August 13, 2025 • 42 mins
Do you ever sabatoge your own efforts? You have an idea, set a goal, we may even get working on it, then something causes you to stop or resist getting back to it.
You make excuses, you second-guess your ability, you prioritize everything BUT this, even though that initial goal is gnawing at you over and over.
What is getting in the way? Why can't you just keep going?
Renee shares a self-limiting, subconscious behavior that could be stopping you from experiencing more joy, success, and your full potential.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Sa
(00:41):
hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm so excited to be here. It is 4:23 on
whatever day it is. Tuesday. I came in here before noon
working on the audio. Okay, that's wrong.
I came in here before 1. It's afternoon, but I
(01:03):
had a yoga class at 1. So I came in for about 20 minutes before
with the idea of getting the audio right.
So right afterwards I could make a podcast.
And it's been two, almost two and a half hours.
But I was determined not to let this stop me.
And I actually enjoy the problem solving aspects.
(01:23):
But yeah, my apologies to you because I have a
story for everything and I really wanted to be able
to record on video again, to be able to publish on YouTube
and have good quality audio. And I wasn't able to do
it with the same microphone before, so I'm just checking the
audio. So I'm recording on two different computers.
(01:43):
Long story, but I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
And it's. I don't know. There's so many topics with
adhd. One is hyperfocus. Sometimes people say things like,
and this can be a different episode.
It's not the title of today's. You probably already know that.
But
yeah, adhd, the whole story of. Is it really an attention
(02:04):
problem? Can you not pay attention? A lot of people say no,
because you can pay attention to certain things.
But I say it's still an attention problem because there's a lot
of things that I can't pay attention on.
Probably more that I can't pay attention than I can.
But as far as hyper focusing, when I do focus
on something, it almost becomes like a compulsion.
(02:25):
It's almost like an addiction. It's almost like I don't want
to. Well, it is like I can't. I don't want to do anything
else. I want to just keep working on it, whether
it has meaning or not. Like this. It had meaning.
I was trying to solve a problem and get the audio to you correctly.
Which, the more you learn about adhd, you start putting
all the little dots together. Like. Well, part of that's because
(02:46):
that perfectionism aspect, you really want it to be this way,
and it's not. Yeah. And the thing is, it's not like,
by everyone else's standards, it's perfect.
But it's your idea of perfect. You see a glitch and you don't
want it to stay that way. But anyway.
Yeah. So it can drive you Crazy. The hyper focus
thing, it can be helpful at times to really get
(03:07):
into a groove and work on things. But it was helpful this time.
It doesn't seem like a long term solution because the microphone
actually holding inside a blanket like I've rescued a little
animal or something.
But I tried out this one microphone that I've used for
a long time with yoga. But lately the Bluetooth part hasn't
(03:28):
been working. And so with the live streaming at the
same time, so I haven't used it and I thought we'll try
that. Well, it sounded really echoey for a video like this.
So I thought, well, I don't want it echoey.
And I remembered I have a lavalier mic.
I don't know if you know what those are, but those are the ones
that you can clip to your shirt or something so it's really
close to your mouth. Well, that one was a little better, but
(03:49):
it was still echoey. And I thought, well, they have these windscreens.
I tried this wind furry thing. Sorry to the
other mic. I just bumped and I tried that and it didn't
really help. It's really for the wind gusts if you're outside.
So this one I decided, even though it already had one of these
little foam things around it, I decided to take this blanket
(04:10):
that was already on my lap conveniently enough, and make a little
wind. Not a wind, a sound, soundproofing environment.
Because one of the things they say you can do is make a little
box with soundproof foam, but it doesn't really work
for video because then you have this box around to the
edges and you know, that's what you would see.
It works for audio only. So I decided to use my little
(04:32):
fluffy blanket that my daughter's boyfriend gave me for Christmas
last year, so. Or the Christmas before, I can't remember which.
But anyway, I do love the blanket. Maybe it was a birthday,
who knows? I can't keep track. But that's not even the topic.
The topic is what I was going to save for episode 100.
But I decided to talk about it today in episode
(04:54):
99 because it might not seem like a
big deal to anyone but me that episode 100
is almost here. And I've been noticing that ever since
I knew I was getting closer to that number.
I was less consistent with my
(05:16):
recording. And yeah, there was a problem with the sound.
And yeah, there were these other problems.
And yeah, I moved to this room, but I focused on everything but
this. I kept thinking, well, if this is just right, I rearrange
if you can see with this camera. I rearranged every book
on the bookshelf. I decluttered books.
I bought new baskets to put books in.
(05:37):
I did all kinds of things to make it better for
the podcast, but really it was to avoid doing the podcast.
Well, why would I be avoiding doing the podcast?
Do I not like doing it? No, I love doing it.
Do I think it's. People think I'm awful at
it? Maybe, Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
Those people probably aren't listening, so I shouldn't worry
(05:57):
about them. Right. So, you know, you have all these thoughts
in your head, but the. The one thing that kept coming up to me
was this book that I read called the Big Leap.
And I mentioned it before by Gay Hendricks.
And he talks about a fear of
reaching your goal or reaching something higher than what
(06:20):
you even hoped for. He talks about it
a little bit differently than I accept it in my mind or how
I see it play out for me. But his upper limit problem
that he talks about is that we all have
kind of a measuring tape of how, how much happiness we
(06:40):
can have in life, how much success we can have, maybe financial
success, success with our families, if that's even
measurable. You know, whatever we feel, whatever we see as
possible, we have a limit with it. And I
know for me, I grew up in a family. None of my relatives
made a lot of money. No one made a lot of money.
(07:02):
And we're okay with that. But at the same time,
it could have been nicer. And especially in today's age,
it's harder to buy a house. It's harder to keep your
house. It's harder to buy a new car when your car
wears down. You know, all those things.
At least I think more than when my parents and that obviously
(07:24):
people didn't. Well, if you live. Back then, people didn't have
the same standard of living as we do now.
We didn't have electronics. There was one TV in most homes.
And when I was growing up getting a colored tv, I started out
with a black and white tv. Colored TV was a big deal.
A microwave was a big deal. I mentioned probably before that
I bought my parents their first microwave when I was in college.
(07:46):
Microwaves had been around for a while, but they never saw the
pressure or the need or whatever. They never had an expectation
that they had to buy something if they couldn't afford it.
Whereas that's a world that we live in.
It's buying things because we need them, not because we can
necessarily afford them. So it causes.
There's a lot of problems, right. Financially.
(08:08):
And I look at my family now and none
of us are really making any money. And I have a big family.
Like, my dad is the oldest of seven kids.
My mom, there's four children in her family and
grandchildren on my dad's family with seven kids, grandchildren
galore. Like, when we have a family reunion, there's over 100
(08:31):
people there. And that's at least half of the people aren't
there. So there's a lot of people and maybe some
of them have more money than I know about.
But not very many of us have reached some really
big money status where we're living comfortably,
not needing to work, anything like that.
(08:51):
And that's okay. That is most of us, right?
But as I've been an adult, I
was a stay at home mom. Totally love that.
So glad I did that. Really resist working a 40 hour
a week job. Ever since I became a mom, I worked full
time until my first daughter was born, literally till the night
(09:13):
I went to the hospital and just never had to desire
to work 40 hours a week for a company ever again.
And now that I look at it, I think that whole locked in thing
about that I talked about in the last episode, the structure
versus freedom. I could not see myself fitting into
that structure with the responsibilities I have as a mom.
(09:35):
And I could look at it well, the responsibilities as a mom could
also be financial. So, yeah, why are you not looking at
it that way? But the way that my brain works, there was
something there, right? But getting back to the big leap book
or the are you afraid of success? Are you resisting?
