If Failing Isn’t an Option, What Would You Do? - 094
Jan 17, 2022The title of this episode is a real question I am posing to all of my listeners. If you knew that you would not fail once again to achieve your desired outcome, what would you do? Would you tell yourself that’s not possible because you always fail? Or, would you be curious about what makes that opportunity different from all the other ones – to wonder how is it possible that failing isn’t an option?
If you’re curious to know more, please listen carefully. And after you do, if you want to know even more, take action and go look at the link in the show notes. And after that, take one more action which is reach out to me with any questions you have. Please don’t wait for this opportunity of a lifetime to pass you by because you weren’t curious enough to take the next couple of steps
In this episode Dr B talks about:
- How you can avoid failing and succeed
- The right scaffolding support and guidance
- Timing is essential for change
- Act now so you don't miss the AIA opportunity that ends January 20, 2022 - link below
Developing your Executive Function Skills and shifting your limiting beliefs is the fastest and most effective way to overcome ADHD limitations, find focus, gain confidence, and newfound freedom in your life!
My mission is to put an end to the worldwide needless suffering of adults with ADHD and those with under-developed Executive Function Skills - whether from ADHD, chronic depression or anxiety, trauma, addictions, or chronic illnesses. And, you don't need a formal diagnosis to know you need help developing these executive function skills in order to greatly reduce your suffering.
Full Episode Transcript
If Failing Isn’t an Option, What Would You Do? - 094
The title of this episode is a real question I am posing to all of my listeners. If you knew that you would not fail once again to achieve your desired outcome, what would you do? Would you tell yourself that’s not possible because you always fail? Or, would you be curious about what makes that opportunity different from all the other ones – to wonder how is it possible that failing isn’t an option?
If you’re curious to know more, please listen carefully. And after you do, if you want to know even more, take action and go look at the link in the show notes. And after that, take one more action which is reach out to me with any questions you have. Please don’t wait for this opportunity of a lifetime to pass you by because you weren’t curious enough to take the next couple of steps.
So, how is it possible that failing isn’t an option? Failing is when you stop, you give up, you just don’t move forward any further because you are stuck and you surrender to the inevitability that you have once again failed to achieve what was promised to you or you promised yourself. I don’t make empty promises. I know for a fact that no one in my program fails, and that I go to any lengths to ensure that is the case with everyone I work With.
Have you had someone by your side 5-days/week, answering your questions and teaching you step-by-step what to do to get started, keep going or finishing up something? Most people haven’t and it’s important that the guidance and scaffolding be available to you in real time so you don’t stay stuck and get discouraged and quit. Timing is very important. We are feeling-driven people and when we feel discouraged and that feeling continues for too long, we often just give up and quit.
So, let’s walk through the experience of a lifetime together so you can step into it and know how you will be succeeding:
1. Since there is no diagnostic code in the DSM-V for under-developed Executive Function skills and the baseline information is very important to both you and me, that is your first win. Within 24-48 hours of your enrollment, you will receive a link by email that leads you to your EF assessment to complete and submit for processing. It only takes about 15 minutes to complete online and I receive your data and report right away to review. Even if you have been assessed for ADHD or depression or anxiety or so many other conditions, I am fairly certain that they didn’t assess your EF skills whose development derails when other conditions take over.
2. It’s important that I know some background information about you, your challenges and your goals for transformation. Otherwise, I would be working with you without knowing very much about you other than your EF results and that’s not enough for me to be my very best for you. So, you have the opportunity to type up a maximum of 2-pages of “Getting to Know Me” background information and emailing it over to me for review.
3. I review your EF assessment results as well as your 2-pages of background information and in light of both, I record a video for your eyes only, providing you with your EF results as well as how I see they tie in with what you shared with me in your 2-pages. And as important, how what we will be doing in the 7-month program together will help you develop your under-developed EF skills and strategies. This is not a “quick fix” solution, like a Band-Aid; it’s a solution for the rest of your life. The training and coaching become a part of you and grows more and more powerful within you as you engage with and stay in the content. It replaces what used to be your previous, ineffective skills or strategies with ones that will empower you in so many areas of your life.
4. Over the years I’ve become aware of additional areas of importance in getting started and you gaining the greatest transformation. Most of my students have many limiting beliefs and identities that don’t serve them because they are limiting as well. And then, there is the codependency that starts to become visible as we work together. Codependency is often misunderstood by many of my students until I share a simple definition with them. Bradshaw said years ago that codependency is an absence of a healthy relationship with yourself. I see that every day in my students – the self-doubt, self-loathing, insecurities and more. That’s why we start our work together with a mini-training on limiting beliefs and outdated identities and how you can begin to change both.
