goals, like I'll
do this. Especially if you have adhd, you might be the idea
person, you might keep going with your ideas and say, and I
can do this and this and this and this.
(12:12):
That's where you really have to reel it in.
Some things are easier to define and stick to.
Like if you're going to go for a walk, you're going to go walking
every day for 30 minutes and you set that goal,
you know exactly what you're going to do.
If you say I'm going to go to the gym and work out, that
might be a little more open ended. Unless you say on Monday,
(12:34):
Wednesday, Friday, I'll do the treadmill or I'll do the
stair step, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I'll do weight machines
or I'll go to this class. And defining that will be super,
super helpful. If you leave it too open ended like I'm
going to exercise, there's a good chance you don't even have
a picture in your brain of what's going to happen.
So how are you going to accomplish that or how are you going
(12:55):
to remember it? Right. So the third guideline is to
make your progress visible. And whether you have
a calendar and you check it off, I've done stickers before.
Or you send a text, you can see that you've done that,
you know, and you check in with that person, you post your updates,
(13:17):
you have a tracker. There's so many ways to do it.
You can do it on your computer, your phone, you could do it on
a calendar. But to have a tracker with whatever goal
you're trying to accomplish will help you get that done.
And if it's visible, if you can see, especially if you
can see, oh, five days in a row this week.
(13:38):
I did it. Yay. You know, you can feel good about your, yourself
and it helps you feel like you can keep
going, like you can, you can stay consistent.
Number four, think of who you're going
to be accountable to. And it needs to be
(13:59):
somebody that you enjoy working with or who you trust or you
respect.
You're more likely to show up if it's people that you care
about or you have a relationship with.
Even with fitness. If you go to a class and
you have friends there and you know that they're going to be
there or you meet a friend there, that there's another reward
(14:21):
there. There's something rewarding about that because you get
to talk to that person, you get to see that person, you get to
smile with that instructor, or you go to the gym at
a certain time and you know, this person works there and he's
so nice at the check in. Something that helps with that, oh,
you're here again today and you feel like, oh, they noticed me.
Have you ever felt accountable to somebody who would probably
(14:43):
be okay if you didn't show up? But I've had people do
that as a yoga teacher, where they will let me know when they're,
when they're leaving. I'm not going to be there tomorrow.
Just wanted to let you know, they don't have to do that at
all, but they feel a level of accountability.
They know that I enjoy that, enjoy it when they're not there.
(15:04):
Sometimes someone will come and say, sorry, I wasn't there last
Thursday. I really wanted to come. And I could say, don't
worry about it. Doesn't matter to me.
I mean, I enjoy it when, when, you know, I enjoy it
when everyone's there for sure. But I know that it's helping
them feel accountability. I've experienced it before.
(15:25):
Going to a fitness class. Oh, I'm going to miss your class
next week. I love your class and it bums me out to miss
it. But just know that their eyes are going to
light up a little bit. They're going to recognize when I'm there.
Makes me more likely to go and makes me feel
a little worse when I don't go. It makes
(15:45):
me feel like, oh, they thought I might be there, maybe they
didn't. But if you have a person attached to
can help a lot. And especially if it's somebody that you're working
with, there may be.
I don't know if you'll do this, but I know sometimes there's
(16:06):
a pressure caused because of that. Sometimes we enjoy
our freedom. We enjoy the ability to not make a decision,
to not follow through with something, to give up on
a goal because it's easier and especially when your brain is
already going a lot and you need a little bit of a
break. So I found that when I have
(16:29):
been a part of certain challenges or accountability groups that
sometimes I feel a sense of dread. A lot of it's in
my own head. And I'm only saying this because often
I think you're the only one that experiences this.
This is just part of your ADHD. And then I go on
(16:49):
to Reddit and I see posts all the time that I
think I thought I was the only one that dealt with that aspect.
I thought I was because it's not typically on the list of ADHD
symptoms. And overwhelm is one thing that's
described, but just dreading little things like all the, you
(17:09):
know, like taking a shower or flossing your teeth or whatever
it is and building it up so much. We can also do that with
just an appointment. Like, I wish I didn't have that appointment
today. It'd be easier not to do that.
Now I'm feeling some kind of pressure.
I'd rather just work on this without having to do that.
And I signed up for an accountability month in February.
(17:31):
I think of this year with this man who I really liked.
I'm trying to think of how I found out about him.
I took a few courses with him online and I really liked
working with him. And I say working with him, they were
recorded. But whenever I wrote him a question, he would send
me a video response and it was so fun.
I thought, I can totally relate to you.
(17:52):
And I'd send him a video response back, which was fun.
And anyway, he had a month that was called most productive month
ever and it was $99, which I probably
didn't really have, but I signed up for it because I thought,
I'm going to get a lot done here and I'm going to have the most
productive month ever. And we each set a goal
(18:13):
and reported it to him and kept in touch with
him during the week and let him know how we were doing.
And he had a live call once a week on Fridays, and
on Mondays we were supposed to set let him know the goal for
that week. And I put so much pressure on myself on Mondays.
I was just thinking, I feel like a loser because, you know, like,
(18:34):
I'm probably not accomplishing as much as I should.
So I was over evaluating. And part of that is
probably going back to
saying exactly what you will do, because I didn't have a clear
idea at the beginning of the month of how much time was
involved in what I needed to do, how much time I would take
(18:56):
to work on it each week and what that would produce.
And so I think I felt some kind of pressure in my head
because I wasn't caught up as well as I would have
liked to have been, even though I was spending the time with
it. But I enjoyed working with him. But at
the end, he said, because even the Friday calls, when we came
together on Friday, we could ask him any question and it was
(19:16):
super helpful every single time. But whenever I actually shared
what I was doing, I felt a sense of
lacking, like I wasn't doing very well.