Say, I don't even know if we're afraid of it, but we might be
(09:56):
afraid of it. That's gay. Hendrix is more like,
we think we're not worth it, we're not worthy of it.
We have a level of, I can be this happy, but you can't be
happy all the time. And he says, yeah, you can be happy all the
time. I don't even know if I agree with that because we have
all kinds of emotions in our bodies and I believe our bodies
were designed to experience those emotions.
(10:17):
So some of the time that might be tears, some of the time
that might be anger. For me, I'm more like that, you know the
movie with the Disney movie, whatever it's called, with all
the moods. But I do like his idea that
something is stopping us. Have you ever gone toward a
goal or started feeling like, I didn't know it could
(10:40):
be this good and then you start thinking, you know, like
you're putting on the brakes and you're thinking, maybe, maybe
not, maybe not. And you resist it for some reason.
Sometimes it's pretty evident, you know, you just think, what
was I thinking? Why did I even. What was I even thinking
and planning to do that? I've thought that many times with this
podcast. Even though for probably six or seven years I wanted
(11:01):
to have podcasts, I didn't know what for, I didn't know what
for, but I knew I wanted to help people
in some way or connect with people in some way.
I had that great need and I still do, but something
stops me every once in a while. And often we talk
about self doubt. Self doubt can stop us.
(11:23):
But what's even deeper, why are we having that response?
Why are we having that mechanism? Do we really believe those
negative things about ourselves? Maybe at times, but probably
most of the time, no. You probably know what you're capable of.
I hope you know what you're capable of.
Because all of us have gifts. We have amazing gifts that we can
share with people in our lives, but with the world to some
(11:46):
degree. And you have these talents, these
gifts, and you go after things or you decide,
maybe you're an artist. I'm going to draw these things and maybe
I'll have an online business or a ceramic shop
and you have these ideas. And I've even seen myself look at
(12:07):
other people who share ideas like that with me.
And not that I ever would think, you can't do that.
I just think, oh, it's probably not possible.
You know, I have a friend. I kind of hesitate talking about
friends, but this is a friend who's done amazing things and he
doesn't know this, so he probably won't listen.
But anyway, years ago,
(12:28):
when we were about to move away, he said that he was a surfer
and he said, I want to have a surf shop.
I want to open a surf shop. He was out of high school, got married
young and said, I want to have a surface surf
shop in this downtown square of this town, this college
town that was nearby. And I thought, oh, there's probably so
much more involved in that of being a business owner or,
(12:50):
you know, how much would it cost to rent space there and
maintain a business and would people even support it?
And then the, you know, the heating bills and, you know, like,
so that's what, that's what my reality was for him.
I saw these upper limits. He never saw the upper limits.
And when we moved away, all of a sudden I'D see posts
(13:11):
on social media with his wife or him that
they'd opened a surf shop, that it was successful even to
the point where he had more than one business.
And he ended up selling the surf shop and doing quite well.
They built a really nice house for themselves.
He didn't see that same limit that I did.
And I didn't discourage him anyway, in any way, I don't think.
(13:34):
Anyway, hopefully, you know, sometimes people can sense
your doubt. But I don't think I discouraged him in any way.
But I look at that and I think, okay, how many
times have I done that for myself? How many times have you done
that where you think, I would love to do that, but it's not
possible. That only works out for other people.
(13:55):
I don't know that I agree with thinking we're
not worth it. Maybe that's an accurate term psychologically or
whoever this professor was, I can't remember what his background
was. He taught it at Stanford. But he says that when
life starts going too well or it's getting close to it and better
than what we feel comfortable with, what we think that we deserve
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or that we're comfortable with or, you know, it's not
outside of our box, we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to bring
ourselves back to what's familiar. And that makes sense to
me when I think of the fear aspect that can come into it of
like, I'm afraid of that. It's new to me, I haven't done it,
I'm afraid of it. It's scary. Some people might think
(14:41):
I'm lame if I fail at it or
whatever. Or what if I work at this for 20 years and
I still fail? All of those things are those
messages that we give ourselves that just bring us back to what's
familiar. If we don't try, we don't have to.
And he says, this author says that these things are
(15:02):
possible. He's worked with people all over the world and brought
them past that upper limit problem. Even billionaires.
He said, it doesn't even matter how much money you have, you
have an upper limit problem. It could be family relationships.
We'll never have happiness in our family.
We'll never get along. Any of that. That might show up as
you picking a fight with someone because you don't know what
(15:23):
it's like to get along and you're more comfortable in that fight
picking area. Or maybe you are used to being
the person who's sick all the time or who knows, you
know, whatever that mode is, it's not really
what I think of for us. But it might be, I don't
know, maybe, maybe you're used to having people not view you
(15:45):
as a strong person and you want to be strong for once.
I don't know. I'm just thinking of things that I don't.
I can relate so much more to the things I can relate to.
But. But anyway, if you do, if you think that either
you don't deserve that success or something unknown, uncomfortable
will happen, if you have that level of success, then you'll stop
(16:07):
yourself from achieving that. And we don't want
to do that. Right. We don't want to stop ourselves from accomplishing
great things. So for women with adhd, what
would be our reasons? What would be some of the areas that
this might show up? And if you are in my area, era
area, if you're in my era of life, if
(16:31):
you've lived through the diet eras and all the we need to
lose weight and all of that, then you might be
really familiar with setting a goal.
I'm going to lose weight by this wedding or by this family
reunion because people are going to see me in a swimsuit and
I want to make sure that I'm looking good in that swimsuit.
(16:53):
So you really don't know what you're going to look
like at that weight. But we always use that number, right?
So I want to get to 127 or whatever your
goal weight would be. And you set that goal weight and
you make a little plan and you start working toward it.
And if you're like me, there's probably more times than not
(17:14):
that maybe didn't even last a day, but let's say it
did last more than a day. Maybe you've done this dozens, dozens
of times. Yeah, I was a yo yo dieter.
You've done it so many times that you, you've seen a pattern.
So you finally are on a roll, you're finally doing better with
this and you're getting closer to your goal.
(17:35):
And there might be some things that slow you down or discourage
you. You hit a plateau, you give up or whatever.
But what if you are progressing and you're getting closer to
it and people start to notice and people are saying things and
sometimes you're the sabotager person, sometimes other people
sabotage you and they might say things that you
(17:58):
don't need to lose weight, you're getting too thin, or what do
you think you need to do that for? Or you already, you're a mom
and you shouldn't care about your weight.
You know, whatever. I You know, I've, I wouldn't say I've heard
it all, but I probably have heard it all.
And
you, you start just to back away from that goal
(18:18):
and think I, I'm really resistant. It's making me uncomfortable
because I don't like the level of attention I'm getting.
I don't know what it's going to be like when I do
get more attention. Sometimes the comments are, you look so
much better then do you feel horrible about how
you looked before? You know, it just, it just brings
(18:41):
new things and you're used to the old problems, right?
So you say, I'll just stay with the old problems and
you back away from your goal and you, you don't do it.
And whatever situation you can think, I'm, whatever it is
that you're trying to reach for me being a podcast host,
I want to have two episodes a week. Why?
(19:03):
Because I just feel the need to. I want to, I like doing
it, it's bringing me joy. I feel driven to do
it. So I'm doing it. So that' that's my little experience.
And whatever yours is, if you have those self doubt
moments come in, you want to try a new career, you
want to try something new, you've had a goal to travel somewhere
(19:23):
and you start making plans to do it.
And then you start seeing reasons why you shouldn't, why you
shouldn't. And unless they're really valid reasons, notice is
it your own thoughts that are getting in the way?
