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    • Aug 22

ep 51: Intuitive Scheduling: A Conversation with Coach Chris Hale


i know what to do so why can't i do it

Are you struggling to create a schedule that works with your ADHD brain instead of against it? In this insightful episode, Chris Hale, a life coach and certified coach instructor with ADHD, shares his journey of late diagnosis and developing intuitive scheduling techniques that align with neurodivergent minds.


Discover how embracing your unique brain wiring, creating environments that support your needs, and practicing self-compassion can lead to increased productivity and overall well-being.


What you'll learn:

  • How to create an intuitive schedule that aligns with your energy levels and needs

  • The power of 20-minute coaching sessions for significant breakthroughs

  • Strategies for managing sensory overwhelm and preventing burnout

  • Techniques for building self-awareness and self-compassion

  • The importance of environment in productivity and well-being

  • Navigating career transitions and letting go without shame


"When you change the way that you see the world, the whole world changes." - Chris Hale

Throughout this episode, Chris offers practical advice and personal insights to help you leverage your ADHD traits for success. By implementing the strategies discussed, you'll gain the tools needed to create a life and work schedule that celebrates your strengths and accommodates your challenges.


Useful Links Mentioned:

No matter how chaotic your current schedule may seem, this episode is a powerful reminder that embracing your neurodiversity and creating intuitive systems can lead to profound personal and professional growth. Start aligning your schedule with your authentic self today, and watch as your perceived challenges become your greatest assets.


Share your biggest takeaways and "aha" moments from this episode with us in the comments or on our social media channels. We're here to support and celebrate your progress!


Remember: By harnessing your unique ADHD strengths, developing personalized scheduling techniques, and crafting environments that support your neurodivergent needs, you can turn perceived obstacles into powerful advantages. Your present situation is not a permanent predicament. Armed with the right perspective and strategies, you possess the ability to flourish in a life tailored perfectly to your authentic self.




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Click here to read the transcript:

All right. Welcome back. Guys, I am super excited today. I have Chris Hale with me. He is a coach and he's going to tell you all about his niche and all that. But I know Chris from gosh, I do you know how long ago that was with the coaching? Did you see that when you came across that file?


It might have been 2021. Okay. A while ago, I think more than once I might have gotten coached by Chris, but. An excellent coach with self coaching scholars where I first started getting coached and I was just so excited to bring him on to talk to you guys. So, Chris, can you go ahead and introduce yourself? Yes. Hi, I'm Chris Hale and I am a life coach and certified coach instructor.


And I pretty much do general life coaching. I get clients who come to me for all sorts of things, and I haven't really decided to specifically niche down. Aside from having an interest in scheduling, which we'll talk about, but I really love coaching on just anything. I love helping people like with their businesses when they come to me with that I love helping them with.


I've done like relationship coaching. I've done just like, everything. Like just whatever you can imagine. And I really got that from being in scholars, from coaching and scholars. When you never knew what was coming. It was it was so amazing to like coach all day and have no idea what was going to be like coming to you and you, you know, and one session you're coaching a doctor who is like stressed out about, you know, patient care.


And then the next one, it's, you know, a mother who's stressed out about child care, you know, and it's like it's just so interesting to go through the gamut of that. And I think I I learned that I love just coaching from that experience. And that is every ex coach that I hear from says the same thing.


And it's just for you guys to have some clarity on what's going on there. These are 20 minute sessions and are they back to back for you guys? Chris? Well, we get to schedule them however we want to. So like wearing not that I coach there anymore, but when I did, I would schedule myself in blocks for like 2 hours at a time.


Two were usually 2 hours and, and then it would be back to back sessions for 2 hours and then I would take a break. You could I? You know, if you want to do you could schedule yourself a break every 10 minutes. Every 20 minutes, you know, if you ideally wanted to. But I don't know that that would work.