5. If you’ve read any self-help books for your challenges and been unsuccessful in achieving the results the books promise you, it is often times that they don’t include the Pre-Skills you need to have in order to gain the success they promise you in their books. Because I know that Pre-Skills are important to you achieving your outcomes successfully, that is where we start in our first month together. We focus on 3 important Pre-Skills related to managing yourself in time, banishing procrastination and making decisions more easily with a methodology that walks you through decision-making. Each of these Pre-Skills comes with a live group coaching call to answer any questions you have about each one as well as a comprehensive training and workbook paired with a private group forum for you to get coached in writing, step-by-step in each of the Pre-Skill methodologies. So long as you engage with the content, you can’t fail to achieve a successful outcome with each of these Pre-Skills.
6. Starting in our second month together, you will be developing the EF skills that you were assessed on, as well as a few I’ve added because they’re important as well. This allows you to look at your baseline results for each of the EF lessons and know where you are starting, which is great. No mystery about how developed or under-developed your Working Memory is; you know and can engage in the development of that skill and all the others.
7. Every other week starting in our second month together, you will receive an EF training lesson with a handout to follow along with and take notes on. That’s right – take notes on the handout rather than on scraps of paper that get lost. In fact, I encourage everyone to set up a 3-ring binder in the beginning of our time together so that you keep all your handouts and notes in one place. You are giving them a home and that’s an important skill and strategy for your success.
8. You have an entire week to watch the 90-minute training and to post your insights and takeaways in our private community forum connected to the program (not on Facebook). Even if you give 15-minutes every day to this process, you will complete the training video in 6 days and have time to post in the forum.
9. The week after each EF lesson is released, we have 2 live group coaching calls – day or night to accommodate different time zones and schedules. Lots of students from the UK, Australia, Canada and other places on this planet are in the program and the timing is working well for them.
10. The live group coaching calls are a powerful resource that I encourage all my students to take advantage of, even if you can only attend for part of the coaching call time. All coaching calls are recorded so you can watch and/or listen to the calls again and again and learn from that repetition. Great for when you are cooking or cleaning or doing other things and still available to listen to the content. It takes more than once to really get it and start to apply the training materials and live group coaching is a significant piece designed to help you succeed. There are no silly or dumb questions and you will quickly learn that you are not alone in your questions or challenges. The group learning is a powerful experience. The same is true of the written coaching in the private forum as what is most personal is most common and benefits everyone.
You are the meaning maker in your life, so choose wisely, with the end in mind. Be sure to stand guard at the doorway to your mind and only allow in what serves you. And monitor who you are becoming on the way to where it is that you are going, least you arrive and not like the person you’ve become.
And so important to remember who you are. You are not your deeds. You are a precious child of God and the universe; and are called a “human being” not a “human doing” for good reason. You don’t have to earn your value; you were born with it. Your value comes from “who” you are; not what you do. And so long as you link your self-worth and self- value to you, the human being, your value will remain constant and 100%. And if you need a place to know that is true, be sure to join the Facebook group, Living Beyond ADHD, so you can be with others who will celebrate yours WINS with you and affirm that you are more than okay as you, the “human being.”
So, what’s it going to be for you today? If you got up when you alarm went off instead of hitting the snooze button for an hour, that’s an awesome win. If you took the time to prepare for your tasks for today, that’s a great win. If you made a decision that living a lesser life is no longer an option for you, and you are open and willing to make the changes to have a great life, that’s a fantastic win! You get the point; celebrate all of them. And none of this “half-hearted celebrating”; you’ve got to mean it. Exaggerate your emotions. YES!!! WOW!!! AWESOME!!! Be sure to celebrate your WINS – big and small – because celebrating daily builds consistency and makes a faster difference in you. How much time do we have? Not much. So, let’s get to it.
In December 2016, I ran a 5-day challenge called “Stuck to Unstoppable”- that took participants through 5 significant steps: Goal vs. Fantasy, Fantasy vs. Reality, Acceptance vs. Denial, Commit vs. Plan To, and Ensure Enduring Change. This was the humble beginning of ADDventures In Achievement. In each step there was something to consider.