So it could have been a lot of in my own head, but I just
felt like I wasn't
as capable as I could have been or should have been in his
(19:38):
eyes, which probably wasn't true, but it might have been true.
It might have actually been really true.
But at the end, he wanted our feedback and I let him
know that I kind of dreaded the connections
with him. And it didn't have anything.
It had way more to do with me than it had to do with him.
(19:59):
But I recognized that unless I had a goal that
I was more capable of doing, there was some kind of
dread sometimes with the accountability person.
And I don't know if you've ever experienced that, where you come
and say, I did all right, but I could have
done better. You know, it's not really a therapy session.
(20:20):
And actually he was very supportive.
And I participated in another similar challenge in January,
where I just emailed Michael on Monday and then on Friday, just
let the person know how I was doing and I would just be clear.
I got this much done, but I was hoping to get that done.
And she said it always takes more time or things
can be more involved. But all that being said, whatever
(20:46):
person that you're connecting with, if that happens, if
you start to think, oh, now I'm going back
to my personal trainer, I've been working on what I was
supposed to, or even it could be a physical therapy appointment.
And you have physical therapy, you're not going to see that physical
therapist for another two weeks. And you're supposed to do these
exercises and you haven't done the exercises.
(21:09):
So if you have some sense in your accountability co
op or whatever that person is, that coaching, that
training, just be clear with them and recognize
that when you have an overactive mind, sometimes
(21:32):
it's easy to get off track from what your goal
is and look at those things. The first few things
that I talked about, of writing it down, saying it
out loud, making it as clear as possible, making it visible,
if you do that when you are connecting with that person, there's
a greater likelihood you look forward to it because you'll have
(21:54):
some progress to share. But if you don't know that that
is natural and don't give up on the whole process, you'll still
be doing better than you would have without that person helping
you along. And that person's there to help you, not to shame
you, not to say,
how are you even not doing very well with this?
They're not there to say that they want you to succeed, they're
(22:17):
there to help you succeed. And they may look at more
of a reflection of them if they're not helping you.
So let them know where that's falling short for
you, why you're not looking forward to the
appointment instead of looking forward to it.
It doesn't have to be a pressure thing, it doesn't have to be.
(22:37):
You have some great result to give them.
You're sharing your progress, you're sharing your experience.
Just like if you were coming to me and we're working on
your nutrition or how you were doing with your eating habits.
Not that that's what I'm doing now, but.
But if you were to do that, you don't have to come and say,
I did perfect. You might say that, but most of
(23:00):
life isn't perfect. And you just need to be
able to find somebody that you're comfortable with so that you
can be open with them. Because the more that you hide or
pretend, the less progress you'll make.
And you want to make progress, right?
So, yeah, so find people that you can
(23:20):
be honest with that you can feel comfortable with, but know that
sometimes your own head can get in the way.
Could just be me, like I said, but hopefully not.
Probably not. But number five, I find
that the most powerful way, the most effective
(23:42):
way to have accountability work is to do it
side by side. Some people call it body doubling.
Sometimes we call it a co working session, sometimes it's just,
hey, meet you there and we'll go walking together.
Doing it with somebody else, it's like, it's like, you
know, they're holding your hand and they're making it so it's
(24:03):
not as hard to keep that momentum. And
reporting back is nice, it can be helpful.
But if somebody's right there with you, it's just so much, so
much better. So it could be a study buddy.
Maybe you're taking a class and you have somebody to study with.
Maybe it's somebody just to meet at a coffee shop and work
(24:24):
on your computer, your business, whatever it is that you're doing,
you can do that side by side, even if you're not doing the
same thing. It can actually be just turning on zoom with
a friend or joining a co working session.
I'm not doing those right now, but I might in the future.
And they're really nice. Just see other people, whether it's
their actual face and their glasses because they're looking at
(24:47):
their computers too, or them getting up and down and taking
care of things like you are, you know that you're in this together
and setting aside that time is probably the most effective thing
because, because you can't, you can't change your mind about
what you're doing at that time. You are doing it with them.
So it's having somebody not only alongside you, but
(25:10):
it does propel you. Last thing is to, and
it kind of goes back to what I said about your inner voice and
stuff. But whatever accountability situation you're in, it
should be supportive. And so if you have decided I'm
going to go the social media route, maybe not.
I just use that as an example at the beginning.
(25:31):
But if people aren't supporting you, that would be awful if
they weren't. I would think if. Unless you're a famous person.
I think famous people get, you know, the negative comments.
But anybody who's not supportive or helpful, then maybe not
involve them. The best people to work with are
(25:53):
the ones that cheer you on. They're excited.
And we find in life who's excited about what we're doing
and who's not. And some people aren't.
Some people are critical Some people are doubtful from the
beginning. Have you ever shared a goal with somebody and then
they've said, that's not going to happen?
That happened to me once, that's not going to happen.
(26:15):
That really made me double down and want to do
it more. So that can be powerful too.
But just notice what's happening in your mind.
Whoever you're working with, if they're a good fit, keep going
with them. Or if that's a good method, keep going with it.
I've taught yoga for years and I've taught private yoga in a
home. And one of the women that I used to
(26:38):
teach loved me coming over, but she had a lot
of anxiety and she said, can we do
this on video instead? Because then she didn't have to
think about, oh, this is coming up, she's coming in
my house, I need to get things ready.
Her house was always spotless and she probably paid somebody
else to clean it. But I don't know that.
(26:59):
I don't know that it looked like it.
It was so clean, so beautiful. She lived at the top of a
hill on a mountain in the Santa Cruz mountains and
just overlooked out to the ocean. My goodness, it was gorgeous.
Sometimes we'd do yoga out on the deck, but I
like doing yoga from home too with her.
And that was actually before I did live stream videos.
