Takeaways:

• We often experience tension between short term comfort and long term goals in the sense that what we want to do in the moment doesn’t always align with where we want to be headed in our lives.

• Being intentional is huge because the journey of our lives is made up by the small steps taken day after day, hour after hour.

• Identifying baby steps that can be taken when you have energy and capacity to “be productive” can be powerful tools to help you make progress.

• Setting up defaults for when you’re ready to be productive can help set you up for success.

Welcome to the second half of my interview with my first guest on the show, my friend Megs Crawford! Megs is a professional organizer with ADHD, a podcaster, a speaker, and an ADHD coach. One of her superpowers is helping people believe in themselves. We talk about how she got into organizing and made it her business.

This is a two-part interview, so check out last week’s episode if you haven’t listened to the first part yet. A few of my favorite takeaways from this conversation with Megs are:

• Having a support system is a game-changer! It’s so important to have people in your corner.

• Taking action and making mistakes is what helps you gain clarity on what you want to do.

• What is one thing you can do today that’s going to get you closer to your dream?

• Ambiguity is the cause of procrastination. So the more we can clarify the parameters of what we need to do, and break things into tasks, the easier it is to take the action in baby steps.

• Discomfort and mistakes along the way are lessons on how we can change our path to me more in alignment with our values and what we want our lives to look like.

  
  

Make sure to follow Megs for content about believing in yourself, using ADHD as a superpower, and taking control through organization: ⁠https://linktr.ee/mindfulmegs⁠

I’m so excited to introduce my first guest on the show, my friend Megs Crawford!

As a professional organizer with ADHD, Megs understands the unique challenges and untapped brilliance of the ADHD brain. She's passionate about helping others with ADHD cultivate organized spaces that foster peace and ignite creativity. Beyond physical and digital organization, Megs is an ADHD coach and does digital decluttering sessions via zoom for clients with a focus on the power of self-belief – a core principle for thriving with ADHD.

Megs is also a speaker, sharing her message of how ADHD can be a superpower when understood and embraced. When not organizing, you can find her with her two daughters, beloved pets, and supportive husband. She finds joy in yoga, singing, and coloring, reflecting her ongoing commitment to personal growth.

A few of my favorite takeaways from this conversation with Megs are:

• Having a coach can be a game changer because they can expedite your journal and help you understand there’s another way of being.

• The people you love and everyone around you gets to benefit from you being selfish.

• Change takes practice. Once you decide you want to make a change, give yourself grace while you practice learning new habits and building new neural pathways.

• Just because you can’t see the stars the first time you look for them doesn’t mean you should stop looking.

This is a two-part interview, so stay tuned for the other half next week! Also, make sure you’re following Megs for awesome content around ADHD, organization, and believing in yourself.

https://linktr.ee/mindfulmegs

Takeaways:

• Boundaries are important to protect your time, energy, and capacity to ensure you’re able to make progress towards your goals and priorities.

• Focusing on what your boundary is helping you say “yes” to, instead of “no” to, can be a helpful way to empower you to set boundaries, and also help people get on board with protecting your boundaries.

• Becoming is a journey. It’s a process. It takes time, effort, and repetition.

• Failure and challenges are an intrinsic part of the road to success. They are not accidents or detours along the way - they’re part of it.

• What is a boundary that can help you carve out what you need to take a baby step towards your goal each week?

Grab your vino 'cause we're talking about how we're not supposed to be bad at things anymore and why we need to let ourselves be beginners anyway.

Baby steps are the way to become the person you want to be.

We're talking about anxiety, fear of failure, and running away from potential.

You have to start at the beginning. Take the first step, and it'll lead to the next step.

When you fail or make a mistake, you’re learning.

Take those baby steps and let yourself suck.

It is so common, when you’re chasing a dream or trying something new, to get to a point where you start to question whether the results you’re seeing are worth the effort you’re putting in. Pouring your blood, sweat, and tears into something then feeling like you have little or nothing to show for it can be incredibly disheartening. Firstly, you’re not alone. Secondly, solidifying the reason you’re doing what you’re doing can be a lighthouse in those situations where you feel lost at sea. So let’s talk about why you need a “why”.

Takeaways:

• Ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. Then ask again. Keep drilling down until you get to the core, deepest, most meaningful reason for doing something.

• When you feel lost at sea, wondering if it’s worth it to keep going toward your goal, or if you should turn around and try to find the land you left, your Why can be like a lighthouse guiding you through the storm and encouraging you to keep going.

• “Selfish” Whys are totally valid. Also, there’s a 99% chance your selfish Why doesn’t only benefit you.

• “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

• “In a world full of turmoil, remember that joy is an act of resistance!” - Audre Lorde

You figured out what you want to do, you mustered up the courage to start doing it, and it’s HARD!! It’s not glamorous, you’re not getting results as fast as you want, and you start feeling discouraged. You hit the dip. So, how do you not give up?

This episode is all about 'the dip' and the importance of perseverance and self-compassion in the face of challenges. Getting to a place where you question whether continuing to work towards your goal is worth it is totally normal. It’s so common there’s a whole book about it called The Dip, written by Seth Godin.

Takeaways:

• Check out Seth Godin’s book The Dip!

• Remember that the dip is a phase. It won’t last forever. The goal of this episode is to give you some strategies to hang in there and not give up so you can make it through to the other side.

• Before you get to the dip, set yourself up by documenting what steps you take to complete tasks that you have to repeat to get towards your goal.

• Make steps as small as possible or limit the time spent on them. The goal is to make progress as achievable as possible.

• Determine how much progress you find acceptable as a minimum, and let that be enough. If you can do more, great! But give yourself permission to only do the minimum when you need to.

Takeaways:

• A lot of our goals and dreams require us to show up authentically despite a fear of being seen.
• It feels vulnerable to be seen trying something we care about because our love is behind our care. So, it can feel like wearing your heart on your sleeve.
• When you show up with pure intentions of helping or offering value, do your best to communicate, and also trust your audience to give you the benefit of the doubt to cover any imperfections.
• There’s no shame in trying to help. When you show up with pure intentions, trust people to see that you’re trying to help. You don’t have to show up perfectly.
• Do what you can. Consider how you can take a baby step outside of your comfort zone to get closer to your goal. Start small and stretch yourself.
• Identify what you’re truly afraid of. Talk yourself through what you’re worried about, what you actually think is going to happen, and see if you can prepare for any likely outcomes.
• Work through your “what ifs”. Instead of assuming the worst, as “what if” the best possible outcome is what you get?