Category: Self-Esteem

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ADD Related Focus Goals Personal Growth Self-Esteem

Isolation Sucks! Are You Feeling Non-Productive?

Isolation Sucks! Are You Feeling Non-Productive? Isolation is but one of the common challenges for people living with ADD/ADHD. This challenge can be set off by any number of situations that may happen in the course of our lives.

Have you ever found yourself feeling so completely set apart and isolated you get stuck? This feeling usually takes on the form of low energy, a lack of enthusiasm and crankiness, which in time expands and becomes negative self-talk.

Isolation is so subtle to me. We are working diligently-so much so that we must be alone in order to get the job done. Perhaps we’ve hit a roadblock on our way to completing a project. For me, it could be holding onto an article for fear that it’s not perfect. When any one of these setbacks occurs, we may find ourselves moving away from interaction with the very people who can actually help us breakthrough where we are “stuck.”

Challenges, setbacks and even accomplishments can throw us off. Stress is a contributing factor. Think back over this past week. Have you ever heard yourself saying, “I need to be alone to think (fill in the blank) this out.” Or perhaps you’re heading for the finish line, after days of hard work, only to have your client tell you they’ve decided to go with another company. Or it can be as simple as going to the supermarket to get your favorite ice cream to find they no longer carry it.

To get very personal, I’ve been working with technical people to improve and update my site. I’ve installed a new email system that is efficient and can handle multiple tasks. It all sounds great, right? On the other hand, as eager as I am to learn the system, I have been stymied by its complexities. I can hardly get anything started, let alone completed. I feel myself on the edge of being overwhelmed. I’m lucky enough to be working with technical people across the country… yet, my hyperactive ADD brain has already worked out all the details! I’m ready to move on to the next thing, but the real-time learning process is taking so much longer. The stress builds as I get deeper and deeper into getting this phase completed. Over time, I realize I’ve cut myself off from those around me. Whammo!

Can you relate?

ISOLATION SUCKS! always gets a rise whether I say it or whenever I make a presentation. The response is usually laughter. We all relate when a comedian says something that is so obvious we have to laugh.

Now we have a dilemma. If you know this happens given certain circumstances, what do you do to anticipate or get out of those situations?

Shifting your mood is the most essential element. Let me offer three steps that you might want to try out for yourself.

Network of Support: Develop a network of support. If you ever find yourself in the “ISOLATION SUCKS mode”, reach out to your friends, relatives, me: people who can be honest and caring with you. I call in my Network of Support-those people who can depend on me and vice versa to remind me I am not alone. You’ll want to avoid those people who unconsciously criticize you. If no one in your network is around, go for a walk just to be around other people. We all need help from time to time. This is normal and necessary. If you don’t have a network of support, you can learn to put one together; I can help you with skill-building techniques. Working through isolation is very important for your success as a person living with ADD.

Trust: Trust is one of the key virtues needed to be understood and experienced to live a full and productive life with or without ADD. For your network to work effectively, it must be made up of people you can trust. Once realized and once coached about trust, we have a foundation for building substantial relationships in our lives, work and family.

Acceptance: Sometimes we all have what I call “take to the sheets days.” It’s allowed. I recommend you accept that you feel cut off from what’s going on around you. Accept that is where you are right now. Breathe it in. It will pass. Remember you are not alone and today is just one of those days for you to replenish yourself. With the help of your network and the skills you are developing around trust and acceptance, you can work through isolation.

You can develop an additional network of support by reaching out to those people who genuinely are concerned for you and care for you. Isolation lessens when you are supported by a community of like-minded people living with ADD. I firmly believe that the more awareness we all have about ADD, the more we grow.

You are better today knowing you have ADD.

Would you like more information on succeeding personally and professionally? Click Here.

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Self-Esteem

Love is a Verb!

 

The Beatles sang, "Love is all you need."  

I wish you a loving day. Valentine's Day is more than red hearts and sweet chocolates. Valentines' Day reminds us that love is an essential part of our lives.  Love comes in all shapes and forms. I want to share with you some basic concepts I've learned that might inspire you on this special day and over the coming year.

1. LOVE IS A FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION: Everything we do or say happens in conversations with others or us. We are most close to those we love when there is talk and connection between each other.  Do you spend time to speak with those you love?  It doesn't matter whether it is good news or not.  What is most important is to say what matters most to you. People love people who give of themselves.

2. LOVE IS A VERB: Actions do speak louder than words and words have power. Do you make the extra call or meet for a quiet dinner in the midst of all the busy activities in your life? 

3. YOUR CONCERNS ARE NOW MY CONCERNS: That is the clearest declaration of love and caring you can have for another. This means going beyond not because you have to but will no matter what.