(27:19):
So I actually recorded first just audio sessions and sent
them to her before I learned how to do video that I recorded
video sessions for. But there's always a way.
So if you find in person is harder. I'd rather do zoom
or zoom. I feel uncomfortable. I'd rather
(27:41):
get out and go somewhere and get dressed up and have something
to look forward to. Look at what is encouraging to you,
what's helpful to you, what doesn't cause more problems for
you and keep it positive. Know if
it's feeling positive in your life. But yeah, in short,
what are the little steps? Tell someone else, even if it's just
(28:03):
one person. Be really specific. Make your goal visible.
And something I didn't mention, but I've mentioned before, is
do everything you can to make it possible for your goal to happen.
Set up the things if you're finding.
I'm spending so much time trying to find the right shoes
to wear that I can't even go for my walk or finding my earbuds
(28:24):
or I can't find my charger for my computer to go in
this room or whatever it is. Spend a little time setting up
the system to make that possible. That's part of the Planning
and then choosing the right people to work with or the right
person, work with somebody side by side whenever
you can, or a group and keep it positive
(28:46):
in your head. Find positive people to work with.
And I think that's it. I think that's it for today.
Feels like this is a shorter one. It probably is.
I never look at my timer. Kind of close to a half
hour,
but yeah, 104. We'll see. If I actually release this as 104.
(29:07):
I probably will. First before 103. I have that one in
my mind, but I don't know if I have time to record it before
my class.
Do you love it when I involve you in my decisions?
If not, I apologize. Okay, before I go, this is totally
off topic, but I don't know if you remember
a while back I talked about how that when I'd set
(29:29):
a goal, and this can go along with accountability.
So when I really set a goal and stay with it.
And this had to do always with not eating sugar,
because sugar addiction was big for me, where if I
eat a little bit, that's all I want to eat.
If I didn't eat it, I didn't crave it.
But I had to have it out of my system first.
(29:51):
I had to have it out of my system for a few days to get to that
point. And I'm not talking about natural sugars.
I could eat apples, oranges, watermelon, whatever.
It was just the, you know, the candy, cookies, ice
cream, all that stuff. So every time that I'd end
up making it past that three, four, five days, I'd always
have a sugar nightmare where I'd be dreaming and be
(30:15):
eating something completely sugary. Tons of cookies, whatever
it was. And partway through realizing, like, while the food
was in my mouth, like, oh, no, I wasn't eating sugar.
I totally forgot the whole. I forgot the combination
to my locker. Did you ever dreams about that after high school?
(30:36):
So my forgetting thing was that I was not eating sugar.
And. And I always thought that means it was.
At least that was my interpretation of my dream.
That means that it was ingrained enough in me
that I wasn't eating sugar, that it was out of my habit realm
that I had a dream about it. I had to get to that point before
(30:58):
I'd ever have that dream because I never had those dreams otherwise.
Never since.
So fast forwarding to last night, I had a dream about
having ADHD. And I mean, it's like, oh,
yeah, okay, I already have adhd, but I mean, whenever you've
had something happen. And just think, this is my ADHD.
This is like, this would not happen.
(31:19):
Like forgetting something, forgetting what day it is, forgetting
what time it is, missing an appointment, losing something, whatever
it is, getting everything organized to go somewhere, and
you get out to the car and you don't have your phone.
Like, the most simple thing is in the other room.
Like, you can't keep it all in your head.
So those are, like, in real life moments where your head just
knows. Like, yeah, this is another moment that,
(31:42):
because I have adhd, this happened. So my dream last
night, and I woke up, like, very, very upset.
Almost like I was crying in my dream.
And so I woke up that upset, but I wasn't feeling my body.
Have you ever had a crying dream where you're, you know, actually
doing the crying, breathing the. I've done that before, but.
But that wasn't this. But anyway, in my dream, I
(32:06):
dreamed that I was coming back from a trip, and I was flying
into the San Jose airport in California, which is where, you
know, Apple, Google, all those places.
Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco.
And I've flown in and out of that airport many, many times
over the years of living in the Santa Cruz area.
And a couple times since we've moved.
So I dreamed that I was coming back from this trip to Europe
(32:28):
or something, which is funny because I've been to Europe once.
Really? Is Greece considered Europe?
I went to Greece after Israel. I don't know if that's considered
Europe, but. Okay, twice if that.
Sorry. I think Greece is in Europe, but it feels like it's, you
know, it's more Mediterranean. Anyway, doesn't matter.
In this dream, I was coming back from an overseas trip, had a
(32:52):
layover in San Jose, and my husband's
aunt lives in San Jose. And I love Aunt Lois.
I love her so much that every time I go back to San Jose, I see
her and sometimes stay the night at her house after the airport.
So Lois picked us up in the dream, and I had, I think,
a few of my daughters there. So we all got off the flight, got
(33:13):
our luggage, went to Lois's house. But in the
dream, it wasn't really Lois's house.
And I. I'm sure you. Sorry if you're tuning me out
right now, because everyone hates to hear everyone's dreams.
But the point is, is after spending time with her, I thought,
okay, you need to get on your computer and see when your next
flight is to get home. Because the idea was, is it
(33:35):
was a connecting flight. And then I Needed to get on another
flight so we could come back here. Because now we live in Florida.
Well, in my dream, which it didn't make sense, so
wherever I was, clearly, Europe to California, back to Florida.
That doesn't make sense. But none of that mattered in my dream
anyway. I look at the computer and I realize that
(33:55):
the layover was in the San Jose airport.
We were just supposed to change planes.
Like, you weren't supposed to get your luggage.
You weren't supposed to go out of security.
You certainly weren't supposed to go to someone's house.
And we missed our flight. And I thought, how did
I make such a stupid mistake? Like, how did my
brain have a glitch to think I was supposed to leave the
(34:18):
airport, go stay with Aunt Lois, unpack everything,
have a visit, and then catch my next flight?