But yeah, I it's funny because I have clients that are like, I mean, I couldn't go back to back. Aren't you exhausted? And I'm like, no. I love like, client after client. Like it's I thrive on it. It's just so exciting. But these are like 20 minute sessions. It's funny, in my little cohort of coaches when I was getting certified, so many of them would say, You can't get anything done in 20 minutes, meaning like the 20 minute sessions where enough to like, make a difference.


And I'm like, you guys, you can get so much done in 20 minutes. And I would try to convince them of this. And it just it really changed my life like, a lot of my executive function skills were built in coaching by coaches that didn't know they were building my executive function skills and it was just me coming to them with my problems and them helping me because that's what coaching is right there, helping me work out my problems.


And then it would just continually help me in all the areas that I was struggling, time management organization, even so, I raise we didn't talk about this before the call that I have show rabbits. When people when they think of show rabbits, they think of like you make them jump through little hoops, you know, it's not like that at all.


It's more like a breed distinction type thing. And I raise blue eyed white mini rabbits. And so they're the real soft, soft ones. And it's a lot of work. Like they have bodily functions. They, they there's you know, they're are all in this like air conditioned shed because I live in the middle of the desert and, you know, the spiders like to move in and that needs to be taken care of and there's fur everywhere.


It's a lot of cleaning and and taking care of things. And through coaching, actually, I took this like really hard job and made it so much easier because they just asked me like, the question, like, what if this process were easy? And now that's like my favorite question to ask people like, what if this were easy? And it's funny, we get so creative, and there were just ways that I like improved things so much so that this hard job was no longer hard.


And so it's funny, like all the like areas of life that coaching can really affect. It can touch all of your like all of your life can be impacted because when you change the way that you see the world, the whole world changes. And so sometimes it's one question and it's so funny to think that you can't do anything in 20 minutes.


I've had sessions in scholars that were 7 minutes where someone came and they told me their problem. I asked them one question and their entire brain unraveled in that time and they're like, I think I'm done. So. So coaching doesn't have to take a long time. Yeah, and Chris is a great question, Asker And like that's what every great coach is and I was listening to his podcast and you were interviewing a young lady who was a coach and she was struggling about going back to work.


Do you remember who that was? yeah, that was one of my former clients. Alicia And so that was actually a coaching session that we recorded for the pod. Yeah, Yeah. And you just asked really, really great questions and you really did such a great job of staying curious through the whole process. And that is what a good coach will do for you.


And so you guys get an opportunity to listen to Chris this podcast. It is excellent. And also your social media I noticed, is you're always like putting up such like thought provoking things. thank you. That's a good job with that. And obviously it's just that you spilling out your brain into social media. How do you do that like social media has been?


I'm I'm getting it now. Like I have had such a bad relationship with Instagram. I threw a coaching session, realized I was in a bad relationship, and I wasn't letting Instagram know what I wanted and so I really hated Instagram. And it was funny because there was a coach that she's like, Have you searched for what you want to see on Instagram?


And I'm like, No, because my experience was just it's just promotion. I'm just seeing like self-promotion from people. I'm not seeing things that are interesting or funny, like I was on YouTube. YouTube does a very good job with their algorithm to know like, exactly what you want to see. But yeah, how do you keep up with your social media?


Because so many of my clients struggle with that. Well, by not keeping up with it, honestly. Really? Yeah. By letting it be something that I do when it inspires me and when I have the bandwidth for it. I love that now I'm not as consistent as like, maybe I quote unquote should be, but I don't want it to feel like a chore and I don't want to be putting stuff out there that is just for the sake of posting.


Yeah. And so I let it be something that's creative for me and like as a creative person, like I'm I'm a former dancer and, you know, artist. So it's like as you, as you approach that as a, as a job, you know, it can get really, I don't know, boring, stressful, tedious, like all of those things. But approaching it like a creative expression makes it something that I enjoy doing and something that I can pick up and and put down when I feel like it.


Yeah, So it seems like you're posting all the time, but is that not the case? No. I go through like I go through phases where like I'll post really consistently for like two weeks and then like I'll totally ghost Instagram for like a month. Like it's I love hearing that because I think too often we think everybody's paying attention and everybody's going to know that we're not being consistent.


