New Year, new you? Nope! Not for ADHD entrepreneurs. Here's why!

Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel 2024 is nearly here. New Year, new you? Uh, nope. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weenie Castle. Squirrel. As we come up on the end of the year, we are entering a very special time in the anxiously ambitious ADHD entrepreneur's brain. And that is New Year's resolution time. And in this episode, I'm going to preemptively bust whatever you think you are going to be doing in the New year, because it's not going to be New Year, new you, it's going to be New Year. Same you like it has every single year of your life. Just because the calendar reflects the New Year doesn't mean anything is going to inherently change about you unless you actually change something about your life. So we're going to dive into what you can actually do to actually stick to your goals in the New year. For the most part, most New Year's resolutions are absolute crap. They are an intention that you're going to set one day a year that is going to make you feel like garbage for not sticking to it for about 11 months. Which I don't know about you, but that does not sound like fun to me. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I'm not a big fan of the word motivation. I don't think motivation is actually a driving force to get us to do anything, at least not consistently. A lot of my listeners have asked, you know, how they can build discipline as an ADHD person, and we did a whole episode on it. Episode 59, if you want to go check it out. But the key to setting a goal for the New Year and actually following through on it is creating momentum. And not only that, but actually creating fundamental change in your life so that it's possible for you to reach that goal. Before we get into how you can actually stick to this thing, I want to talk about the different flavors of New Year's resolutions that people set for themselves. Two that are very closely related is finding a word for the New year or setting an intention. Now, your word could be something like brave, dedicated, believer, have faith. That's two words. So it'd Just be faith, I guess. Usually this is a New Year's resolution that is symbolic of some kind of spiritual awakening that you've had or a lot of personal growth that you've been working on. Maybe you're committed to being braver in this new year. I actually have a friend who every single year she gets a new word tattooed on her wrist. And she gets them small because, you know, like she's going to be alive for hopefully a really long time. She needs space. But it's a great reminder for her that when she looks down at her hands every single day, she sees this word. And I'm not telling you, you need to go and get a tattoo to do this. You don't. One of the things that gets us into trouble with setting New Year's resolutions is the whole object permanence thing. Setting a goal is a very non tangible thing. So whenever you're setting, giving yourself a word for the new year, an intention or a big goal, you have to create some kind of physical representation in your space that you're going to see every single day. Without this, it's going to be so easy for you to forget about this resolution a week into January and then remember it in April at some point and be like, ah, crap. Well, I failed at that, didn't I? So while getting a tattoo might be a bit extreme, some other options might be. You know, you could make one of those Taylor Swift friendship bracelets that has the word on it. You could put post it notes all over your house with that word on it. I want to remind you that after a while you will become blind to them. So you're going to want to put it in your calendar to refresh whatever this is from time to time. You can write on your mirrors in lipstick or in glass pen, whatever this new word is or whatever mantra you want to do. If you do this, I'll tell you from experience, you do have to tell your housekeeper to not wash it off every single week. I went through a lot of lipstick because I was also very self conscious about rewriting I'm Enough on all of my mirrors. I didn't want to tell her, have to explain it to her because I also think she thought I was a little nuts for it. Like I think she thought I was kind of a sad lady. I think she actually was very concerned for my mental health. Anyway, to your comfort level with this one, you know, you can also put it on the background of your phone for the lock screen. That is an option. But if you don't do this, if you don't create a physical representation of it, guess what? You're going to forget about it. I guarantee you. Out of sight, out of mind. If you don't see it, it does not exist. Just like the 17 pairs of headphones that you lost that are in pockets of your favorite jackets that you've never checked the pockets of. Similar to setting a word, you can set an intention. You know, I'm setting the intention that I'm going to be more present and setting the intention that I'm going to have more fun. I'm setting the intention of enter, whatever your intention is here. Intentions are beautiful things. I love them. I think they're way better than goals for long term things because it takes away that all or nothingness that we tend to attach to goals. And what I mean by that is I'm sure you've had this experience of thinking like, I'm going to get in shape. And then you create a workout calendar for yourself that has you doing cardio Monday, Wednesday, Fridays and doing weightlifting