And what happens with these thoughts is they're not only bad
for how you feel about yourself, but they also trigger behaviors
(19:45):
that cause you to bolt and run, that cause you
to do things like procrastinate. Like maybe you think, I still
want to work toward this, but I don't have time today, I'll do
that next week. It makes me too nervous to think
about it right now. It's too stressful to try to book flights
right now. Or you're overthinking it, or you just have all these,
(20:07):
these things that are already maybe something that you struggle
with starting it and not finishing it.
And the reason behind that behavior is because there's
some kind of fear there or you really don't want to know
what will happen if you do all of it.
You're going to have to carry it through.
You don't have to, but you know what I mean, you're afraid of
(20:29):
carrying it through. And the more that you listen to those voices
that are self doubting, they reinforce
that frame, you know, that measurement of this is how
much I'll do in life. This is where I'm comfortable.
This is where I should stay. It just keeps reinforcing.
(20:49):
This is the level I should be at in life.
If there's such a level, you know what I mean?
You have a little frame and. And you think
I'm just much more comfortable here.
I'm not going to push and I'm not going to make a change.
And that's a little like. It's a little alarm that goes
off in your body when you. That self doubt might be
(21:12):
an indication of some fear. It might be an indication of feeling
like you don't really want to see what
happens if you do it. You don't want to have possible negative
experiences that you don't know about.
But there are possible positive experiences.
So why do we base it on the possible negative experiences when
(21:34):
the risk is very minimal? And so there's some
self talk. I looked this up. I looked this up because
what do you do? I have my own little frame of reference
just noticing what's going on in my mind.
Can I identify that? But if you really see
(21:57):
it for what's happening in this kind of frame instead of what's
happening here. I'm just nervous because I'm afraid to do it.
But you said you were going to do it before.
But if you look at it through the view
of I'm going to do something really great, instead of
thinking about it, I'm doing something unknown.
That's scary. Say my brain is trying to.
(22:20):
To tell me it's not comfortable with going into an
area of more success, of more happiness, of more
whatever that I've experienced before, more
attention, more this more whatever it is.
When we learn and grow, we're doing those new things and
(22:43):
it's exciting to learn and grow. One of the exciting things for
me anyway, I don't travel that much.
But going and traveling is just being able to take
in in so many new elements. It could be
the people. Just the idea. I didn't travel to another country
besides Tijuana. So that's the only country if you're in
(23:03):
California, you know, that's like right below Chula Vista, San
Diego. So it's really close to the border.
So it's about as close, close to the US as you
can get in Mexico. And I went there and bought some huaraches
in college. I don't know that people just go back and forth on
the border like that anymore. But anyway, that was my exposure
to going into a foreign country. Where people didn't speak
(23:26):
English as their primary language. Well, that could be different
parts of LA too, you know, that could be going into different
areas and hearing Spanish. I was used to that.
That wasn't an eye opener to me at all.
And when I went to Eastern Europe on my first
trip out of the country, I was kind of blown away by
(23:47):
it. Like, the US is not the center of the
earth like we think it is. California is not the center of the
earth. And yeah, they might have TV shows, Hollywood
music that they're playing, and they love to learn English, but
they have their own lives and we're not a part of it.
You know, it was just an eye opener to me in a lot
of ways. Culturally,
(24:10):
my goodness, everything they have is so small.
We had a Suburban at the time, six kids that would look
like a school bus there. Their cars were so tiny
and their bathrooms, their showers were so tiny, their
everything. Like the showers, the built in showers that
(24:31):
they had. There was only one shower that was bigger because it
was a tub shower. But you had to hold the thing up from
below. It didn't actually have a faucet.
Thing came from up above. But we stayed in a lot
of Airbnbs and stuff. But most of the showers were just
so small that your shampoo would have to be this close to your
chest. That was uncomfortable for me.
(24:51):
I felt very spoiled because that was uncomfortable for me.
That I can lengthen out my arms in a comfortable way
to shampoo my hair. Yeah, little things like that.
So. And even traveling, just seeing new places, new
kinds of architecture and landscape, all kinds of things.
(25:12):
Right. So that aspect of traveling is exciting
for people because it opens your eyes, you're learning, you're
growing. And when we have a desire to do something and
we start going toward it, we can have a similar experience
of learning and growing by being exposed to something
(25:33):
new. But our brain tries to keep us where it's safe
and it's trying to keep us where we're not, expanding our capacity,
our abilities. And if you start to notice what's
happening, okay, I'm getting uncomfortable.
I'm giving myself a lot of negative self talk, a
lot of negative ideas in my head that just feel
(25:56):
like they're true. Because I'm kind of afraid
of learning and growing and I need to see
what's happening and I need to tell myself it's okay, keep
going. Like, just like you're a guide, somebody's, you know,
like, I don't know, I don't want to climb that mountain.
I don't know if I can make it. And like here, I'm right with
(26:17):
you. You can do this. This was a good idea and
I know you're ready for it. Guide yourself and tell yourself
you're moving in the right direction.
Keep going, keep going and see what happens.
See what wonderful things come of this
from here.
(26:38):
If you are moving in a direction of something that you really
feel driven to do, the chance is it's something that you love
to do. It goes along with what I talked about at
the beginning, having gifts, having something to offer the world.
And so whatever gifts that you have inside of you, that it
might be something that's more silent, not in front of people,
but maybe sharing something, it might be photographic, it might
(27:02):
be
working with children, it might be, you know, different things
that you could do that might go a level beyond what you've
done before. Maybe you go into the medical field, you haven't
worked a full time job, but now you do want to because you want
to help people in a different way. And whatever that is, just
see yourself as I'm moving in this direction.
(27:24):
It was once a good idea, it's still a good idea.
Keep going. And the key to doing this is
seeing if it aligns with what makes you happy to begin
with. Did you go in that direction because it aligned
with something that gives you joy? It's something that you would
love to do. And it doesn't even feel like work.
(27:46):
It feels, it's fun for you. You want to do this.
You think this is really fun. Like, I've always loved speaking
in front of people. Crazy enough. I don't know why I think it's
fun, but I, I do. I just do. And you might have
your thing. I don't know why I think it's fun, but I do.
It might not make sense to others, but it makes sense to me.
And I want to pursue that. I want to do something with
(28:08):
it and see what happens.
So if you've heard of your zone of genius, of
your zone of genius, I don't know if this author is the only
one who talks about it, but he also talks about finding
that zone, that area where it makes you
(28:29):
feel joy, it makes you feel fulfilled, and you
just feel great inside and you just feel like, yeah, this is
natural to me. It might not be natural to somebody else.
And on the flip side, you might look at something somebody else
is doing and say, no way, I would never want to do that.
I feel that way. When people say they want to run a marathon
(28:50):
like, not me, or want to climb some big mountain and jump
off. You know, I talked about climbing a mountain.
I do like climbing mountains, but I don't like steep cliffs and
stuff. So I, you know, that's not my goal.
But there are some things that, you know that's
just not your interest or you're just not good at it.
And it's okay. It doesn't mean, like, you're not good at
(29:12):
anything. If you point out the things you're not good at and
you accept those and you just don't pursue them anymore.
You just think, I'm not going to sew.
I'm not going to do crafts. I just feel bad about myself when
I do it. That's. I moved from the sewing to
the crafts in the past year or two. I've thrown away too many
Christmas, Halloween ornaments, just even little things out
(29:33):
of beads that people make. Mine are so stupidly awful.
They're just really bad. But if you're not good at it, don't
think you have to go there. So that's what they call the zone
of incompetence. And then there might be the zone
of what you're competent at. What can you do?
But it's not like you do it that great.
(29:54):
And other people can probably do it just as well.
If you think about music talent, some people are really, really,
really gifted at music, playing the piano, singing,
whatever it is. Some really excel at it, but they're
not quite as like at that level
(30:16):
as Whitney Houston. Very few people are with singing.