And I do like to say like it's more important that we're persistent and consistent, but I don't think as many people are noticing. I mean, obviously talking here with Chris, I'm like, obviously you post every day because I'm seeing you every day. I don't know why, but I am and I don't know where. Honestly, I think the algorithm is so interesting because I'll see people I'll see posts from people from like a week ago or something, and I'll look at it and I'm like, that's like, I'll see it.


But it was actually like days ago that they posted it. So I don't know what's going on with the algorithm now. I have no idea. I don't understand. But it's one thing to the benefit of ADHD haters, I think. Yeah, I think yeah, I think I think it's working because it's, it's, it's allowing us to kind of do that.


I mean I'm also not trying to, like, monetize that. Like, you know what they mean. So I think someone who's really trying to like get to their 10,000 followers and monetize their themselves through social media, I might need to be like more consistent in that regard. Like I use it as a place to get ideas out. I use it as a place to connect with people in my life.


I love when people share stuff that's always fun and exciting when I get shares. So and just engage with people, That's the way you should be using it, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, It's funny you're having fun with it. Imagine that. It was. I was talking to a client that has been with me, I think about three years, if not close to that.


And we were talking about Instagram and this was probably six months ago, maybe a year ago. And I'm like, you know, I just don't think I'm going to do it anymore. It's just I'm not enjoying it. I just don't want to do it. And she's like, Well, I found you on Instagram and I'm like, crap. So my kameez are waiting for me because her name's Cami.


I'm like, They're waiting for me out there. So I got to show up in some sort of way. But now with like the interviews in the podcast, I have so much content. It's just a matter of like putting it out there and how I want to put it out there, which I am having fun with, like creating the carousels of like what we learned from the podcast with I especially love the guests, so thank you for being on.


That was awesome. Another thing is like my, my branding, like when I did my branding, it gave me these templates to work with. So I don't it's like I get to be creative with the templates and kind of change them up. But I have, you know, I have my brand colors, I have my brand font, and so I take some of that like guesswork out of it where it's like, you know, the design aspect of it, right, can be overwhelming for some people.


Like how do I make this look good or what do I want it to look like? And I think that can really, you know, get people to not post because, you know, is it just going to be a plain post? Am I going into Canva and creating something like I think a lot of that is is a deterrent for people to actually get on social media.


And if it is, I think two things. One, just record yourself talking like that's always people want to see you, people want to connect with you. So like just do a real and put that up and it doesn't have to be special. I watch reels of people who are like walking through the park and they're not even like looking at their yeah, right.


And so but it's an engaging but yeah, I think like for me, like when my branding was done, that became an anchor for me to be able to sort of create within those I like. I like some boundaries. So it's funny you talk about branding. When I first started, I pictured this like pretty picture of tulips and I put Learn to Thrive with ADHD over the top of it.


And Canva pulled colors out of that. I pulled like a teal, a pink and something else. And I'm like, Those are my brand colors I like. I was so big into like, not overthinking it that I just like, let it happen. And now I've rebranded sense and like, I don't know if you can see behind me, but like, I'm kind of a Wonder Woman nerd.


Like since I was five, I was the kid jumping off the couch with, like, the Wonder Woman. I'm way old. So Underoos, I don't know if you remember that. yeah, totally. Okay. With the Wonder Woman Underoos and the Wonder Woman towel, because I decided Wonder Woman had a cape and I would jump off the side of the couch pretending I was her.


And so my new brand colors are all like red, blue and yellow, and just having, like, brand colors, like, to your point, makes such a huge difference where people look at my stuff and they're like, you're so put together. I'm like, No, it's just it's just the same three colors you're seeing all the time. That's all right.


It really works. It's effective. Yeah, consistent like that. It's having certain things be consistent. And so then you can play around with other things. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So one thing I really wanted to talk about with you that I think would be so helpful to everybody is you have something that you're calling intuitive scheduling. Yes. And can you tell us about that?