Tuesdays, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays, and then yoga on Sundays as well. And you're like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go full throttle every single day. I'm going to work out. Well, you get a few days in and you're sore and you're tired and instead of going to the gym after work, your friends are inviting you over for dinner and you're like, that sounds like more fun. And so you skip your workout on day four of the new year and the next day you think, oh, no, I ruined the plan. I didn't go to the gym yesterday, I didn't work out. Okay, well, you know, I've already kind of failed at it, so I guess I won't go today also. And then the next day, oh no, like, I'm really off the rails. This is not working. God. And then before you know it, the whole plan is tainted with failure and you don't even want to go back to it because you feel like you've already failed. You don't get any dopamine from it. Whereas if you set the intention of working out three to five times a week, there's a lot more forgiveness, there's a lot more flexibility, there's a lot more ability for you to rationalize with yourself that you just showed up. Some days you're going to be tired and sore from the workout the day before, but you're still gonna make it to the gym. But you know what? Instead of sprinting, instead of like punishing your body. You're gonna go for a 30 minute walk and that counts. So intentions are beautiful things, but the only way they get to be successful is if you make structural changes about your life. Intentions are usually about saying yes more to a certain thing. I'll bet you like 20 bucks that you're already probably pretty busy. Like there's a reason you haven't done this thing already. There's a reason you haven't done more fun things. There's a reason why you don't go to a museum once a month already. You don't have the time for it in your schedule, you know, you have other demands. You have family obligations, you have things at work. You have maybe some volunteer stuff that you do. For you to stick to any intentions that you set for yourself for this new year, you're gonna have to start saying no to something. I'm going to tell you the least sexy intention I set for myself one year, I was 26 years old and I decided, you know, I used to be one of those people who. I convinced myself that I would sleep when I was dead. I would stay up late and then I would get up super early and I'd be exhausted all day, day long. And I do this to myself several nights in a row until I'd crash and I'd need to sleep 12 hours. This is kind of how our culture has taught us to treat sleep. You know, it's something that you can steal from yourself. It's the thing that you can most easily sacrifice to get things done, to spend time with people, to get to work early, whatever. And also our brains don't have a way of cleaning itself without us sleeping. So the rest of your body, besides your brain, when there are dead cells it needs to get rid of, it has the whole limbic system that will actually clear out these dead cells, get rid of them 24 hours a day. Your brain does not have that system. They actually aren't really sure how the brain gets rid of cells. But one thing is clear is that the people who sleep more have less dead cells in their brains. So the only conclusion scientists have been able to make on this, and there may be more research, and if there is, please send it to me. But the conclusions that they've come to is the only time the brain can actually offload dead cells that no longer serve it, that are maybe clouding your judgment and making things harder for you to learn and do and all the things is when you're sleeping. So I heard this and I thought okay, well, that's absolutely not me. I'm not sleeping enough. And I set an intention for myself that New Year that I was going to sleep at least eight hours a night. Now to do this, I had to cancel hanging out with friends later in the evenings for me to do this consistently. I actually, at 26 years old, gave myself a bedtime of 9pm and in planning this out, I knew that I wasn't going to fall asleep at 9pm on the first night or on the second night or on the third night. But I made myself go to bed at that time and just rest, rest without the TV on, without my phone with me, until my circadian rhythm started getting acclimated to going to bed at 9pm and I actually started falling asleep really quickly. But it took some time and I planned this out after doing some research on it. After doing this for five months, I realized how unhappy I was in my job. I realized that I needed a break from city living. And I was able to strategize my exit from working at the company that I was at and from living in the city. The other crazy thing about forcing yourself to sleep eight hours a night is once you start, you can't stop. So this is something I have to be very conscious of in the now because eight, if I have to get up early, I genuinely have to go to bed super, super early because I will not wake up at my alarm. My body has grabbed onto these eight hours of sleep it gets every single night and will not let go. So I, I highly recommend this. If you're someone who steals sleep from yourself and you find that you're eating poorly, you can't stick to workout regimens, you have a lot of anxiety. Try this. Try sleeping eight hours a night. It's not sexy. Being single in a city like San Francisco and getting asked out on a date and been like, okay, but I need to be home by 8:30. Not a cute look, but you know what? It was one of the best things I've ever