I mean, maybe a lot of people are. If you go onto Spotify, there's
a lot of people who can sing. I'm trying to look at this and
think, is my singing the competent or the excellent?
I don't think it's excellent, but I think it's.
I think it's better than competent. So there could be some in
between.
(30:36):
Oh, my goodness. I'm just laughing because with adhd, I have
to evaluate and I have to challenge that.
There are three things. There are four things.
There are five things. I have to challenge them in
my mind and see where I agree with it, where I don't.
And you might do that when you're listening to me.
That's totally fine. But there might be things you're competent
(30:57):
at. Maybe that's what your job is. Maybe you
can edit. I am competent in editing.
I majored in English. I probably thought when my
kids were in school that I was excellent at it and was
really good at it because I majored in English Now I wonder.
(31:18):
I have had a few editing jobs. I don't know.
I don't know that I'm as good at it as what I once
thought. But anyway, so I don't know if I fit into the zone of
excellence. But if you're in that zone of excellence, there are
things that you do really well. Maybe you've won awards
for it, or you've been applauded for it.
You know, you've play the guitar or whatever it is, or
(31:41):
you've run a race and people cheer you on and you're.
You're really great at it. But do you super love
doing it? Have you even seen this in your children?
Where you see a talent that they excel at, but it
doesn't make them as happy to do it as
you want, as you. You think it should?
That's one of my daughters was singing.
(32:02):
She had such. Still does. Beautiful voice.
And at some point she didn't want to sing
in front of people. And it made me really sad
it that that didn't feel safe for her anymore and
I had to honor that. So I get to enjoy her private
concerts. She still lives with us. But your zone of genius,
(32:25):
what are the things that you are so suited
for that make you so energized that you could
do for a really long time and not feel drained, not feel wiped
out? They bring out the best in you and you
love it. And maybe you can't do it forever,
(32:46):
maybe not forever, because I even look at this.
I love children. I love to be around children.
And the more that I live, I realize that not
everyone loves to be with children as much or they don't enjoy
them as much like I. I think we all do with
our grandchildren, a few grandchildren, or we all do, hopefully
with, you know, our own kids and our own grandchildren.
(33:06):
But yeah, I just. Children are just amazing.
And maybe everybody thinks this, but I really don't think so.
I hear a lot of people who are very intolerant of children or
not very patient, and. And so I think I
excel at that. If it's something that you can excel
at, I actually just think it's a gift.
(33:27):
It's one of my gifts of being able to love people.
But loving children, and some people love babies.
I do love babies. I just didn't always love newborns.
I don't know if you value yourself as much as I do.
Okay, I gotta stop making it so personal here, but
I hope you're making it personal for you.
I hope you're evaluating in your mind.
(33:48):
What is it about me? What I've learned, like
with teaching yoga? Is that what I thought I
was offering sometimes was different.
Like I had a goal with teaching yoga of I want to share this
with people. I want them to figure out how this can help
them and I can give them that opportunity.
(34:10):
What I learned from others, feedback over time was where
my zone of genius was in that. And it was so different
than anything I ever would have thought that I set up.
But it was just the way I connected with them and the way
that I taught them, not what I taught them.
Does that make sense? And you may get feedback from
(34:32):
people. You know what's so great about you?
I hope you get feedback like that. You know what's different
about the way you do this is you do.
And that helps you see what your level of genius is and
where you might want to go further, further with
it. What gives you the sense of like, I
(34:57):
don't know, just joy. Joy. So yeah, so whatever
it is, that is that area for you, if you
start pursuing it and you start to see, oh no,
I'm getting afraid, I'm getting afraid, maybe I'm not as great
at this. Maybe this doesn't make me as happy as I want it
(35:17):
to. Just know that you have this mechanism
for whatever reason that's telling you you're about to
break through your old limits. You're not used to that.
Sure you want to go there? Yes, you need to go there.
We all have something to offer in life.
I truly, truly believe that. And sometimes it's.
(35:39):
It comes often it comes through, pushing through those limits.
And the older you get, you realize you only have
so much time on this earth. And if you want to try
things, if you want to pursue things, if you want to
see how you can learn and grow and help others, if
(36:02):
that's what you want to do, share things, whatever it is, make
more money, help your family out that way.
Don't let that self doubt tell you this means I can't
do it. Let that self doubt tell you
this means I'm getting close to that upper limit.
I'm about to go farther and I can step through
(36:25):
that. I can step through that. So have you ever seen
Field of Dreams? Most of us have with Kevin Costner.
And there's that scene where the Doctor who
is the older doctor doc in town. And then Kevin Costner
(36:45):
goes back and sees him with James Earl Jones.
I don't know what his character's name is.
He's that professor. He goes, he's able to go
back in time and see this doctor when he was a young
kid and how this kid wanted to play baseball and wanted
to play baseball, wanted to play baseball, and it was just his
dream. And he got to go to Field of Dreams.
(37:08):
If you don't know this movie, I apologize.
Go see it. But it's not a spoiler if I tell you this, so
it's not the main point, but he gets to go out
in that field. And here he is, this young kid, he's this rookie,
and he gets to go on the field and play with legends.
And he's out there playing and just having the
(37:29):
time of his life. It is his dream, right?
But
he later went on to become a doctor because we already saw him
when he was older and everything when he was doc, and he talked
about say hi to the missus or whatever.
So anyway, so he's on this field playing with these, with these,
all these players. And outside of that field of dreams is
(37:52):
the real life. People sitting on the bleachers going, I can't
believe we get to see this, watching these people.
And they're in a different realm. And they're sitting there and
the little girl falls off the back of the bleachers and
she chokes on a hot dog. And they're like, oh,
no. You know anybody like. And they're trying to help her and
(38:14):
they're not able to do the Heimlich maneuver.
And the young kid sees what's happening and
he starts to go over there and thinks, I become a
doctor someday. He knows what his zone became in life
at that point. He knew what he loved, which was the
(38:34):
baseball, but that wasn't his true purpose.
And he starts to go toward the girl to help her and
Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. See, wait a minute.
We know if you cross over this line, you're going to
be that doctor. You'll never be able to go back into
that field and play again like that.
(38:56):
That career is over. And he takes that step over and as soon
as his foot goes over, it changes from the baseball cleat to
the old man's shoe. And he steps over there and helps the
girl, and the girl's fine. But I just love that message because
there are moments like that where we're literally stepping over
a line, a line line of wet discomfort, of fear.
(39:18):
But if you have as much sure knowledge of your purpose
or that you're need to do this is great.
Then you do it. You do it and you fulfill that purpose.
You go on and you help people in life, if that's
what that. That helps you do. We all think of
making the world a better place in some way.
(39:39):
We all can do that, right, with the gifts that we have.
So hopefully I'm not losing you too much here.
But, yeah, just tell yourself, keep going, keep
going, keep going. I've got to keep going here myself.
I've been, like I said, I've been sitting here now, it's been
like over four hours
(40:00):
not talking to you. You're probably thinking, no, you haven't
talked to me that long. If you don't remember.
At the beginning, I was working on the audio and hopefully it
worked out. Cause I'm still holding this little blanket.
I'll probably get another microphone for this later.
But for now, this is what it is and
it's working, I hope. Anyway, thank you for being here.
This is my episode 99. Because I really think that episode
(40:23):
100 was scaring. Like, what does that mean?
Does it, like, did you do. Did you achieve anything in that hundred
episodes? You've been doing this for a year and a half.
Have you met any of your goals? In many ways, yes.
In many ways, no, not at all.
I'm still living the ADHD life in a lot of
(40:44):
ways, too. But that's okay. I'm learning, I'm growing, and I'm
loving it. I'm loving it. So thank you so much for being
here. I will be back again. It's not going to take me
as long to come back as it did last time.