Duh. We always just change planes. We always change
planes when you have a layover or stay on the same plane and
you just keep going and we missed our flight and blah,
(34:39):
blah, blah, and all these plans. And I just thought, you know,
stupid ADHD. And I was so upset, and I cried and cried
because I was so upset that my brain gets in the way.
And everyone's looking at me like, how did you not
know? And I'm thinking, yeah, how did I not know?
And I was just crying, crying. And I woke up and I thought, you're
at home. Yes, you have ADHD. That this did not
(35:02):
happen. But I thought that was a little monumental because
it's kind of like the sugar nightmare.
It's like my dreaming brain now knows that I have ADHD.
And I'm curious if that happens again.
But thank you for listening to my dream story.
I'm curious if you've ever had a dream where you were aware that
you had ADHD and something ADHD ish
(35:25):
happened. I would love to hear about it.
And this is something I am working on.
My website is. So you can contact me there.
You can go there and contact me on the about page, I think.
So go there and let me know. Or if you're on my email list
or sign up for my newsletter, you can email me and let me know.
But thank you so much for being here.
I will be back. And if this episode comes out
(35:47):
before 103, so be it. Talk to you later.
Bye.
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
(36:26):
Rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me
(36:47):
Sa.
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with ADHD.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be healthy.
I got sick last weekend or a week ago, from the weekend,
two weekends ago. And that I was getting better and I
made a podcast episode, thought I was doing better.
And it's not like I relapsed, lapsed.
(00:49):
I just never completely got better and then it got worse.
Is that relapsing? And I thought about it and I've
listened to podcasts where people say, oh, sorry if I
sound stuffy, stuffed up or stuffy, or if I have
a horse throat or whatever. And I thought I'm achy.
Like I'm, I'm a. I'm kind of a wimp when I'm sick.
(01:10):
I don't know if you are. I feel, I don't know that I'm a
wimp. I just feel very complainy because I either want to be
able to do something or I just want to lay down and either give
up or watch TV or take a hot bath or something.
So I didn't come on the podcast, but I'm here now.
And I actually got a little confused because I
thought this was episode 104. I thought I recorded 103 and
(01:34):
I didn't. But I really want to talk about 104 right
now. So don't even pay attention to what number it
is. I'll probably just release them in the wrong
order. Because I really wanted it to be the fourth thing on
the 10 things that I talked about on episode 100.
And I know it means nothing to anybody but me, but the fourth
(01:57):
thing was accountability. And when I looked at that,
I thought, oh, I've talked about accountability a lot.
Ways that we can
get things done by having somebody else to help us with
it, or being accountable or having a reward or all those different
ways. And I thought, well, let's
(02:21):
find what are the best ways to be consistent with that and
what are the methods of doing that? Not, not just the methods
of like work with somebody that's body doubling or have
a coach that you report to, but what are the ways
that you can fine tune this to you so any of those methods
will work? Because sometimes a coach could work well, that could
(02:44):
work really well, or it couldn't. And what's the difference in
those two? Or there's a reward system.
You've paid into something. Have you ever done that?
There used to be this thing. I don't know if there still Is.
But it was called DietBet, and my daughter and I did it.
You had to pay money. I think it was an app or something,
and it was kind of in the early days of apps, so it wasn't like
a very good one or anything to look at.
(03:05):
It wasn't. It seemed very,
you know, just not designed very well.
But, you know, it still worked. She told me about it, and what
you did is you paid money. I think it was
$40 to do it for four weeks or six weeks.
And you set your goal of how much weight you're gonna lose.
And you weighed yourself, and you had to have, I don't know,
(03:28):
maybe a photo of the newspaper. Did we have newspapers back then?
I don't know. But you had to have something that proved the date.
And then at the end, you did again. And if you lost a certain
percentage of your weight, you got your money back.
If you didn't, your money went into a pot and it went to
everybody else. So if you paid the $40, you might get extra
money, because if people fail, you get some of their money split
(03:50):
up. First time we did it, we both got money back.
We did it two more times, we didn't get money back.
So the motivation of losing money to me
was going to make the difference that the body doesn't always
respond like you want it to. Or maybe your habits aren't always
as consistent as you want them to be, so that they're actually
not habits. But anyway, so what made that work one
(04:14):
time? What made it fail? It could be banking on the
wrong thing, on a result instead of an action.
That's actually not one of my six things.
But the progress that you make, you have to be realistic
about it, and you have to make it more about what you're
going to do and not. Not what the action, I mean, not what
(04:35):
the consequence or the result is, because the results
aren't always guaranteed. So you have to weigh that out.
But let's just go to
the first one. So the first tool. It's not really
a tool. The first guideline. The first guideline in making sure
that accountability works is to
(05:00):
make it something that's out there, that it's out there.
It might. You might not even be working with somebody.
But you don't just keep your goal in your head, especially if
you have adhd, your. Your head, your brain doesn't always remember
everything, even goals that set. Have you ever set a
goal and thought, yeah, I'm going to start this on Monday, and
(05:21):
then a few weeks later, or Maybe next Thursday or something.
You think, oh, yeah, I was going to start that on Monday.
Because you kept it in your head. You didn't have a way for you
to remember it, besides relying on your own brain, which
isn't very reliable, to store information.
So you can keep a promise to yourself, you
(05:42):
can make a promise to yourself, but it's really easy to talk
yourself out of it or it's easy to forget it.
And if you bring somebody else into it, whether it's a specific
person, it becomes more real and they can help
you remember. And then you also feel some kind of obligation
to do it. I've seen people, seen friends who start
(06:04):
an Instagram account just for their weight loss journey, and
they still have the regular Instagram account and they just say,
hey, everyone, I have 150 pounds to lose.
