Moving From Defense to Offense
Every week when I meet with my accountability group, we discuss what our One thing for the week is going to be - if you need a refresher on the ONE Thing, you can check out Episode 15: Breaking Down The ONE Thing. Basically, the idea is to find one task that is going to create cascading results for yourself. It's about figuring out which dominoes you need to knock over to knock over more dominoes. And you can do this by asking yourself the focusing question: "What is the ONE Thing I can do, such by doing it, that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary."
A few weeks ago, when we were going through our ONE Things in my accountability group, I was a little disappointed that my ONE Thing was always the same. To be clear, your ONE Thing doesn't ever have to change. If it's genuinely the ONE Thing that will make everything else easier, it probably should stay the same - or just spitballing ideas here, if that is your ONE Thing week after week you could think about making your ONE Thing figuring out ways to make that thing easier.
And that's what I was hoping to do here. My ONE Thing has consistently been writing for the podcast, and I wanted to change that. Don't get me wrong; I love making these episodes. What I was disappointed in was the fact that I just felt like no matter how much I did, I still felt behind. This is a big part of why I took some time off.
I was having trouble getting traction on anything I was doing. While trying to work out what would make everything else easier, I discovered that my biggest problem was actually that I didn't know where I was going. All my planning for the year didn't make as much sense anymore. All the goals I set up weren't what was actually important anymore. I needed a new plan, and so I decided that I wanted to figure out how I could move from playing defense to playing offense.
Before we get too far, I want to remind everyone that there is a lot going on in the world right now. I want to remind you of this not because I think you've actually forgotten but rather that we've started to forget the ramifications. We're starting to get to the point where we want to be doing more than just surviving, and that's part of the point of this episode. But I also want to make it clear that we shouldn't be focusing on doing more stuff - what we really want to be doing is the right stuff.
And to be clear here, doing the right stuff doesn't mean cutting out all of your leisure time. If one thing has been made abundantly plain to me, it's that whenever I plan, is that to add something to my schedule, means that something else should be coming off. Unfortunately, I am prone to try and remove fun stuff for productive stuff.
We're going through a global pandemic, and as my friend, Brendan Mahan, from ADHD Essentials, would say - this is a traumatic event for the world. We are going through trauma right now. In the US, we're also dealing with protests and riots over systemic racism and police brutality. That's more trauma. We see this stuff in the news, and it affects us. We are going to need more recovery time, and if we cut that out of our schedules, it is just going to hurt us more in the long run.
And that's what I want to focus on today, figuring out what the right stuff is that we should be doing. For the last few weeks, I've been feeling restless but also like I've been floundering. I'm starting to feel like I could begin to sharpening my focus and getting ready for the future ahead of me.
The first thing I had to do was figure out what moving from defense to offense actually meant. Motivational platitudes are great, but only if they legitimately push you to do the thing. I had some ideas from my sportswriter days, but I didn't have a firm plan on how I could apply that to my current situation.
My first step needed to be redefining my goals and plans. I felt like I was floundering not because I wasn't doing anything but because I didn't have any clear direction of where I wanted to be going. If I want to start making any headway, it makes sense to know where I want to go rather than crashing headfirst through whatever looks most important at the time. I needed a plan and strategy for how I was going to move forward.
If we remember from way back in Episode 5: Goals, Strategies, and Tactics, I defined goals as a desired result we want to achieve. Strategies as the processes we use to achieve those goals and tactics are actions we take to implement our strategies.
In this case, my first step was taking out my goals sheet from the end of last year. Reviewing and refining your goals is something we should all be doing even when a global pandemic isn't going on but is even more critical now. I wanted to figure out what was still reasonable to pursue and what needed to be shelved. I needed to know what needed to be tweaked and what needed to be replaced.
I like setting process goals, which means setting goals focusing on what I need to do to get results, rather than having the results be the goal. For example, I set a goal of how often I wanted to be exercising and tied that into going to the gym and playing sports. Well, exercise is still important, but I'm not going to the gym or playing any sports. I'm going to need to tweak my process and replace what I'm doing.
But more than anything, what I want to focus on is being more proactive and less reactive. So that is going to mean more planning. And that is going to involve setting some planning goals. Yes, you can have a goal about how often that you want to be planning.
