Learn to Thrive with ADHD Podcast

Ep 100: Why We Quit on Our Goals (and How to Finally Stop)

• Mande John • Episode 100

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🎉 WE DID IT - EPISODE 100! 🎉

Have you ever started a goal only to quit halfway through? You're definitely not alone. In this milestone episode, I'm sharing the exact 4-stage system that got me to 100 podcast episodes and how you can apply it to finally stick with your big goals.

Here's what we're covering:

The truth about why the "middle" of big goals feels so dangerous with ADHD, and why that shaky feeling isn't a red flag - it's actually proof you're exactly where you need to be.

My spinning plates analogy that changed everything about how I approach multiple goals without letting my life fall apart.

The 4 stages from courage to confidence:

  • Courage - Doing it scared (and why it's supposed to feel bad)
  • Commitment - Deciding it's happening no matter what
  • Consistency - The long game approach with proper support
  • Confidence - The surprisingly normal feeling you earn

Plus, I'm sharing how I'm applying this exact system to my current fitness goal and why lowering the stakes (not raising them) is the secret to success.

Key takeaway: Goal sustainability might be the single most important executive function skill for ADHD adults.

Connect with Coach Mande:

Your action step: Identify which of the 4 stages you're in with your current big goal, then pick one way to move to the next stage.

Remember - you don't have to feel ready. You just have to be willing to take the next step.

Thank you for being part of this incredible journey to 100 episodes. Here's to the next 100!


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CLICK HERE for more resources. We're on this journey together!

 Have you ever started a goal only to quit? I think we all have, and we're gonna solve that problem today. The key to success isn't what you think This is episode 100 of the podcast. Can you believe that? I honestly can't. When I hit record for the very first time, I had no idea what to expect.

Did you know that 90% of podcasts don't publish more than three episodes? Isn't that an insane statistic? here we are 100 episodes later.

In this episode, you're gonna hear me use a lot of examples from my journey with the Learn to Thrive with ADHD podcast. But on YouTube, I've been posting since April 30th, 2021, and there's over 400 videos there. That is a milestone as well. And today I'm talking to you about something that I think might be the single most important skill for ADHD adults

in sticking with big goals all the way through

To equate that to executive function skills, it's goal sustainability. I wanna celebrate with you, but I also wanna take you behind the scenes with me because hitting a hundred episodes wasn't magic. It wasn't willpower. It was me walking through the exact same four stages I'm gonna teach you today.

Coincidentally, I just started a fitness goal that really feels like a big deal. I'm really working on my belief that I can do it while at the same time getting coached and coaching myself. Not to overthink it.

It's simple, right? Eat, train, life. I know most people say sleep, but I think the challenge for me, and I know many of you will relate, is taking on big things and not letting life fall apart around you. You may have already heard my spinning plates analogy.

I always felt like one of those plate spinners in the circus. You know, they have the plates on sticks

And they have several and they're getting them all going often balancing one on their nose and on their head, and they have several on their arms and their hands and it's an amazing feat. But I was the worst plate spinner ever. If I got one plate going, took on a big goal or even a hyper focus, every other plate crashed to the floor and broke.

now I've learned the tools and strategies to understand that I can get everything going, and maybe I'm not going to give a lot of attention to the other plates, But I know how to keep them going enough that I'm gonna get audience applause from my brain in peace of mind.

And that all the plates are at least spinning, even if at different speeds. So why do we quit our goals? Let's start here. With ADHD, the middle of a big goal can feel dangerous. We start with excitement, a new plan, fresh energy, and then things get hard. They get boring. They get messy,

we start to think, if I were really cut out for this, I wouldn't feel like this. So we quit and the quitting loop becomes our default.

But what if feeling shaky is not a red flag? It's a milestone. What if it's proof? You're exactly where you're supposed to be.

The key to not quitting is confidence. Yes, confidence. How do we create confidence? It's an uncomfortable road, but the only way is through I was a very shy kid and honestly, I'm a pretty shy adult too. What gets me through is the belief that most people are good, but when I was a teenager, I did not feel confident at all. So I decided to fake it. I would pretend to be confident, which probably made me come off pretty weird because I would act confident on the outside, and my inside didn't match.

Did you know we can create confidence. It's not something we have or don't have. It's not something we have to fake. It's a journey that we go through. I'm currently confident I can pour a glass of milk. That wasn't always the case. I remember being a little girl and the gallon of milk was very heavy and I wasn't very steady with it.

I wasn't quite sure I was gonna get it in the glass successfully. That glass seemed to always be moving away from me, but I tried anyway. I had to have courage to make a mistake and spill the milk. I committed to learning to pour the milk.

I consistently kept trying to pour the milk even after some mishaps. Now I have the confidence with nearly a hundred percent accuracy that I can pour the glass of milk. I don't even have to think about it. I just am a person who can pour milk. I know it's a silly example, but I'm sure you can see how this relates To everything that we try to do that's any kind of stretch for us.

So the first step in this journey is courage. Doing it scared It's supposed to feel bad. That feeling is fear. I've had so many clients undertake really big goals, and I ask them, are you scared? And they say, yes, I'm so scared. And I say, good, you're right where you're supposed to be

because they're right on track. If you aren't scared, you aren't stretching yourself.

If there was no fear, you wouldn't need courage. You wouldn't be starting the journey to gaining the confidence that you desire and require.