And I decided to make an Instagram account so you
can follow my progress. Part of that is to share their
progress, but a big part of it is to get that accountability.
(06:27):
Is anybody telling them you have to do this?
No, but they know that people are watching and they might feel
some sense of shame if they don't keep up with it.
And not that we want to induce shame on ourselves, but that fear
of feeling embarrassed that you didn't do it, or, you
know, I feel like a loser. You know, whatever it is that you
(06:48):
put in your head, if you have other people watching you,
you might be more apt to do it. Letting someone else
know, know your goal, whether it's public.
It doesn't have to be public. That can.
That can be hard,
but it can be public. I set a goal last year to
use my spin brush and my water pick every night
(07:12):
for a month. And I did it. It's amazing.
I had been trying to do it for years and I just said
it out loud to you, but to nobody in particular.
Right. It's not like I knew you or knew who might even
listen to it, or maybe nobody listens to it, but I said it and
I felt like I should do it. There have been other things that
(07:32):
I've said on here. Like before the end of the day,
I'll finish this on my website, so when you go there, it'll be
there. Sometimes I forget those things.
It's awful. I feel really bad. So my apologies if you ever
gone to my website. Or sometimes I go there and try to finish
it and I can't for some reason. Whether it's a time restraint
or I just can't figure it out. It was a big mistake to switch
(07:53):
My website from one host to another because I'm still
not done with it. But I will get there.
I am determined. I do need some accountability.
Okay, that'll be my accountability here.
What is it? September 1, by the end of the month to have
that hopefully before then, but have that where I never have
to apologize for that again.
(08:15):
And like I said, it's not like you're all running there to look,
but it does make me think, yeah, you say this,
you need to do it. So actually I was working on it today
and I thought that's really not as hard, but it's just hard for
me to wrap my head around it. I need to write down the steps
for sure. That comes later. But so yeah, letting somebody
else having a person an extra layer to either
(08:38):
follow through, that is better than just saying it out
loud because saying it out loud can, can lead, lead to
a level of accountability. But if you have a method for
follow through of every day, I'll go on Instagram
and I'll post that or I'll check in with you once
(08:59):
a day and just text you and let you know what I did.
I actually did some nutrition counseling with.
Not a nutritionist by any means, but I did it more
as a coach
and she knew that. I'm not saying I'm a nutritionist or I'm
a fitness trainer, I'm a yoga teacher and I have a lot
(09:19):
of experience with healthy eating and every kind of
dieting that's imaginable, eating whole foods, healthy
eating too. But anyway, that's what we did.
I, I asked her what, how would you like to report?
Would you like to text me? Would you like me to text you?
Would you like to email? Would you, you know, do we want to
(09:41):
talk? How often do we want to talk? She came over once a week
and we, we set up a plan for reporting and
if you have a plan for follow through reporting, that would
be really helpful. Just saying you're going to do
it is not helpful either. If you want
accountability, you have to. Number two in the guideline is
(10:04):
to say exactly what you're going to do.
And if you're not sure, get out a notebook and start writing
some ideas. But if you just say I'm going to work on
this, I'm going to do better. It works better
if you are clear, if you have clarity about what
you're going to do. If your goal isn't vague, if it isn't just,
(10:25):
you can have a vague ending, you can have, well, you
know what I mean, a Specific ending, but maybe you don't know
what I mean. But you can have an end date and
a set. I'm going to complete it by this time.
And you may not be sure how often will get done the
first, you know how much will get done the first week.
(10:45):
But you might have something specific.
Like every day I'll do 30 minutes. Every day I'll
do 60 minutes of this, or I'll work on this on my
computer for two hours. Whatever it is, you can set your
goal just to be the time commitment involved, not
the actual result. Because sometimes, like I said, with the weight
(11:06):
loss, you can put in the effort and you don't know the result.
But if you know, if I give it five hours of time, I'm
going to get this project finished, then give it five hours,
set aside six hours, seven, whatever you need.
If it takes you a while to focus or if you need to
get up and walk around, you can kind of see as you go or
(11:26):
look at what has worked for you in the past.
Can I sit and work on something for two or three hours?
If I know I won't have any interruptions, if I have some
caffeine, if I have a drink ready with me, can I get
a little more awake and work on this?
And having that clarity of exactly what
you'll do and how you'll accomplish it is extremely helpful
(11:51):
with accountability. The more specific you are, the easier it
is to measure what you're doing and to stick with it.
And sometimes we start with very lofty goals, like I'll
do this. Especially if you have adhd, you might be the idea
person, you might keep going with your ideas and say, and I
can do this and this and this and this.
(12:12):
That's where you really have to reel it in.
Some things are easier to define and stick to.
Like if you're going to go for a walk, you're going to go walking
every day for 30 minutes and you set that goal,
you know exactly what you're going to do.
If you say I'm going to go to the gym and work out, that
might be a little more open ended. Unless you say on Monday,
(12:34):
Wednesday, Friday, I'll do the treadmill or I'll do the
stair step, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I'll do weight machines
or I'll go to this class. And defining that will be super,
super helpful. If you leave it too open ended like I'm
going to exercise, there's a good chance you don't even have
a picture in your brain of what's going to happen.
So how are you going to accomplish that or how are you going
(12:55):
to remember it? Right. So the third guideline is to
make your progress visible. And whether you have
a calendar and you check it off, I've done stickers before.
Or you send a text, you can see that you've done that,
you know, and you check in with that person, you post your updates,
(13:17):
you have a tracker. There's so many ways to do it.
You can do it on your computer, your phone, you could do it on
a calendar. But to have a tracker with whatever goal
you're trying to accomplish will help you get that done.
And if it's visible, if you can see, especially if you
can see, oh, five days in a row this week.