Of course, I've been struggling with my planning for the last few months because I'm at home, and my day to day remains relatively uncertain. I've been resistant to doing much planning because I just didn't have a good grasp of how my day might play out.
But planning isn't about writing something down and following it to the letter. In fact, that would be a pretty bad plan. As in with sports, your plans and strategies need to be flexible; otherwise, once your opponent does something, you don't expect you're forced to react how they want you to. When you're planning flexibly, you're being proactive - you're saying, this is how I want things to go, but they can also go this way or that way, and I'll still be fine.
To help me work on my planning, I created a short one-page document that I can fill out in the morning to help me shape my day. I just wanted to have something I could sit down and fill out while my kids are eating breakfast to help guide my day. If I don't get to everything on my page, that's fine.
I also included a section for the evening to help me reflect on the day by asking a few questions to help me unwind and look back with:
What did I do today?
What did I learn?
What am I grateful for?
The idea here is to have a little space here that I can quickly fill out. By asking relatively easy questions, I don't have to think too much while filling it out. Then at the end of the day, I can look at what went well and what didn't and use that information to help me plan tomorrow.
If you'd like your own copy of this one-pager you can find one right here or the half-page version.
I also mentioned that we could play offensively when we're on defense. The easiest way we can do this is by working on controlling what makes it to our schedules. While we can't choose everything that is coming down the pipeline to us, we can control some of it, and that's what we're going to focus on first here. And that involves saying no more often.
So the first person I am going to have to say no to more is myself. ADHD comes with a lot of ideas, and I generally want to do all of those ideas, but I don't have time to do everything. I also tend to have many overly ambitious ideas that aren't going to ever pan out. While it can be fun to explore some of these ideas, I've also got to be willing to shelve those ideas for things I can actually do.
And a lot of us with ADHD are people pleasers - I mean who doesn't want to make other people happy, but it makes it hard to say no as much as we should be. We worry that when we say no, people will take it as a slight against them. That if we don't say yes, that people aren't going to like us. It leads us to overcommitting and doing a lot of things that we don't actually want to do.
We know we need to say no more often, but it's hard. And not just because of the people-pleasing, but also because we have trouble giving a concrete no. We hedge our bets and say things like, "Oh I'd love to, but I can't make it on Wednesday if it was any other time then I absolutely would," and they smile and say, "Oh well if that's the case we can just do Thursday instead."
Oh no, what have I done? I've just backed myself into a corner, and now I have to say yes, or I just look like a jerk.
When we give people the chance to sneak a yes out of us, they will often take it. It usually isn't malicious - we told them we wanted to but couldn't for whatever reason. They're just trying to be helpful and find an alternative for us.
So instead, we need to be straight forward with our no's - we don't need to give a reason. We need to work on giving our simple no's.
Next time you are faced with the prospect of saying no, try:
"Thank you for the offer, and I'm no."
If that's too concrete for you, just use
"Thank you for the offer; however, my focus needs to be elsewhere right now."
And you can finish them off with:
"If I change my mind about this, I'll let you know."
Of course, this can also be overwhelming in the moment of things - we don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Maybe we just want time to think about the request. An easy go-to here is to say that you're going to need to check your calendar, and you'll get back to them.
But remember we don't want to leave the door open here. If you don't want to do the thing, go back to your simple no when you get back to them.
"I've thought about your request, and I have to focus on my other priorities right now."
The key is to be firm, don't leave wiggle room - unless you do want to do the thing but can't or just want an alternative. Like say someone asks if you'd like to go and get drinks, you may not like the bar scene, but you'd still like to hang out with this person, suggest getting coffee or lunch instead.
When we're saying no, we're just trying to keep things that we don't want to do off of our calendars. Offering suggestions for alternatives you'd actually like fits that bill just the same.
This Episode’s Top Tips
To focus on doing the right things, you have to know what your priority and goals are first.
Planning doesn't have to be hard and we can focus on just planning one day at a time.
We got to say no more often - especially ourselves. We tend to have more ideas than we can ever hope to complete. By saying no to some things we are leaving time for the things we really want to do.
When we're telling someone else no we should focus on a simple no. When we try to hedge our no's it gives the other person the impression that we actually want to do the thing and they will always try and accommodate which will make future no's even harder.
Mentioned in this Episode
Episode 15: Breaking Down The ONE Thing
