For Years, I Called Myself a Slob

Shana tova from my newly decluttered home office, which doubles as our second guest room!

A few days before Rosh Hashana I attacked the monster-doom-closet in there. I emptied almost 20 years of stuff and threw out around ten garbage bags of unfinished knitting projects, spare dog leashes and enough pencils and whiteboard markers to supply a whole school.

With five sleepover guests coming for Yom Tov and every meal on me, that might not have been the best time to do it, but it sure felt great to finally GET. IT. DONE!

For years I called myself a slob. Lazy. Incapable of keeping even one closet organized.

Then I got diagnosed with ADHD at age 49 and started learning how to forgive myself. For one thing, I had decades of stuff, a small apartment, and nowhere to put it all. For another, calling myself names never once got a single bag out of that closet.

I'll be honest. I didn't just wake up one day and "poof," the trash talk was gone. Forty plus years is a long time to believe I was lazy, stupid, hopeless at "seder."

That's part of why I added EFT tapping to my toolbox.

Sometimes I still need to remember to forgive myself. But I now realize that when I do, I am able to focus on my priorities and devote my creative energy to actually solving problems.

This Week's ADHD Aha

I see this pattern every week with my clients. They judge themselves all the time. "Lazy. Weak. No discipline." You know it too. You really do want to do the thing, but wanting isn't enough to make you do it.

That's not a character flaw. That's ADHD.

The reason it takes so much out of you to do the thing is that you're wasting your energy on judging yourself.

When you learn to let your closet stay jam-packed with 20 years of stuff without calling yourself nasty names, you go to bed with a Ta-Da list instead of a to-do list.

You get the most impactful things done.

You say yes to hosting without losing sleep about the state of the house.

And your loved ones get the real, loving you at the Yom Tov table, instead of someone worrying about what the company is thinking.

That's the work I do with my clients.

When you're ready to stop searching inside your middot for solutions to a problem that has nothing to do with who you are, book a free Breakthrough Call. We'll get clear on what you want and what stands in your way. Then we'll decide together whether coaching is right for you.

This year, may you walk into Yom Kippur without needing to confess your "laziness." And may you forgive yourself for all the years you did.

גמר וחתימה טובה

With love,
Alana

• ADHD