4. LET THEM HEAR IT!  Let them know how much you appreciate who they are and how they make you feel whether that means having the perfect dinner or whether it's your favorite hot dog stand. Telling loved ones in the moment and acknowledging them most importantly can be so meaningful to them and to you. 

5. BE GRATEFUL: How often in our haste we forget how fortunate we are to have loving people around us.  We are blessed in so many ways.  If you have love in your life in any form you are truly blessed.  And for that be grateful that these people have come into your life. 

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Coaching Self-Esteem

Quieting The Little Voice

I’ve been asked several times by subscribers and my fantastic clients how to quiet the little voice – you know, the negative self-talk that will have you stay small. I wanted to send this along this updated version as an inspiration for you to succeed in 2012. 

Here goes.

You’re moving along.  Everything is humming.  Suddenly out of nowhere you stop.  You’re hearing those limiting voices telling you this is a waste of time.  Now you’re more concerned about what is not working in your life?  You’re a guy in a diner spending time complaining about this and that?  The complaining is easier than working as best you can to get the work done – no matter what? So now what?

Think bigger than those limiting voices would have you believe.  Create a new story about who you are and what you want.  In the words of Rocky, “Go for it.”

Shifting your thinking away from problems to successes creates opportunities in your personal and professional life.  When we’re in a success zone, we just feel healthier.

Here’s a simple and powerful exercise that can transform you from being a victim to leader. Just try it for a week:

1. Make a decision to ignore the temptation to say or do anything negative.  This includes criticism, judgment, make wrong or whatever to those people around you including YOURSELF! 

2. If you realize you are saying or doing anything negative shift it to something positive. I.e., “Can you believe how the sales person spoke to me?  To “Sometimes people have rough days, I know what that’s all about.”

3. Focus on your successes.  During your day write down five successes, accomplishments, wins as well as acknowledgements daily.

4. If you’re lacking motivation, ask yourself, who can I serve today?  Who can I inspire to go beyond where they believe they are stuck?

5. Do your best to eliminate your tendency towards negative self-talk.  If you hear those voices, tell them to go away.  Find a safe place to scream, “”Get away!”  I don’t recommend you do this when you’re in a meeting.  You can scream silently. If you forget to do the exercise one day, let it go and start again. If you’re able to do it one day; you’ve hit a homerun.  If you forget to do it at all and remember you could have; celebrate remembering you weren’t able to do this for whatever the reason – then start again. You can’t change what you don’t know you want to change.  Yeah! You’re a winner.

 

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Goals Self-Esteem

Go for the Goal! A Sure Way to Increase Your Self-Esteem

What does a goal have to do with increasing your self-esteem?  Well to answer this question fully we need to find out what a goal is.

First and foremost a goal is a promise to do something in a future.  The promise is – “I promise to complete (X) goal by (Y) date.”

The interesting thing about this is most people do not consider a goal a promise.  You see it’s a particular kind of promise.  Whether you make the promise to someone else, it’s a promise to yourself.

 What happens when someone breaks a promise to you? You don’t feel so good about them? Right?  If they continue to break their promises to you, you begin to not trust them.  In time you either say they’re a blow hard or worse you want nothing to do with them. Trust and self-esteem are interrelated when this happens. Now let’s add incompletions to the mix.

Consider all the goals you said you were going to do and never started and/or the goals you never completed.  Having goals in this state of limbo can have a negative effect on you.  This is a perfect opportunity for your internal negative self-talk to pop up and start beating you up for not delivering on your promises. 

Incompletions affect your self-esteem.  Why? You start to lose trust in yourself accept you can’t have nothing to do with them . .  . because you are them. 

So here is a great exercise.

Before you begin make a commitment to yourself to not accuse or judge yourself.  Realize you’re gathering information.  Above all do the work. 

List as many incompletions in your life as you can remember.  This may  help you decide what you want to take on next.  This may be a new goal you want to work on during the coming week, month and/or year.  By listing them you begin the process of cleaning and clearing them up.  Here’s how you clean and clear the remaining incompletions.

Forgive yourself meaning it’s OK to move forward with a new commitment to do the best you can to complete you next goal.  Forgive yourself and commit to learning what it takes to start and complete a goal in order to get a result you want to have in your life.  You’re going to watch if and when you hit the wall over the coming weeks.

Experience where difficulties arise and what you might do differently in the future to reach your goals. 

Now let the incompletions go!  Give them up! Time to move on and start anew.

When you are able to complete some of the incompletions, you’ll begin to trust yourself again.  As you trust yourself more, notice how good you feel.  Watch how your sense of self-worth and self-esteem increase.  When your self-esteem is in order you can’t help but feel powerful.  Stand in your power and brilliance.  Time to knock down a new goal.

Remember, it’s all good.