(13:38):
I did it. Yay. You know, you can feel good about your, yourself
and it helps you feel like you can keep
going, like you can, you can stay consistent.
Number four, think of who you're going
to be accountable to. And it needs to be
(13:59):
somebody that you enjoy working with or who you trust or you
respect.
You're more likely to show up if it's people that you care
about or you have a relationship with.
Even with fitness. If you go to a class and
you have friends there and you know that they're going to be
there or you meet a friend there, that there's another reward
(14:21):
there. There's something rewarding about that because you get
to talk to that person, you get to see that person, you get to
smile with that instructor, or you go to the gym at
a certain time and you know, this person works there and he's
so nice at the check in. Something that helps with that, oh,
you're here again today and you feel like, oh, they noticed me.
Have you ever felt accountable to somebody who would probably
(14:43):
be okay if you didn't show up? But I've had people do
that as a yoga teacher, where they will let me know when they're,
when they're leaving. I'm not going to be there tomorrow.
Just wanted to let you know, they don't have to do that at
all, but they feel a level of accountability.
They know that I enjoy that, enjoy it when they're not there.
(15:04):
Sometimes someone will come and say, sorry, I wasn't there last
Thursday. I really wanted to come. And I could say, don't
worry about it. Doesn't matter to me.
I mean, I enjoy it when, when, you know, I enjoy it
when everyone's there for sure. But I know that it's helping
them feel accountability. I've experienced it before.
(15:25):
Going to a fitness class. Oh, I'm going to miss your class
next week. I love your class and it bums me out to miss
it. But just know that their eyes are going to
light up a little bit. They're going to recognize when I'm there.
Makes me more likely to go and makes me feel
a little worse when I don't go. It makes
(15:45):
me feel like, oh, they thought I might be there, maybe they
didn't. But if you have a person attached to
can help a lot. And especially if it's somebody that you're working
with, there may be.
I don't know if you'll do this, but I know sometimes there's
(16:06):
a pressure caused because of that. Sometimes we enjoy
our freedom. We enjoy the ability to not make a decision,
to not follow through with something, to give up on
a goal because it's easier and especially when your brain is
already going a lot and you need a little bit of a
break. So I found that when I have
(16:29):
been a part of certain challenges or accountability groups that
sometimes I feel a sense of dread. A lot of it's in
my own head. And I'm only saying this because often
I think you're the only one that experiences this.
This is just part of your ADHD. And then I go on
(16:49):
to Reddit and I see posts all the time that I
think I thought I was the only one that dealt with that aspect.
I thought I was because it's not typically on the list of ADHD
symptoms. And overwhelm is one thing that's
described, but just dreading little things like all the, you
(17:09):
know, like taking a shower or flossing your teeth or whatever
it is and building it up so much. We can also do that with
just an appointment. Like, I wish I didn't have that appointment
today. It'd be easier not to do that.
Now I'm feeling some kind of pressure.
I'd rather just work on this without having to do that.
And I signed up for an accountability month in February.
(17:31):
I think of this year with this man who I really liked.
I'm trying to think of how I found out about him.
I took a few courses with him online and I really liked
working with him. And I say working with him, they were
recorded. But whenever I wrote him a question, he would send
me a video response and it was so fun.
I thought, I can totally relate to you.
(17:52):
And I'd send him a video response back, which was fun.
And anyway, he had a month that was called most productive month
ever and it was $99, which I probably
didn't really have, but I signed up for it because I thought,
I'm going to get a lot done here and I'm going to have the most
productive month ever. And we each set a goal
(18:13):
and reported it to him and kept in touch with
him during the week and let him know how we were doing.
And he had a live call once a week on Fridays, and
on Mondays we were supposed to set let him know the goal for
that week. And I put so much pressure on myself on Mondays.
I was just thinking, I feel like a loser because, you know, like,
(18:34):
I'm probably not accomplishing as much as I should.
So I was over evaluating. And part of that is
probably going back to
saying exactly what you will do, because I didn't have a clear
idea at the beginning of the month of how much time was
involved in what I needed to do, how much time I would take
(18:56):
to work on it each week and what that would produce.
And so I think I felt some kind of pressure in my head
because I wasn't caught up as well as I would have
liked to have been, even though I was spending the time with
it. But I enjoyed working with him. But at
the end, he said, because even the Friday calls, when we came
together on Friday, we could ask him any question and it was
(19:16):
super helpful every single time. But whenever I actually shared
what I was doing, I felt a sense of
lacking, like I wasn't doing very well.
So it could have been a lot of in my own head, but I just
felt like I wasn't
as capable as I could have been or should have been in his
(19:38):
eyes, which probably wasn't true, but it might have been true.
It might have actually been really true.
But at the end, he wanted our feedback and I let him
know that I kind of dreaded the connections
with him. And it didn't have anything.
It had way more to do with me than it had to do with him.
(19:59):
But I recognized that unless I had a goal that
I was more capable of doing, there was some kind of
dread sometimes with the accountability person.
And I don't know if you've ever experienced that, where you come
and say, I did all right, but I could have
done better. You know, it's not really a therapy session.
(20:20):
And actually he was very supportive.
And I participated in another similar challenge in January,
where I just emailed Michael on Monday and then on Friday, just
let the person know how I was doing and I would just be clear.
I got this much done, but I was hoping to get that done.
And she said it always takes more time or things
can be more involved. But all that being said, whatever
(20:46):
person that you're connecting with, if that happens, if
you start to think, oh, now I'm going back
to my personal trainer, I've been working on what I was
supposed to, or even it could be a physical therapy appointment.
And you have physical therapy, you're not going to see that physical
therapist for another two weeks. And you're supposed to do these
exercises and you haven't done the exercises.