Like, how does that work? Yeah. So a lot of the work that I do with people is all surrounding self authority and really just becoming the number one voice in your own head. And I found that with trying to create a schedule, trying to create like goals and a plan and all of those things, everyone has so many other voices in their heads and there's like the shoulds that all of this shines and, and the distraction around like what method to use?


Like am I using time blocking? Am I like, you know what I mean? It's like there is all of these ways that it can be done. And truthfully, you can all of the way is work, but you have to find a way that works for you. Yeah. And what I noticed with my clients is that we would work in this way.


That was super intuitive. I would just ask them questions about like where, where they liked to work, for instance, and why they liked to work in those places and what times they enjoyed doing certain tasks and what times of day they had energy to do certain tasks. And we just kind of like would create a schedule for them based on those questions.


And I realized that, like all of that is super intuitive if we get rid of the outside voices. Yeah. And so I didn't realize it at the time because I hadn't gotten my ADHD diagnosis yet. Now we need to get into that. But like I had, I didn't know this at the time, but it and I ended up having a lot of clients that have ADHD or, or autism or other neurodivergent and that program really works for our, you know, our brains.


And so I take people through like a regular time on it where you just like, look at how you're using your time. And then we go through kind of the, the, the like I said, like when I, when I have energy, when I don't have energy, what other things impact me, whether it's like your cycle or kinds of meds you take or anything else, anything else that could in fact affect your energy and your band with seasonal things.


Like what seasons? What are the seasons of your life like? When do you have more going on and less going on? Like, I have one client who always every year she's like, It's too much, It's too much, and it's always the same time of year. Yeah. Or like the get out of school or then the kids are out of school.


Yeah, right. So going through all of that, and really designing a schedule around those things. And then the last piece is that environment piece, which I think is not a consideration and for a lot of people, and it really works for entrepreneurs, especially because we get to choose where we work a lot of the times. Absolutely. So like I know I have one client who like, loves to work in public places and I can't work in public places, you know, So it's taking that into account too.


Like, what do you need in your environment? What is the lighting need to be like? Do you need sounds? Do you need other people? Are you better with a co-working? Are you better alone? And we put all of that together to create really a plan and a schedule for like how we live our lives. It's not just business.


I mean, it developed out of helping people with their business schedules, but it really can be all of it. That can be your whole life. And Chris has a fantastic a workbook that he put together and it's it's hearty. It's got like a lot of really great information, a lot of really good questions. Where do people find that?


Yeah, you can find that on my website, which is the only Chris Health.com Or you can go into Instagram into my link tree and there's a link in there. That's what I did. I, I realized, well, you put the only for sale because I was like, well, I will just Google and I will find your website and I'm like, It pulled up all these other Chris Hales.


And I'm like, That's why he says, the only Chris Sale. I got it now. So that's a perfect segue way to like your journey. We do. I want I meant to talk about that earlier, but tell us your journey with ADHD. It's actually pretty recent. Yeah, it's been just over a year and it's it started, I don't know, maybe four or five years ago if we really like, think about it, I, I have a husband who can't ever sit still and loves to be distracted and, you know, I was like, maybe have ADHD.


And then I started reading the criteria and I was like, wait, maybe I have ADHD. So does he as well? Or was that just like a little projecting? So he took this, he took that same he had the same evaluation I had. And it came back that he doesn't have it. But then we were like, between his we have, you know, between the different people we work with and like therapists and what not.


One therapist is convinced he's like, they're wrong. Like, you absolutely have ADHD. So and he really identifies with it. So we're going with his his identification as a non neurotypical, as a neurodivergent person and whatever whatever flavor his narrow divergence is. So we have a very neurodivergent household. And like like many of us you mentioned like there was depression and anxiety and stuff happening.