And I'll talk to you later. Bye.
(41:20):
Time for a party
rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies uncash the silence
(41:46):
of sound has yet been found but not by
me.
Sa
(00:41):
hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I'm so excited to be here. It is 4:23 on
whatever day it is. Tuesday. I came in here before noon
working on the audio. Okay, that's wrong.
I came in here before 1. It's afternoon, but I
(01:03):
had a yoga class at 1. So I came in for about 20 minutes before
with the idea of getting the audio right.
So right afterwards I could make a podcast.
And it's been two, almost two and a half hours.
But I was determined not to let this stop me.
And I actually enjoy the problem solving aspects.
(01:23):
But yeah, my apologies to you because I have a
story for everything and I really wanted to be able
to record on video again, to be able to publish on YouTube
and have good quality audio. And I wasn't able to do
it with the same microphone before, so I'm just checking the
audio. So I'm recording on two different computers.
(01:43):
Long story, but I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
And it's. I don't know. There's so many topics with
adhd. One is hyperfocus. Sometimes people say things like,
and this can be a different episode.
It's not the title of today's. You probably already know that.
But
yeah, adhd, the whole story of. Is it really an attention
(02:04):
problem? Can you not pay attention? A lot of people say no,
because you can pay attention to certain things.
But I say it's still an attention problem because there's a lot
of things that I can't pay attention on.
Probably more that I can't pay attention than I can.
But as far as hyper focusing, when I do focus
on something, it almost becomes like a compulsion.
(02:25):
It's almost like an addiction. It's almost like I don't want
to. Well, it is like I can't. I don't want to do anything
else. I want to just keep working on it, whether
it has meaning or not. Like this. It had meaning.
I was trying to solve a problem and get the audio to you correctly.
Which, the more you learn about adhd, you start putting
all the little dots together. Like. Well, part of that's because
(02:46):
that perfectionism aspect, you really want it to be this way,
and it's not. Yeah. And the thing is, it's not like,
by everyone else's standards, it's perfect.
But it's your idea of perfect. You see a glitch and you don't
want it to stay that way. But anyway.
Yeah. So it can drive you Crazy. The hyper focus
thing, it can be helpful at times to really get
(03:07):
into a groove and work on things. But it was helpful this time.
It doesn't seem like a long term solution because the microphone
actually holding inside a blanket like I've rescued a little
animal or something.
But I tried out this one microphone that I've used for
a long time with yoga. But lately the Bluetooth part hasn't
(03:28):
been working. And so with the live streaming at the
same time, so I haven't used it and I thought we'll try
that. Well, it sounded really echoey for a video like this.
So I thought, well, I don't want it echoey.
And I remembered I have a lavalier mic.
I don't know if you know what those are, but those are the ones
that you can clip to your shirt or something so it's really
close to your mouth. Well, that one was a little better, but
(03:49):
it was still echoey. And I thought, well, they have these windscreens.
I tried this wind furry thing. Sorry to the
other mic. I just bumped and I tried that and it didn't
really help. It's really for the wind gusts if you're outside.
So this one I decided, even though it already had one of these
little foam things around it, I decided to take this blanket
(04:10):
that was already on my lap conveniently enough, and make a little
wind. Not a wind, a sound, soundproofing environment.
Because one of the things they say you can do is make a little
box with soundproof foam, but it doesn't really work
for video because then you have this box around to the
edges and you know, that's what you would see.
It works for audio only. So I decided to use my little
(04:32):
fluffy blanket that my daughter's boyfriend gave me for Christmas
last year, so. Or the Christmas before, I can't remember which.
But anyway, I do love the blanket. Maybe it was a birthday,
who knows? I can't keep track. But that's not even the topic.
The topic is what I was going to save for episode 100.
But I decided to talk about it today in episode
(04:54):
99 because it might not seem like a
big deal to anyone but me that episode 100
is almost here. And I've been noticing that ever since
I knew I was getting closer to that number.
I was less consistent with my
(05:16):
recording. And yeah, there was a problem with the sound.
And yeah, there were these other problems.
And yeah, I moved to this room, but I focused on everything but
this. I kept thinking, well, if this is just right, I rearrange
if you can see with this camera. I rearranged every book
on the bookshelf. I decluttered books.
I bought new baskets to put books in.
(05:37):
I did all kinds of things to make it better for
the podcast, but really it was to avoid doing the podcast.
Well, why would I be avoiding doing the podcast?
Do I not like doing it? No, I love doing it.
Do I think it's. People think I'm awful at
it? Maybe, Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
Those people probably aren't listening, so I shouldn't worry
(05:57):
about them. Right. So, you know, you have all these thoughts
in your head, but the. The one thing that kept coming up to me
was this book that I read called the Big Leap.
And I mentioned it before by Gay Hendricks.
And he talks about a fear of
reaching your goal or reaching something higher than what
(06:20):
you even hoped for. He talks about it
a little bit differently than I accept it in my mind or how
I see it play out for me. But his upper limit problem
that he talks about is that we all have
kind of a measuring tape of how, how much happiness we
(06:40):
can have in life, how much success we can have, maybe financial
success, success with our families, if that's even
measurable. You know, whatever we feel, whatever we see as
possible, we have a limit with it. And I
know for me, I grew up in a family. None of my relatives
made a lot of money. No one made a lot of money.
(07:02):
And we're okay with that. But at the same time,
it could have been nicer. And especially in today's age,
it's harder to buy a house. It's harder to keep your
house. It's harder to buy a new car when your car
wears down. You know, all those things.
At least I think more than when my parents and that obviously
(07:24):
people didn't. Well, if you live. Back then, people didn't have
the same standard of living as we do now.
We didn't have electronics. There was one TV in most homes.
And when I was growing up getting a colored tv, I started out
with a black and white tv. Colored TV was a big deal.
A microwave was a big deal. I mentioned probably before that
I bought my parents their first microwave when I was in college.
(07:46):
Microwaves had been around for a while, but they never saw the
pressure or the need or whatever. They never had an expectation
that they had to buy something if they couldn't afford it.
Whereas that's a world that we live in.
It's buying things because we need them, not because we can
necessarily afford them. So it causes.
There's a lot of problems, right. Financially.
(08:08):
And I look at my family now and none
of us are really making any money. And I have a big family.
Like, my dad is the oldest of seven kids.
My mom, there's four children in her family and
grandchildren on my dad's family with seven kids, grandchildren
galore. Like, when we have a family reunion, there's over 100
(08:31):
people there. And that's at least half of the people aren't
there. So there's a lot of people and maybe some
of them have more money than I know about.
But not very many of us have reached some really
big money status where we're living comfortably,
not needing to work, anything like that.
(08:51):
And that's okay. That is most of us, right?
But as I've been an adult, I
was a stay at home mom. Totally love that.
So glad I did that. Really resist working a 40 hour
a week job. Ever since I became a mom, I worked full
time until my first daughter was born, literally till the night
(09:13):
I went to the hospital and just never had to desire
to work 40 hours a week for a company ever again.
And now that I look at it, I think that whole locked in thing
about that I talked about in the last episode, the structure
versus freedom. I could not see myself fitting into
that structure with the responsibilities I have as a mom.
(09:35):
And I could look at it well, the responsibilities as a mom could
also be financial. So, yeah, why are you not looking at
it that way? But the way that my brain works, there was
something there, right? But getting back to the big leap book
or the are you afraid of success? Are you resisting?
Say, I don't even know if we're afraid of it, but we might be
(09:56):
afraid of it. That's gay. Hendrix is more like,
we think we're not worth it, we're not worthy of it.