Courage often means taking imperfect action before your brain has the time to talk you out of it or not listening when it tries, because it will. For my podcast, it meant hitting record the first time and many times after not knowing if anyone would listen, the tech felt overwhelming. I felt awkward speaking into the mic.

I had no idea what I was doing.

But I did it anyway again and again for my fitness goal. It's trying again. After quitting so many times, the fear of failure is real. It takes courage to pick up a goal in a bigger way that you've quit. In the past,I was getting coached and I said, I wanna be a person that exercises daily. Now this goal is a little bit bigger than that, but it, it's part of the requirement. And she said, do you, and it was a perfect question because my brain just immediately wanted to say Yes, absolutely. And what I realized is I wouldn't keep having the desire if it wasn't something that I truly wanted.

Where can you apply courage to start your journey to confidence? So number two is commitment. Deciding it's happening no matter what. Anything I've done, well, I've had to apply this to, there is no other option but to do it, you might not always do it well, you. You definitely won't always feel like doing it, but you are doing it.

This shuts down negotiation. It doesn't mean your brain won't try to negotiate, but you've made a decision ahead of time that you're going to do this again. This doesn't mean you will be perfect. I've missed a few weeks along the way with the a hundred published episodes, but it was very, very few.

I am already prepared with this fitness goal that there are going to be days that I'm sick or there could be an emergency that is an exception to the rule, not an excuse to quit. Number three in the journey is consistency. Keep showing up.

It really helps me to think of anything that matters as a long game. I'm going to be showing up consistently for a long time. That's true with marriage, children, business, everything.

And I think the reason that that really

helps is when trouble happens. When you have difficulty, when you don't feel like doing something, when something's not going quite right, it's okay. It's just a little blip in your very long journey. I think too often we get in a hurry to see the result and that stops us, but it's really consistency that makes the difference.

Now? Is consistency? One of the biggest challenges with ADHD? Absolutely. Yes.

You know what I do? I get support. I talked for two years about starting my podcast until I found a coach to get me started. My coach taught me all the things, and now I have an assistant that is always waiting for the next episode.

In fact, I have a message from her right now that she's waiting for this one.

Inspired by my fitness goal. I'm looking right now for an accountability coach to work closely with.

I know myself and accountability only to me is going to be a challenge,

and I have a lot of big goals and other plates in my life that I wanna keep spinning. I build in support to help me stay consistent while I'm still working towards the confidence I'll be gaining.

What is this for you a coach? Accountability partners. Public commitments. Don't rely solely on motivation. It is too unreliable. Find somebody you can count on Number four. Confidence we finally got there. This is the reward that you earn for the podcast. Now I can plan, record, and publish without any stress.

I know I can handle the tech issues.

And any creative ruts for my fitness goal. I'm just at the start of this journey, but I can borrow confidence from my other accomplishments. I'm not there yet, but I've reached this phase in other parts of my life and I know it's coming. What may come as a surprise is that confidence feels surprisingly normal once you get there.

It's when something that once took courage now feels automatic. But when you have ADHD, it feels so good to get parts of your life into automatic mode. No thought, no fuss, no muss just confidence. Most people stop to encourage and commitment, or they stall inconsistency when results dip.

And for ADHD adults, the emotional roller coaster plus boredom sensitivity makes it even harder. But here's the thing, shakiness doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're building a skill. So let's talk about lowering the stakes.

when I was putting together my fitness goal, I thought, how can I hire the stakes?

How could I make the stakes so high I couldn't possibly quit, and that was really the wrong thing to be looking for. This is one mistake that we make in raising the stakes on ourselves.

My brain for sure wants to make this fitness goal a really big deal, but I'm working to lower the stakes in my mind.

This will help you to not make it all so serious that it feels impossible, and it leaves room for imperfection.

What if for the podcast I had to make every episode feel like a perfect life-changing episode? I'd still be on episode three right now.

If I made my fitness goal mean that my entire health and self-worth depended on it, I'd burn out by week two.

When you stop telling yourself it's do or die, you move through the stages faster and with more joy. A reframe that I'm using right now is it's not a big deal. It's simple. You're just going to follow the plan to the best of your ability day by day. To me, that feels bite-size and sustainable, and it calms my mind.

so let me hear from you. I want you to think about your own big goal right now. Which stage are you in?

Courage. You've barely started and you're feeling awkward or scared, or maybe you are

drumming up the courage to start.

Commitment. You've decided it's happening, but you're still in the trenches. Consistency. You're showing up regularly, but maybe progress feels slow.

Confidence you've earned the skill and trust yourself,

here is your action step for the week. Pick one way to move to the next stage. If you're in courage, make the decision. If you're in commitment, double down. if you're inconsistency, keep the streak alive.

If you're in confidence, congratulations. Now. That is something that you don't have to stress about. You. Just keep that plate spinning and give your attention to another. Episode 100 isn't just a number for me, it's a living example. That courage, commitment, and consistency really do create confidence.

The beauty is you get to stack these experiences. You get to look at how you created confidence in one area and know that you can do it in another. It's not just about the goal in front of you. You don't have to feel ready. You just have to be willing to take the next step.

Do you want support? That is what I do.

You can book a free mini coaching session with me at www.learntothrivewithadhd.com/services . I can't wait to meet you. I'll see you guys next week for episode 101.