(21:09):
So if you have some sense in your accountability co
op or whatever that person is, that coaching, that
training, just be clear with them and recognize
that when you have an overactive mind, sometimes
(21:32):
it's easy to get off track from what your goal
is and look at those things. The first few things
that I talked about, of writing it down, saying it
out loud, making it as clear as possible, making it visible,
if you do that when you are connecting with that person, there's
a greater likelihood you look forward to it because you'll have
(21:54):
some progress to share. But if you don't know that that
is natural and don't give up on the whole process, you'll still
be doing better than you would have without that person helping
you along. And that person's there to help you, not to shame
you, not to say,
how are you even not doing very well with this?
They're not there to say that they want you to succeed, they're
(22:17):
there to help you succeed. And they may look at more
of a reflection of them if they're not helping you.
So let them know where that's falling short for
you, why you're not looking forward to the
appointment instead of looking forward to it.
It doesn't have to be a pressure thing, it doesn't have to be.
(22:37):
You have some great result to give them.
You're sharing your progress, you're sharing your experience.
Just like if you were coming to me and we're working on
your nutrition or how you were doing with your eating habits.
Not that that's what I'm doing now, but.
But if you were to do that, you don't have to come and say,
I did perfect. You might say that, but most of
(23:00):
life isn't perfect. And you just need to be
able to find somebody that you're comfortable with so that you
can be open with them. Because the more that you hide or
pretend, the less progress you'll make.
And you want to make progress, right?
So, yeah, so find people that you can
(23:20):
be honest with that you can feel comfortable with, but know that
sometimes your own head can get in the way.
Could just be me, like I said, but hopefully not.
Probably not. But number five, I find
that the most powerful way, the most effective
(23:42):
way to have accountability work is to do it
side by side. Some people call it body doubling.
Sometimes we call it a co working session, sometimes it's just,
hey, meet you there and we'll go walking together.
Doing it with somebody else, it's like, it's like, you
know, they're holding your hand and they're making it so it's
(24:03):
not as hard to keep that momentum. And
reporting back is nice, it can be helpful.
But if somebody's right there with you, it's just so much, so
much better. So it could be a study buddy.
Maybe you're taking a class and you have somebody to study with.
Maybe it's somebody just to meet at a coffee shop and work
(24:24):
on your computer, your business, whatever it is that you're doing,
you can do that side by side, even if you're not doing the
same thing. It can actually be just turning on zoom with
a friend or joining a co working session.
I'm not doing those right now, but I might in the future.
And they're really nice. Just see other people, whether it's
their actual face and their glasses because they're looking at
(24:47):
their computers too, or them getting up and down and taking
care of things like you are, you know that you're in this together
and setting aside that time is probably the most effective thing
because, because you can't, you can't change your mind about
what you're doing at that time. You are doing it with them.
So it's having somebody not only alongside you, but
(25:10):
it does propel you. Last thing is to, and
it kind of goes back to what I said about your inner voice and
stuff. But whatever accountability situation you're in, it
should be supportive. And so if you have decided I'm
going to go the social media route, maybe not.
I just use that as an example at the beginning.
(25:31):
But if people aren't supporting you, that would be awful if
they weren't. I would think if. Unless you're a famous person.
I think famous people get, you know, the negative comments.
But anybody who's not supportive or helpful, then maybe not
involve them. The best people to work with are
(25:53):
the ones that cheer you on. They're excited.
And we find in life who's excited about what we're doing
and who's not. And some people aren't.
Some people are critical Some people are doubtful from the
beginning. Have you ever shared a goal with somebody and then
they've said, that's not going to happen?
That happened to me once, that's not going to happen.
(26:15):
That really made me double down and want to do
it more. So that can be powerful too.
But just notice what's happening in your mind.
Whoever you're working with, if they're a good fit, keep going
with them. Or if that's a good method, keep going with it.
I've taught yoga for years and I've taught private yoga in a
home. And one of the women that I used to
(26:38):
teach loved me coming over, but she had a lot
of anxiety and she said, can we do
this on video instead? Because then she didn't have to
think about, oh, this is coming up, she's coming in
my house, I need to get things ready.
Her house was always spotless and she probably paid somebody
else to clean it. But I don't know that.
(26:59):
I don't know that it looked like it.
It was so clean, so beautiful. She lived at the top of a
hill on a mountain in the Santa Cruz mountains and
just overlooked out to the ocean. My goodness, it was gorgeous.
Sometimes we'd do yoga out on the deck, but I
like doing yoga from home too with her.
And that was actually before I did live stream videos.
(27:19):
So I actually recorded first just audio sessions and sent
them to her before I learned how to do video that I recorded
video sessions for. But there's always a way.
So if you find in person is harder. I'd rather do zoom
or zoom. I feel uncomfortable. I'd rather
(27:41):
get out and go somewhere and get dressed up and have something
to look forward to. Look at what is encouraging to you,
what's helpful to you, what doesn't cause more problems for
you and keep it positive. Know if
it's feeling positive in your life. But yeah, in short,
what are the little steps? Tell someone else, even if it's just
(28:03):
one person. Be really specific. Make your goal visible.
And something I didn't mention, but I've mentioned before, is
do everything you can to make it possible for your goal to happen.
Set up the things if you're finding.
I'm spending so much time trying to find the right shoes
to wear that I can't even go for my walk or finding my earbuds
(28:24):
or I can't find my charger for my computer to go in
this room or whatever it is. Spend a little time setting up
the system to make that possible. That's part of the Planning
and then choosing the right people to work with or the right
person, work with somebody side by side whenever
you can, or a group and keep it positive
(28:46):
in your head. Find positive people to work with.
And I think that's it. I think that's it for today.
Feels like this is a shorter one. It probably is.
I never look at my timer. Kind of close to a half
hour,
but yeah, 104. We'll see. If I actually release this as 104.