We have a level of, I can be this happy, but you can't be
happy all the time. And he says, yeah, you can be happy all the
time. I don't even know if I agree with that because we have
all kinds of emotions in our bodies and I believe our bodies
were designed to experience those emotions.
(10:17):
So some of the time that might be tears, some of the time
that might be anger. For me, I'm more like that, you know the
movie with the Disney movie, whatever it's called, with all
the moods. But I do like his idea that
something is stopping us. Have you ever gone toward a
goal or started feeling like, I didn't know it could
(10:40):
be this good and then you start thinking, you know, like
you're putting on the brakes and you're thinking, maybe, maybe
not, maybe not. And you resist it for some reason.
Sometimes it's pretty evident, you know, you just think, what
was I thinking? Why did I even. What was I even thinking
and planning to do that? I've thought that many times with this
podcast. Even though for probably six or seven years I wanted
(11:01):
to have podcasts, I didn't know what for, I didn't know what
for, but I knew I wanted to help people
in some way or connect with people in some way.
I had that great need and I still do, but something
stops me every once in a while. And often we talk
about self doubt. Self doubt can stop us.
(11:23):
But what's even deeper, why are we having that response?
Why are we having that mechanism? Do we really believe those
negative things about ourselves? Maybe at times, but probably
most of the time, no. You probably know what you're capable of.
I hope you know what you're capable of.
Because all of us have gifts. We have amazing gifts that we can
share with people in our lives, but with the world to some
(11:46):
degree. And you have these talents, these
gifts, and you go after things or you decide,
maybe you're an artist. I'm going to draw these things and maybe
I'll have an online business or a ceramic shop
and you have these ideas. And I've even seen myself look at
(12:07):
other people who share ideas like that with me.
And not that I ever would think, you can't do that.
I just think, oh, it's probably not possible.
You know, I have a friend. I kind of hesitate talking about
friends, but this is a friend who's done amazing things and he
doesn't know this, so he probably won't listen.
But anyway, years ago,
(12:28):
when we were about to move away, he said that he was a surfer
and he said, I want to have a surf shop.
I want to open a surf shop. He was out of high school, got married
young and said, I want to have a surface surf
shop in this downtown square of this town, this college
town that was nearby. And I thought, oh, there's probably so
much more involved in that of being a business owner or,
(12:50):
you know, how much would it cost to rent space there and
maintain a business and would people even support it?
And then the, you know, the heating bills and, you know, like,
so that's what, that's what my reality was for him.
I saw these upper limits. He never saw the upper limits.
And when we moved away, all of a sudden I'D see posts
(13:11):
on social media with his wife or him that
they'd opened a surf shop, that it was successful even to
the point where he had more than one business.
And he ended up selling the surf shop and doing quite well.
They built a really nice house for themselves.
He didn't see that same limit that I did.
And I didn't discourage him anyway, in any way, I don't think.
(13:34):
Anyway, hopefully, you know, sometimes people can sense
your doubt. But I don't think I discouraged him in any way.
But I look at that and I think, okay, how many
times have I done that for myself? How many times have you done
that where you think, I would love to do that, but it's not
possible. That only works out for other people.
(13:55):
I don't know that I agree with thinking we're
not worth it. Maybe that's an accurate term psychologically or
whoever this professor was, I can't remember what his background
was. He taught it at Stanford. But he says that when
life starts going too well or it's getting close to it and better
than what we feel comfortable with, what we think that we deserve
(14:18):
or that we're comfortable with or, you know, it's not
outside of our box, we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to bring
ourselves back to what's familiar. And that makes sense to
me when I think of the fear aspect that can come into it of
like, I'm afraid of that. It's new to me, I haven't done it,
I'm afraid of it. It's scary. Some people might think
(14:41):
I'm lame if I fail at it or
whatever. Or what if I work at this for 20 years and
I still fail? All of those things are those
messages that we give ourselves that just bring us back to what's
familiar. If we don't try, we don't have to.
And he says, this author says that these things are
(15:02):
possible. He's worked with people all over the world and brought
them past that upper limit problem. Even billionaires.
He said, it doesn't even matter how much money you have, you
have an upper limit problem. It could be family relationships.
We'll never have happiness in our family.
We'll never get along. Any of that. That might show up as
you picking a fight with someone because you don't know what
(15:23):
it's like to get along and you're more comfortable in that fight
picking area. Or maybe you are used to being
the person who's sick all the time or who knows, you
know, whatever that mode is, it's not really
what I think of for us. But it might be, I don't
know, maybe, maybe you're used to having people not view you
(15:45):
as a strong person and you want to be strong for once.
I don't know. I'm just thinking of things that I don't.
I can relate so much more to the things I can relate to.
But. But anyway, if you do, if you think that either
you don't deserve that success or something unknown, uncomfortable
will happen, if you have that level of success, then you'll stop
(16:07):
yourself from achieving that. And we don't want
to do that. Right. We don't want to stop ourselves from accomplishing
great things. So for women with adhd, what
would be our reasons? What would be some of the areas that
this might show up? And if you are in my area, era
area, if you're in my era of life, if
(16:31):
you've lived through the diet eras and all the we need to
lose weight and all of that, then you might be
really familiar with setting a goal.
I'm going to lose weight by this wedding or by this family
reunion because people are going to see me in a swimsuit and
I want to make sure that I'm looking good in that swimsuit.
(16:53):
So you really don't know what you're going to look
like at that weight. But we always use that number, right?
So I want to get to 127 or whatever your
goal weight would be. And you set that goal weight and
you make a little plan and you start working toward it.
And if you're like me, there's probably more times than not
(17:14):
that maybe didn't even last a day, but let's say it
did last more than a day. Maybe you've done this dozens, dozens
of times. Yeah, I was a yo yo dieter.
You've done it so many times that you, you've seen a pattern.
So you finally are on a roll, you're finally doing better with
this and you're getting closer to your goal.
(17:35):
And there might be some things that slow you down or discourage
you. You hit a plateau, you give up or whatever.
But what if you are progressing and you're getting closer to
it and people start to notice and people are saying things and
sometimes you're the sabotager person, sometimes other people
sabotage you and they might say things that you
(17:58):
don't need to lose weight, you're getting too thin, or what do
you think you need to do that for? Or you already, you're a mom
and you shouldn't care about your weight.
You know, whatever. I You know, I've, I wouldn't say I've heard
it all, but I probably have heard it all.
And
you, you start just to back away from that goal
(18:18):
and think I, I'm really resistant. It's making me uncomfortable
because I don't like the level of attention I'm getting.
I don't know what it's going to be like when I do
get more attention. Sometimes the comments are, you look so
much better then do you feel horrible about how
you looked before? You know, it just, it just brings
(18:41):
new things and you're used to the old problems, right?
So you say, I'll just stay with the old problems and
you back away from your goal and you, you don't do it.
And whatever situation you can think, I'm, whatever it is
that you're trying to reach for me being a podcast host,
I want to have two episodes a week. Why?
(19:03):
Because I just feel the need to. I want to, I like doing
it, it's bringing me joy. I feel driven to do
it. So I'm doing it. So that' that's my little experience.
And whatever yours is, if you have those self doubt
moments come in, you want to try a new career, you
want to try something new, you've had a goal to travel somewhere
(19:23):
and you start making plans to do it.
And then you start seeing reasons why you shouldn't, why you
shouldn't. And unless they're really valid reasons, notice is
it your own thoughts that are getting in the way?
And what happens with these thoughts is they're not only bad
for how you feel about yourself, but they also trigger behaviors
(19:45):
that cause you to bolt and run, that cause you
to do things like procrastinate. Like maybe you think, I still
want to work toward this, but I don't have time today, I'll do
that next week. It makes me too nervous to think
about it right now. It's too stressful to try to book flights
right now. Or you're overthinking it, or you just have all these,
(20:07):
these things that are already maybe something that you struggle
with starting it and not finishing it.
