Welcome to Learn to Thrive with ADHD. This is the podcast for adults with ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms. I’m your host, Coach Mande John. I’m here to make your life with ADHD easier. Let’s get started.

Today, we’re talking about belief beyond your results. So, what does that even mean? With a new year coming, people start to reflect on their goals for the upcoming year, or perhaps you’re a person like myself that’s setting goals all year round.

Having a level of belief beyond what you’re currently able to do is belief beyond your results. Developing the skill to believe beyond your results is crucial to getting anything that you don’t already have. I often use a baby walking as an example. They see everyone else around them walking and they’re pretty sure they can do it too.

Up until now, they have no evidence that they can walk, but they believe they can, so they start to pull themselves up with support, they practice standing alone, they take steps and eventually they’re walking, simply because they had a belief beyond their results.

So, what gets in the way of this? What do we need to know about the process and how do we develop this important skill for getting what we want? Let’s first talk about the stages that we can go through when committing to a goal, this can go one of two ways. I’ll let you decide which one you think you’d prefer.

The stages that lead to failure, number one, excited about the possibility of change. Number two, setbacks and obstacles show up. Number three, you lose belief in yourself and quit, sometimes you blame the system. And number four, you end up with regret and suffering.

Now I’m going to give you the stages of success. What I want you to notice is this is not a perfect process. It’s not going to feel good all the way through. The other thing I want you to notice is, with these two options, you basically come to a fork in the road, and you have the option of taking the road that leads to failure and quitting, or you have the option of taking the road that leads to success.

Here’s stage two, the stages that lead to success. Number one, excited about the possibility of change. Number two, setbacks and obstacles. Number three, you strategize, and you recommit. And number four, success and pride and one’s accomplishments.

Those are the first two parts are the same for both. It all comes down to the choice you make in step three.

When things get difficult, do you lose belief and quit, or do you maintain belief and re-strategize? If you know that this goal is possible for you, the only logical conclusion is that you need to be doing something a bit different to get there.

When we come to the difficult part in these stages, if we are going to succeed, it’s required that we are going to have to figure out how to evolve beyond what we currently are capable of or stretch ourselves. That’s where the belief beyond results comes in. If you’ve been following my coaching, you know that your thoughts are directly related to your results.

If you’re thinking you can’t do it, you can’t stretch, you aren’t capable, then that’s exactly what will be true, because when you believe things like this, there’s no reason for you to even try with your goals and by goals, I mean ways you want to grow in every aspect of your life.

I started this podcast talking about New Year’s goals, but this means the everyday stuff as well. What skills do you need to develop, or what belief about yourself do you need to develop so that you can have that or be that?

What skills do you need to develop or what belief about yourself do you need to develop so that you can have that or be that? So, you understand the importance of self-belief. You know it’s required to get what you want, but what do we do when times get tough? I’ll give you several things you can do, but what I want to share with you first is that you wouldn’t even want the goal if some part of you didn’t believe it was possible.

That’s important to notice, because you’re already part way there. Think about any of your goals. You’re not asking to wake up a unicorn. You might be wanting big things, but I guarantee that anything you’re making a goal is possible if you take the right actions and put in the time needed. This is great news.

This means that there’s some self-belief there already. Now it’s about how to support your self-belief through the challenging times. Here are some things you can do.

Number one, celebrate small wins. Celebrating even the smallest achievement along the way shows you that there is progress happening.

Number two, positive self-talk. Don’t let the voice in your head say awful things to you. What would you tell a friend who is experiencing the same challenges toward a goal that you were?

Number three, clarify your goal. When goals are vague, it’s hard to know if we’re making progress or where the real finish line is. Clarify what actions you should be taking daily.

Number four, track your progress. Keeping a record of your progress through journaling charts or apps will give you tangible evidence of your growth and abilities.

Number five, challenge your comfort zone. Your capacity grows when you step outside your comfort zone. Take on new challenges.

Number six, practice self-compassion. Be kind to yourself. There’s going to be times when you’re ill or have some sort of setback and you’ll want to blame yourself. That’s just life. You just keep doing the best you can and that’s enough.

Number seven, get feedback. Get constructive feedback from mentors, peers or coaches. Constructive feedback can offer insights for improvement as well as open an opportunity for you to receive praise and encouragement.

Number eight, visualize success. Just spending five minutes visualizing yourself already at the goal and the gratitude you feel for being there can do wonderful things for your brain. Make it clear what do you feel, hear or see.

Number nine, build a support network. Establish a strong support network of friends, family or colleagues who believe in your abilities.

In the ADHD Academy, we have a private WhatsApp group where we support each other in our daily actions. It’s great positive accountability and we’re doing great things in there. Stay to the end to hear more about the ADHD Academy.

It’s also important to live daily and act as if we’ve already achieved the goal. This is how you become a person who fill in the blank. If you act as if you’re a person who, and you feel like a person who and you think like a person who, then you’re doing all the right things to get the result you want and it’s going to feel a lot better along the way.

The actions you take create the results you get. The way you think about yourself and how that makes you feel determines whether you take the appropriate action or not. There are inevitably going to be setbacks and maybe even what you perceive as failures.

How do you feel about yourself? What you believe about your capability is going to make all the difference in which road you take. When you come to that fork in the road, and you have to decide, do I figure this out or do I quit?

Do I believe I’m the kind of person that can keep trying until I make this happen, or do I not believe in anything beyond my current results? It’s a choice. As I think about this concept, I think of many hands-on things that I’ve done over the years.

You know where you’re putting something together or trying to fix something and it doesn’t work over and over. Why do we persevere? It’s because you believe in your capability to figure it out. I want you to go away from this podcast and apply this to your current goals or set some new ones. It doesn’t matter how large or small, if you even think it’s remotely possible.

That is your seed of self-belief. Nurture it and work on the problem until you figure it out. See you next week.

Thank you for your time, and especially for your attention today. If you haven’t looked into the ADHD Academy, you’ll want to do that. This is my membership, with binge-able courses, weekly life coaching, new courses every month, a community of like-minded people and more.

Be sure to head over to www.learntothrivewithadhd.com/membership to get the details. See you next week.