done for my health, my career and my life. But it was also an intention. There were nights where I didn't go to sleep at 9:00pm you know, I built in that fail safe that like if I fell asleep at 11pm or maybe, you know, something happened that I stayed out later than I intended, that was okay because it wasn't a I have to do this every single day or I fail thing. It was, this is the intention I've set for the year that most nights I want to be asleep by 9pm you know, there's a lot of research that suggests that those of us with ADHD actually do need an hour or two more sleep than neurotypicals. Maybe this is because our brains have to work harder throughout the day to kind of conform into this world that's designed for neurotypicals. But prioritizing sleep will actually make you better able to manage your ADHD symptoms in your day to day life, including your business. And then finally, let's talk about goals. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. One of the biggest challenges I hear from new business owners is how hard it is to figure out what to post on social media and to stick to consistent schedule with it. Because it's hard. And so in the month of May, I'm actually launching a challenge to help you build that muscle of posting every single day. Each participant will get their own customizable content plan for the month of May, an extensive list of content prompts so you have an endless bank of ideas of things you can post that work with your content plan. Every Monday through Friday we will have a 45 minute Zoom call at 9am Eastern where you will create your content and one lucky person per day will be able to volunteer for the coaching hot seat where I will help you fine tune your messaging or so that your content can help you attract high paying clients. If you can prove that you posted every single day for the 31 days, you will win a 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. Normally I charge $497 for this, but for the whole challenge for your content plan, for the content prompts for those 23 daily calls that you're gonna get throughout the month. It's only $197. This is my birthday gift to you this year and I'm so excited to hold your feet to the fire and make you post every day about your business and get more clients. If you're down for a challenge and you want to join us, then go to weeniecast.com challenge. I can't wait to see you there. And then finally, let's talk about goals. I'm a coach. I love talking about goals. I love goal setting. I love dreaming up how you can create an action plan. I love looking at the big dream and then reverse engineering what the action plan is so that it stops being a dream and it starts being a realistic goal for my clients. The problem with how a lot of people set goals however is that they Set the goal around the result, which absolutely, like a hundred percent, you know, it worked for Jim Carrey. He set a goal of making a certain amount of million dollars in acting by a certain date. Squirrel. Squirrel. So didn't you write yourself a check? I heard that you did. Is that true?

I wrote myself a check for $10 million for acting services rendered. And I gave myself five years or three years maybe, and, and I dated it. Thanksgiving 1995. And I put it in my wallet and I kept it there and it deteriorated and deteriorated and stuff. But then just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out that I was going to make $10 million on. Think of a Dumb and dumber.

Dumb and Dumber. Yeah. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. And he worked at it and he manifested it and it happened. Absolutely. However, oftentimes when people set a goal around a result, they don't do the necess steps that will allow for them to get to that result. So I always love prioritizing setting a goal around the actions you're going to take in the spirit of reaching that result. Again, you want to be really careful here because when we set goals around actions, we can be very all or nothing. You know, you either stick to the plan and do everything on the plan and you never it up. But oh no, you just it up because you didn't do it that day. Oh no, now the whole plan is garbage because you're a failure. We're not doing that to ourselves. Right. We need to create flexible goals for ourselves that can evolve and change throughout the year because we understand that we need variety. And sometimes the action that we think will get us to the goal loses its mojo. There's no more juice than that goose. I love that thing. And then we completely drop off the map. So when you're setting a goal for yourself this year, maybe it's that you want to sign 10 new clients at your new retainer rate of 2,500amonth. That's an incredible goal and I want that for you. And also, that in itself is not enough for you to actually reach that goal. You're going to have to commit to doing the actions that will actually get you there. Now, oftentimes people set themselves goals like this and they don't set themselves up for success because if they knew how to do this, they would have already done it. If you've never gotten a high ticket client before and you're setting yourself this goal of signing 10 of them, but you're not giving yourself the tools to be able to know how to do that, honey. Like we need to have a talk about realistic goal setting. This is like setting a goal of saying, I'm going to learn how to play the violin, but not having a violin. Okay? You can't learn how to play a violin without an actual violin to play on. Side note, my parents and my