And I think that's important to talk about and to normalize because so many of us are diagnosed with anxiety and depression and nobody looks at the ADHD, even if they know you have ADHD. Yeah. And so that was like really me? I mean, I, I definitely had been dealing with depression ever since I was a teenager, which also makes sense when things start, things start getting real, real, you know, especially in school and stuff.


And I definitely struggle that struggled in school. I was terrible at math, which is really common and just all of that stuff and yeah, had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And when I first got the diagnosis and I sought the diagnosis because I wanted to try medication, if it came back that it was, if my that my suspicion was true.


And when I first went on medication and my brain slowed down and it went quiet and it wasn't running like 17 million different things at the same time, I was like, Whoa, I'm a way less anxious. Like I still have anxiety that that is manageable. But that really was like mind blowing for me, that my brain being so hyperactive was the majority of what was going on in that regard.


Yeah,


So when I was researching for Christine on the podcast, I was going through his podcast and I was really like, fangirling all the episodes and listening to them all in double time.


I loved that there was one episode where you're like, Listen to this in Double Time. I'm like, Thank you, because I already am and I listen to everything in Double time. And so I was listening to all this, and as I was going through, I was noticing, like your journey with SoulCycle. And what I loved seeing was you manage your mind around like, I'm going back to SoulCycle.


This is the thing. It's challenging, but I'm going to get through it. And then like more challenges, and then there's a period where, like, you're okay to let it go. So like, the reason I want to talk about that is like so many times people go into something and they feel like guilt or shame about letting things go.


Like, what was that process for you? Yeah, it was a lot of acceptance and self-compassion, honestly, because I realized how difficult the job actually was for me to do because of like executive function stuff, because of sensory stuff, like the loud music and the lights and just the like. And it made me feel like really out of control, even though I was the one in control.


Yeah. And for clarity, Chris was teaching Soul side. Yes, I was teaching at SoulCycle. And so I really realized that, like these were not things that were going to improve. And I if I was going to stay there, then it meant accepting like a level of burnout that I really wasn't like willing to continue to stay in because it really was burning me out.


Yeah, because of the like, how many things you have to have going on. And I'm a good multitasker, but like, it's so many different things like coaching the people, the time, timing the class, knowing what like what's going on in regard to that and the type the playlist is timed out for you, but like just remembering like every single thing, like every thing you're doing throughout the class, it's not like teaching a dance class.


I'm a dance teacher. There's so much room and space in a dance class to, like, figure things out and, you know, take your time. And this just felt like it was at a pace that I couldn't keep up. That was like, overwhelming for me. you mentioned it was like, really, like stressing your executive functions. Yeah, it was really stressing my executive function.


And so that's realizing that and realizing that like, this isn't going to get better, like quote unquote better, like there's no way to change that for me and my experience. I had to accept that. And that was really hard to do. But this whole year has actually been a year of acceptance and self-compassion. Yeah, learning about myself, learning and a lot of grief.


I've had a lot of grief in the last year or two. I think that's a real thing to talk about, especially with like diagnosis is like the grieving that happens of like the things that could have been easier had you known, but the accepting of like, no, it's just my brain works differently or my nervous system works differently.


And my nervous system is not designed for this. My particular nervous system. I'm not saying that anyone like with ADHD or similar things couldn't handle it. It's just my particular nervous system was not handling that and I could have gone into a shame spiral around it and I probably would have like ten years ago. But a having coaching tools and then being understanding that there are just specific things about me with this diagnosis that are what they are.


And no amount of like trying to fit this square peg into a round hole is going to work. Yeah, was really freeing actually, and it allowed me to walk away. Not feeling bad about making that decision. Yeah, and I think people experience the sensory issues, but I don't think that they really like pay attention to how it affects their everyday life.


When I hear you describe like the lights and all that kind of stuff, I think of a Walmart. I can't stand going in a Walmart or I don't know if you guys have them over on your side of the country, but Ross is like this clothing store where it's like all the, all the like department stores and stuff.