(29:07):
I probably will. First before 103. I have that one in
my mind, but I don't know if I have time to record it before
my class.
Do you love it when I involve you in my decisions?
If not, I apologize. Okay, before I go, this is totally
off topic, but I don't know if you remember
a while back I talked about how that when I'd set
(29:29):
a goal, and this can go along with accountability.
So when I really set a goal and stay with it.
And this had to do always with not eating sugar,
because sugar addiction was big for me, where if I
eat a little bit, that's all I want to eat.
If I didn't eat it, I didn't crave it.
But I had to have it out of my system first.
(29:51):
I had to have it out of my system for a few days to get to that
point. And I'm not talking about natural sugars.
I could eat apples, oranges, watermelon, whatever.
It was just the, you know, the candy, cookies, ice
cream, all that stuff. So every time that I'd end
up making it past that three, four, five days, I'd always
have a sugar nightmare where I'd be dreaming and be
(30:15):
eating something completely sugary. Tons of cookies, whatever
it was. And partway through realizing, like, while the food
was in my mouth, like, oh, no, I wasn't eating sugar.
I totally forgot the whole. I forgot the combination
to my locker. Did you ever dreams about that after high school?
(30:36):
So my forgetting thing was that I was not eating sugar.
And. And I always thought that means it was.
At least that was my interpretation of my dream.
That means that it was ingrained enough in me
that I wasn't eating sugar, that it was out of my habit realm
that I had a dream about it. I had to get to that point before
(30:58):
I'd ever have that dream because I never had those dreams otherwise.
Never since.
So fast forwarding to last night, I had a dream about
having ADHD. And I mean, it's like, oh,
yeah, okay, I already have adhd, but I mean, whenever you've
had something happen. And just think, this is my ADHD.
This is like, this would not happen.
(31:19):
Like forgetting something, forgetting what day it is, forgetting
what time it is, missing an appointment, losing something, whatever
it is, getting everything organized to go somewhere, and
you get out to the car and you don't have your phone.
Like, the most simple thing is in the other room.
Like, you can't keep it all in your head.
So those are, like, in real life moments where your head just
knows. Like, yeah, this is another moment that,
(31:42):
because I have adhd, this happened. So my dream last
night, and I woke up, like, very, very upset.
Almost like I was crying in my dream.
And so I woke up that upset, but I wasn't feeling my body.
Have you ever had a crying dream where you're, you know, actually
doing the crying, breathing the. I've done that before, but.
But that wasn't this. But anyway, in my dream, I
(32:06):
dreamed that I was coming back from a trip, and I was flying
into the San Jose airport in California, which is where, you
know, Apple, Google, all those places.
Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco.
And I've flown in and out of that airport many, many times
over the years of living in the Santa Cruz area.
And a couple times since we've moved.
So I dreamed that I was coming back from this trip to Europe
(32:28):
or something, which is funny because I've been to Europe once.
Really? Is Greece considered Europe?
I went to Greece after Israel. I don't know if that's considered
Europe, but. Okay, twice if that.
Sorry. I think Greece is in Europe, but it feels like it's, you
know, it's more Mediterranean. Anyway, doesn't matter.
In this dream, I was coming back from an overseas trip, had a
(32:52):
layover in San Jose, and my husband's
aunt lives in San Jose. And I love Aunt Lois.
I love her so much that every time I go back to San Jose, I see
her and sometimes stay the night at her house after the airport.
So Lois picked us up in the dream, and I had, I think,
a few of my daughters there. So we all got off the flight, got
(33:13):
our luggage, went to Lois's house. But in the
dream, it wasn't really Lois's house.
And I. I'm sure you. Sorry if you're tuning me out
right now, because everyone hates to hear everyone's dreams.
But the point is, is after spending time with her, I thought,
okay, you need to get on your computer and see when your next
flight is to get home. Because the idea was, is it
(33:35):
was a connecting flight. And then I Needed to get on another
flight so we could come back here. Because now we live in Florida.
Well, in my dream, which it didn't make sense, so
wherever I was, clearly, Europe to California, back to Florida.
That doesn't make sense. But none of that mattered in my dream
anyway. I look at the computer and I realize that
(33:55):
the layover was in the San Jose airport.
We were just supposed to change planes.
Like, you weren't supposed to get your luggage.
You weren't supposed to go out of security.
You certainly weren't supposed to go to someone's house.
And we missed our flight. And I thought, how did
I make such a stupid mistake? Like, how did my
brain have a glitch to think I was supposed to leave the
(34:18):
airport, go stay with Aunt Lois, unpack everything,
have a visit, and then catch my next flight?
Duh. We always just change planes. We always change
planes when you have a layover or stay on the same plane and
you just keep going and we missed our flight and blah,
(34:39):
blah, blah, and all these plans. And I just thought, you know,
stupid ADHD. And I was so upset, and I cried and cried
because I was so upset that my brain gets in the way.
And everyone's looking at me like, how did you not
know? And I'm thinking, yeah, how did I not know?
And I was just crying, crying. And I woke up and I thought, you're
at home. Yes, you have ADHD. That this did not
(35:02):
happen. But I thought that was a little monumental because
it's kind of like the sugar nightmare.
It's like my dreaming brain now knows that I have ADHD.
And I'm curious if that happens again.
But thank you for listening to my dream story.
I'm curious if you've ever had a dream where you were aware that
you had ADHD and something ADHD ish
(35:25):
happened. I would love to hear about it.
And this is something I am working on.
My website is. So you can contact me there.
You can go there and contact me on the about page, I think.
So go there and let me know. Or if you're on my email list
or sign up for my newsletter, you can email me and let me know.
But thank you so much for being here.
I will be back. And if this episode comes out
(35:47):
before 103, so be it. Talk to you later.
Bye.
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
(36:26):
Rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me
(36:47):
Sa.
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