1. Step 1: Goal vs. Fantasy – Are you focused on the needed goal, wanted goal or fantasy goal?
2. Step 2: Fantasy vs Reality – Are you clear on your here and now so you can set your goal?
3. Step 3: Acceptance vs. Denial – Are you open and willing to acknowledge and accept this unstoppable future for you?
4. Step 4: Commit vs. “Plan To” – Are you ready to get outside your comfort zone and keep your word to yourself?
5. Step 5: Ensure Enduring Change – Are you ready to promote from within and transform stuck into unstoppable?
Looking back on this 5-step experience, I can see the roots of the EF skills that are necessary to fully embrace this process, which is what ADDventures in Achievement became. It’s been a fascinating journey.
So, when you say that you don’t want the life you have and can even say what you do want instead, is that truly a goal that you are willing to go to any lengths to achieve, knowing that you will not fail to achieve it? Is it something that “would be nice” to achieve but not essential to you? Are you willing to accept your starting point and move forward from there? Are you willing to live from commitment rather than circumstances in life? There will always be circumstances to derail us if we choose to allow them to do so, or we live from our commitment and ask ourselves HOW we can and will keep going to achieve our goal. And, are the changes and goals you have ones you are willing to maintain to keep your achievements? Or, is the maintenance too costly in time, effort and energy? These are important questions to consider so that you can truly achieve the goals you want for yourself.
The development of your EF skills, strategies, as well as addressing your limiting beliefs and more can be achieved in as little at 15 minutes a day, every day. You can certainly invest more than 15 minutes a day, however, those who can only invest 15 minutes a day are doing quite well in developing their EF skills, and so can you! If you truly want to achieve what you say you do, then the cost is just 15 minutes a day to get you there.
Open enrollment closes on January 20, 2022, which is very soon. Will you be giving yourself the gift of a lifetime, a gift that keeps giving to you long after you have completed the 7-month program? Will you act now and check out the link in the show notes so you don’t miss this opportunity? Ask yourself – where will you be in 7-months if you don’t act now and get the help you know you need and want? Most likely in the same or even worse situation.
Life doesn’t stand still; it’s constantly in motion. Life gives us the opportunity to move forward with it or to stand still and be passed over. Remember all those missed opportunities that you might be feeling regret about? Don’t let this one be added to those regrets. Act now and at least take a look at the link, and even reach out to me by email with any questions you have about whether or not this program is right for you. I will respond to your questions personally. My email address is also in the show notes.
I would be honored to serve your needs and get started doing so right away. Remember, the deadline is January 20, 2022 and the program starts on January 26, 2022. I need those few days in between to get everyone’s EF assessments out to them and record the videos to send out before we start on the 26th. I want you to know what your EF skill development looks like before we begin our 7-month journey together. A favorite quote of mine: John Wooden said, “If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier.”
What this quote says to me is that I need to keep my focus on WINS, not losses if I am to be a much happier person. And, based on my years of staying focused on WINS, I can tell you I am a much happier person and grateful for all my lessons and experiences.
So, because of the short timeline remaining - get over to the link in the show notes and check out the ADDventures In Achievement program while there is still time to do so. Make that one of your big wins for today! It’s your ticket out of the endless loop of overwhelm, frustration, underachieving and more.
If you enjoyed today’s episode or any of the other episodes, please share this podcast show with others. I would also be grateful if you’d rate the show and write a positive or inspiring review on iTunes so I know I’m meeting your needs. It means a lot to me to know your life is getting a little bit better every time we get together.
Be sure to check out the show notes for the many opportunities available to you – such as us working together to put an end to your needless suffering. You will find real solutions to the challenges you are experiencing, and I would love to help you realize a new freedom, that is…if that’s of interest to you. Thanks for listening… Until the next time… Bye for now…
Resources referred to in this episode:
• AIA Executive Function Foundational Skills Program - enrollment closes on January 20, 2022: https://www.drbarbaracohen.com/AIA
• Living Beyond ADHD Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livingbeyondadhd
• Free PDF - 13 Signs Weak Executive Functioning Is Holding You Back: https://www.drbarbaracohen.com/Executive-Function
Episode Resources:
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Click the AIA link: https://www.drbarbaracohen.com/AIA so you are informed. There is no obligation to being informed about an amazing opportunity that changes lives!
- 13 EF Skills: https://www.drbarbaracohen.com/Executive-Function
- Join the amazing Living Beyond ADHD Facebook Group & hang out with your peeps
- Follow me on Dr B Facebook Page and enjoy live videos and more
- Follow me on Instagram and enjoy relevant resources
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