And the reason behind that behavior is because there's
some kind of fear there or you really don't want to know
what will happen if you do all of it.
You're going to have to carry it through.
You don't have to, but you know what I mean, you're afraid of
(20:29):
carrying it through. And the more that you listen to those voices
that are self doubting, they reinforce
that frame, you know, that measurement of this is how
much I'll do in life. This is where I'm comfortable.
This is where I should stay. It just keeps reinforcing.
(20:49):
This is the level I should be at in life.
If there's such a level, you know what I mean?
You have a little frame and. And you think
I'm just much more comfortable here.
I'm not going to push and I'm not going to make a change.
And that's a little like. It's a little alarm that goes
off in your body when you. That self doubt might be
(21:12):
an indication of some fear. It might be an indication of feeling
like you don't really want to see what
happens if you do it. You don't want to have possible negative
experiences that you don't know about.
But there are possible positive experiences.
So why do we base it on the possible negative experiences when
(21:34):
the risk is very minimal? And so there's some
self talk. I looked this up. I looked this up because
what do you do? I have my own little frame of reference
just noticing what's going on in my mind.
Can I identify that? But if you really see
(21:57):
it for what's happening in this kind of frame instead of what's
happening here. I'm just nervous because I'm afraid to do it.
But you said you were going to do it before.
But if you look at it through the view
of I'm going to do something really great, instead of
thinking about it, I'm doing something unknown.
That's scary. Say my brain is trying to.
(22:20):
To tell me it's not comfortable with going into an
area of more success, of more happiness, of more
whatever that I've experienced before, more
attention, more this more whatever it is.
When we learn and grow, we're doing those new things and
(22:43):
it's exciting to learn and grow. One of the exciting things for
me anyway, I don't travel that much.
But going and traveling is just being able to take
in in so many new elements. It could be
the people. Just the idea. I didn't travel to another country
besides Tijuana. So that's the only country if you're in
(23:03):
California, you know, that's like right below Chula Vista, San
Diego. So it's really close to the border.
So it's about as close, close to the US as you
can get in Mexico. And I went there and bought some huaraches
in college. I don't know that people just go back and forth on
the border like that anymore. But anyway, that was my exposure
to going into a foreign country. Where people didn't speak
(23:26):
English as their primary language. Well, that could be different
parts of LA too, you know, that could be going into different
areas and hearing Spanish. I was used to that.
That wasn't an eye opener to me at all.
And when I went to Eastern Europe on my first
trip out of the country, I was kind of blown away by
(23:47):
it. Like, the US is not the center of the
earth like we think it is. California is not the center of the
earth. And yeah, they might have TV shows, Hollywood
music that they're playing, and they love to learn English, but
they have their own lives and we're not a part of it.
You know, it was just an eye opener to me in a lot
of ways. Culturally,
(24:10):
my goodness, everything they have is so small.
We had a Suburban at the time, six kids that would look
like a school bus there. Their cars were so tiny
and their bathrooms, their showers were so tiny, their
everything. Like the showers, the built in showers that
(24:31):
they had. There was only one shower that was bigger because it
was a tub shower. But you had to hold the thing up from
below. It didn't actually have a faucet.
Thing came from up above. But we stayed in a lot
of Airbnbs and stuff. But most of the showers were just
so small that your shampoo would have to be this close to your
chest. That was uncomfortable for me.
(24:51):
I felt very spoiled because that was uncomfortable for me.
That I can lengthen out my arms in a comfortable way
to shampoo my hair. Yeah, little things like that.
So. And even traveling, just seeing new places, new
kinds of architecture and landscape, all kinds of things.
(25:12):
Right. So that aspect of traveling is exciting
for people because it opens your eyes, you're learning, you're
growing. And when we have a desire to do something and
we start going toward it, we can have a similar experience
of learning and growing by being exposed to something
(25:33):
new. But our brain tries to keep us where it's safe
and it's trying to keep us where we're not, expanding our capacity,
our abilities. And if you start to notice what's
happening, okay, I'm getting uncomfortable.
I'm giving myself a lot of negative self talk, a
lot of negative ideas in my head that just feel
(25:56):
like they're true. Because I'm kind of afraid
of learning and growing and I need to see
what's happening and I need to tell myself it's okay, keep
going. Like, just like you're a guide, somebody's, you know,
like, I don't know, I don't want to climb that mountain.
I don't know if I can make it. And like here, I'm right with
(26:17):
you. You can do this. This was a good idea and
I know you're ready for it. Guide yourself and tell yourself
you're moving in the right direction.
Keep going, keep going and see what happens.
See what wonderful things come of this
from here.
(26:38):
If you are moving in a direction of something that you really
feel driven to do, the chance is it's something that you love
to do. It goes along with what I talked about at
the beginning, having gifts, having something to offer the world.
And so whatever gifts that you have inside of you, that it
might be something that's more silent, not in front of people,
but maybe sharing something, it might be photographic, it might
(27:02):
be
working with children, it might be, you know, different things
that you could do that might go a level beyond what you've
done before. Maybe you go into the medical field, you haven't
worked a full time job, but now you do want to because you want
to help people in a different way. And whatever that is, just
see yourself as I'm moving in this direction.
(27:24):
It was once a good idea, it's still a good idea.
Keep going. And the key to doing this is
seeing if it aligns with what makes you happy to begin
with. Did you go in that direction because it aligned
with something that gives you joy? It's something that you would
love to do. And it doesn't even feel like work.
(27:46):
It feels, it's fun for you. You want to do this.
You think this is really fun. Like, I've always loved speaking
in front of people. Crazy enough. I don't know why I think it's
fun, but I, I do. I just do. And you might have
your thing. I don't know why I think it's fun, but I do.
It might not make sense to others, but it makes sense to me.
And I want to pursue that. I want to do something with
(28:08):
it and see what happens.
So if you've heard of your zone of genius, of
your zone of genius, I don't know if this author is the only
one who talks about it, but he also talks about finding
that zone, that area where it makes you
(28:29):
feel joy, it makes you feel fulfilled, and you
just feel great inside and you just feel like, yeah, this is
natural to me. It might not be natural to somebody else.
And on the flip side, you might look at something somebody else
is doing and say, no way, I would never want to do that.
I feel that way. When people say they want to run a marathon
(28:50):
like, not me, or want to climb some big mountain and jump
off. You know, I talked about climbing a mountain.
I do like climbing mountains, but I don't like steep cliffs and
stuff. So I, you know, that's not my goal.
But there are some things that, you know that's
just not your interest or you're just not good at it.
And it's okay. It doesn't mean, like, you're not good at
(29:12):
anything. If you point out the things you're not good at and
you accept those and you just don't pursue them anymore.
You just think, I'm not going to sew.
I'm not going to do crafts. I just feel bad about myself when
I do it. That's. I moved from the sewing to
the crafts in the past year or two. I've thrown away too many
Christmas, Halloween ornaments, just even little things out
(29:33):
of beads that people make. Mine are so stupidly awful.
They're just really bad. But if you're not good at it, don't
think you have to go there. So that's what they call the zone
of incompetence. And then there might be the zone
of what you're competent at. What can you do?
But it's not like you do it that great.
(29:54):
And other people can probably do it just as well.
If you think about music talent, some people are really, really,
really gifted at music, playing the piano, singing,
whatever it is. Some really excel at it, but they're
not quite as like at that level
(30:16):
as Whitney Houston. Very few people are with singing.
I mean, maybe a lot of people are. If you go onto Spotify, there's
a lot of people who can sing. I'm trying to look at this and
think, is my singing the competent or the excellent?
I don't think it's excellent, but I think it's.