Give all their clothes to Ross at like a discounted price and then we buy it and just kind of price we me very rarely because I want to stab myself in the eye rather than go in and pick through like every piece of clothing. It's just overwhelming to me and the lights and just all the things. And like our sensory sometimes issues.


I guess not everybody has sensory issues, but most of us do like really do make a difference. And we don't need to put ourselves in environments that tax. Yeah. And like and that's such a good point of like there are so many environments that we kind of like quote unquote have to go into like, I have to get groceries.


I can't avoid stores, but I can, you know, I can go to Whole Foods, which has a nicer like atmosphere than maybe like the stop and shop a little more spread out. Yeah, it's a little more spread out, a little more space, you know, it's a little more expensive. But, you know, I can I can pick and choose those things, but like, I don't I can't not get groceries and I don't can't always rely on my partner to do that.


You know, it's like we have to share in those things. So I guess you choose the other environments that I put myself into, you know, and that was just one of those things that was like, Yeah, I can't like, I have to not choose this environment. And I think it's important for people to understand the sensory stuff and to pay attention to it.


And like we were talking before we became on the call about like internal awareness for our feelings and stuff. Yeah. And you know, I know that like, I have a great awareness for my body in terms of like kind of like where I am in space and like what feel like what sensate like muscular li what my body feels like because of being a dancer.


And I'm very trained in that way. And I never realized like how I didn't notice certain sensations. Like I don't like feel emotion. I don't always know what I'm feeling. When someone walks me through feeling an emotion, it can sometimes take me a while to actually locate the sensations in my body because I have a low intercept of awareness which is really calming.


And that's like not understanding that will impact the sensory stuff. Because if you don't know that bright lights, like if you're if you're just like feeling irritable and you don't. Yeah, right. You don't realize that it's because you're in this like Walmart with like bright overhead lighting and noise and an environment that like you don't have any control over and it's too hot or it's too cold or it's whatever, and you're not feeling those internal sensations telling you like something's off that can lead us to like, really burning ourselves out.


So I think it's so important that we get in touch with that some way that we have some kind of practice where either someone's talking us through it or we're just trying to pay more attention in our daily lives to waking up that awareness because I think we can wake it up. You know, I think it's greatly improved for me through coaching and having coaches that like help walk me through.


It's just today I got coaching and and I told her that this thing was making me feel anxiety and she had me get into my body about it. And what I told the coach was like, Thank you, because I will never do that myself. I won't even think to do it myself. Yeah, it's like it doesn't it doesn't dawn on us.


And I think that because of that, like lack of internal awareness, I think it doesn't occur to us to bring our attention to it. Whereas like, still like someone. Yeah, we just feel, we feel something that we can't quite describe and then it usually ends up in some kind of frustration or overwhelm because we can't really describe it.


And the slowing down and remembering that like, there's this whole internal world that like the same way that I was so tuned in to like the racing thoughts like that was easy to like pay attention to all the time because it kept my attention. Yeah. Whereas like, my body wasn't, it wasn't the same situation. So it's so interesting.


Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, I want to keep with time here. So what I want to do here is can you let people know, like, what? Where would you like them to find you? Where would you like to connect with you? If they want to work with you, If you want to work with me, like you can connect with me on Instagram, I'm there.


My handle is the only Chris how you can. Also, all my links are there, but you can go to my website, you can book a consult. I have a few different offers. I have just a regular one on one offer. I have a intuitive scheduling six week sprint where we really like go through connecting you to yourself and what feels right for you and your schedule.


And then I actually can offer for coaches that I don't advertise all the time, but it's a little coaching, mentorship that I do. It's just three sessions and it's you can you coach me and I help you embody like yourself with your coaching. So it's called the embodied coaching mentorship. Yeah. And so if anyone wants to like kind of drop into their own bodies while coaching, if that's something that you find that is hard for you to kind of be present and be embodied and not worry about what questions are coming next or whatever, and just be with your clients.


I have that offered to you, so if you're interested in that, you can just reach out to me. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate you being on. Thank you. All right.







 


















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