school, when I was in fifth grade, tried to make me play the violin. I ruined every single concert because I refused to learn. The only song I learned how to do was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. And not well. Squirrel. Squirrel. Hi, guys. I'm gonna be giving you a little concert. I went to this when I was about eight years old. What year, Catherine? Eight years old. How old am I now? You're 22. I think I was 96, 70. So listen to me now. I'm great, right? Yay, Squirrel. It was like that was the only song I knew how to play and I was still bad at it. They were so happy when I was able to quit the violin. So please, for the love of Dolly Parton. Ah, well, I have love for you too, honey. If you're committing to doing something you've never done, set yourself up for success. Invest in something that is going to help you reach that goal. Because you can't go to a place that you've never been to before without directions. If this is a fitness goal, I want you to invest in something that will show you the way to reach whatever fitness goal you have. If this is a creative goal, maybe you want to learn how to paint. You know, don't just buy a paint set. Like you don't know how to do this. Go and sign up for a class. Learn something. Go to an export who can show you, here's the best way to do it. We have adhd. So like we learn things really fast, we get good at things really fast. But when we're trying to do something that we've never done before without any guidance on how to do it, we're bad at it. And that's really frustrating. And that's where we tend to give up on our goals. Because who wants to be bad at something for longer than a day? We learn things really quickly. Set yourself up to learn it quickly. And if you're wanting to sign high ticket clients, if you're wanting to start or scale your business and you've never done it before and you're not really sure what you're doing, then this is the time for you to go to the link in the show notes and book a generate income strategy. Call with me because I'm not okay with you setting yourself an unrealistic goal about your business, not knowing what to do for it, floundering for four months, wasting money, time and energy and tanking your self esteem in the process and still having nothing to show for it. If you want 10 high paying clients in 2024, I want to help you get them. Hell, if you want two high paying clients in 2024, I also want to help you get them. But again, if you don't make structural changes to how you run your life, to the time that you make available to the energy that you reserve to do this thing, whatever it is, I have bad news for you. It's not going to be new year new you. It's going to be new year old you who's frustrated that you didn't do the thing still, and who's starting to make up a story that you fail at everything that you set your mind to, and who probably needs to sign up for therapy and go on a whole spiritual journey and go to the one of those silent yoga retreats which I'm sorry, it does not sound like fun. Think of everything you can avoid going through if you just commit to getting the right guidance for whatever you want and making some scheduling changes. It's so simple. And if you're ready to book that call with me, I want you to go to www.weeniecast.com strategycall and again, that link is in the show notes. Regardless of what you're doing for the New year, remember you're going to forget about it if it's not visible to you every single day. So whatever it is, if it's a list of your goals, you're doing that on the background screen of your phone when it's in locked mode. If it's a word, get a bracelet or a tattoo, or write it in lipstick on your bathroom mirror. If it's an intention, maybe set a calendar alert for yourself that every single day to journal on that intention. Maybe go in right now and schedule in time every single week or every single month for you to do that thing. What we don't want to happen is that it goes out of sight, out of mind. And around June you think, oh, I really failed at that one. I guess I'll just have to set a new resolution next year. And while you're deciding what you want to do in this coming year, get really connected to what your why is. If it's an arbitrary thing that you think sounds impressive and will make you look more cultured, smarter fitter, whatever but you don't actually care about it. That's not a good goal. Find something that will actually make you happier. It will make you feel healthier and more grounded in your body and more aligned to whatever gifts you've been given in this life. Because believe me, the more you have in your cup, the better able you are to pour into others. And that's what you're here to do. Squirrel. Squirrel. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going to weenicast.com strategy call. On this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams, and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together. I ordered a bunch of clothes and some of them I didn't like, and I returned it. But, like, the story bought it from requires you to, like, write a reason. And I was like, you know, I'm going to make this customer care person's day. So the first item was this, like, tuxedo T shirt that or shirt that, like, is kind of short, but it had a cute top, but it didn't look good. And so I said, it makes me look like a blimp. And I'm not going for the blimp look right now. We'll order again in the future if I change my mind on this. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast. Com Hyperfocus.