I think it's better than competent. So there could be some in
between.
(30:36):
Oh, my goodness. I'm just laughing because with adhd, I have
to evaluate and I have to challenge that.
There are three things. There are four things.
There are five things. I have to challenge them in
my mind and see where I agree with it, where I don't.
And you might do that when you're listening to me.
That's totally fine. But there might be things you're competent
(30:57):
at. Maybe that's what your job is. Maybe you
can edit. I am competent in editing.
I majored in English. I probably thought when my
kids were in school that I was excellent at it and was
really good at it because I majored in English Now I wonder.
(31:18):
I have had a few editing jobs. I don't know.
I don't know that I'm as good at it as what I once
thought. But anyway, so I don't know if I fit into the zone of
excellence. But if you're in that zone of excellence, there are
things that you do really well. Maybe you've won awards
for it, or you've been applauded for it.
You know, you've play the guitar or whatever it is, or
(31:41):
you've run a race and people cheer you on and you're.
You're really great at it. But do you super love
doing it? Have you even seen this in your children?
Where you see a talent that they excel at, but it
doesn't make them as happy to do it as
you want, as you. You think it should?
That's one of my daughters was singing.
(32:02):
She had such. Still does. Beautiful voice.
And at some point she didn't want to sing
in front of people. And it made me really sad
it that that didn't feel safe for her anymore and
I had to honor that. So I get to enjoy her private
concerts. She still lives with us. But your zone of genius,
(32:25):
what are the things that you are so suited
for that make you so energized that you could
do for a really long time and not feel drained, not feel wiped
out? They bring out the best in you and you
love it. And maybe you can't do it forever,
(32:46):
maybe not forever, because I even look at this.
I love children. I love to be around children.
And the more that I live, I realize that not
everyone loves to be with children as much or they don't enjoy
them as much like I. I think we all do with
our grandchildren, a few grandchildren, or we all do, hopefully
with, you know, our own kids and our own grandchildren.
(33:06):
But yeah, I just. Children are just amazing.
And maybe everybody thinks this, but I really don't think so.
I hear a lot of people who are very intolerant of children or
not very patient, and. And so I think I
excel at that. If it's something that you can excel
at, I actually just think it's a gift.
(33:27):
It's one of my gifts of being able to love people.
But loving children, and some people love babies.
I do love babies. I just didn't always love newborns.
I don't know if you value yourself as much as I do.
Okay, I gotta stop making it so personal here, but
I hope you're making it personal for you.
I hope you're evaluating in your mind.
(33:48):
What is it about me? What I've learned, like
with teaching yoga? Is that what I thought I
was offering sometimes was different.
Like I had a goal with teaching yoga of I want to share this
with people. I want them to figure out how this can help
them and I can give them that opportunity.
(34:10):
What I learned from others, feedback over time was where
my zone of genius was in that. And it was so different
than anything I ever would have thought that I set up.
But it was just the way I connected with them and the way
that I taught them, not what I taught them.
Does that make sense? And you may get feedback from
(34:32):
people. You know what's so great about you?
I hope you get feedback like that. You know what's different
about the way you do this is you do.
And that helps you see what your level of genius is and
where you might want to go further, further with
it. What gives you the sense of like, I
(34:57):
don't know, just joy. Joy. So yeah, so whatever
it is, that is that area for you, if you
start pursuing it and you start to see, oh no,
I'm getting afraid, I'm getting afraid, maybe I'm not as great
at this. Maybe this doesn't make me as happy as I want it
(35:17):
to. Just know that you have this mechanism
for whatever reason that's telling you you're about to
break through your old limits. You're not used to that.
Sure you want to go there? Yes, you need to go there.
We all have something to offer in life.
I truly, truly believe that. And sometimes it's.
(35:39):
It comes often it comes through, pushing through those limits.
And the older you get, you realize you only have
so much time on this earth. And if you want to try
things, if you want to pursue things, if you want to
see how you can learn and grow and help others, if
(36:02):
that's what you want to do, share things, whatever it is, make
more money, help your family out that way.
Don't let that self doubt tell you this means I can't
do it. Let that self doubt tell you
this means I'm getting close to that upper limit.
I'm about to go farther and I can step through
(36:25):
that. I can step through that. So have you ever seen
Field of Dreams? Most of us have with Kevin Costner.
And there's that scene where the Doctor who
is the older doctor doc in town. And then Kevin Costner
(36:45):
goes back and sees him with James Earl Jones.
I don't know what his character's name is.
He's that professor. He goes, he's able to go
back in time and see this doctor when he was a young
kid and how this kid wanted to play baseball and wanted
to play baseball, wanted to play baseball, and it was just his
dream. And he got to go to Field of Dreams.
(37:08):
If you don't know this movie, I apologize.
Go see it. But it's not a spoiler if I tell you this, so
it's not the main point, but he gets to go out
in that field. And here he is, this young kid, he's this rookie,
and he gets to go on the field and play with legends.
And he's out there playing and just having the
(37:29):
time of his life. It is his dream, right?
But
he later went on to become a doctor because we already saw him
when he was older and everything when he was doc, and he talked
about say hi to the missus or whatever.
So anyway, so he's on this field playing with these, with these,
all these players. And outside of that field of dreams is
(37:52):
the real life. People sitting on the bleachers going, I can't
believe we get to see this, watching these people.
And they're in a different realm. And they're sitting there and
the little girl falls off the back of the bleachers and
she chokes on a hot dog. And they're like, oh,
no. You know anybody like. And they're trying to help her and
(38:14):
they're not able to do the Heimlich maneuver.
And the young kid sees what's happening and
he starts to go over there and thinks, I become a
doctor someday. He knows what his zone became in life
at that point. He knew what he loved, which was the
(38:34):
baseball, but that wasn't his true purpose.
And he starts to go toward the girl to help her and
Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. See, wait a minute.
We know if you cross over this line, you're going to
be that doctor. You'll never be able to go back into
that field and play again like that.
(38:56):
That career is over. And he takes that step over and as soon
as his foot goes over, it changes from the baseball cleat to
the old man's shoe. And he steps over there and helps the
girl, and the girl's fine. But I just love that message because
there are moments like that where we're literally stepping over
a line, a line line of wet discomfort, of fear.
(39:18):
But if you have as much sure knowledge of your purpose
or that you're need to do this is great.
Then you do it. You do it and you fulfill that purpose.
You go on and you help people in life, if that's
what that. That helps you do. We all think of
making the world a better place in some way.
(39:39):
We all can do that, right, with the gifts that we have.
So hopefully I'm not losing you too much here.
But, yeah, just tell yourself, keep going, keep
going, keep going. I've got to keep going here myself.
I've been, like I said, I've been sitting here now, it's been
like over four hours
(40:00):
not talking to you. You're probably thinking, no, you haven't
talked to me that long. If you don't remember.
At the beginning, I was working on the audio and hopefully it
worked out. Cause I'm still holding this little blanket.
I'll probably get another microphone for this later.
But for now, this is what it is and
it's working, I hope. Anyway, thank you for being here.
This is my episode 99. Because I really think that episode
(40:23):
100 was scaring. Like, what does that mean?
Does it, like, did you do. Did you achieve anything in that hundred
episodes? You've been doing this for a year and a half.
Have you met any of your goals? In many ways, yes.
In many ways, no, not at all.
I'm still living the ADHD life in a lot of
(40:44):
ways, too. But that's okay. I'm learning, I'm growing, and I'm
loving it. I'm loving it. So thank you so much for being
here. I will be back again. It's not going to take me
as long to come back as it did last time.
And I'll talk to you later. Bye.
(41:20):
Time for a party
rewind I run out of time to sing
Melodies and harmonies uncash the silence
(41:46):
of sound has yet been found but not by
me.
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