Hi, it's Erica here. And today I'm going to talk to you about having ADHD, and setting priorities. Now, there's a couple of different kinds of priorities, right? There's the kinds of priorities that you decide or the priority for the day or the week. But today, we're gonna talk about the big picture life priorities. And the most important message that I want to convey to you is how much for me, it made a huge difference, to start getting comfortable doing less. And, you know, it started when I was first diagnosed when I was in my early 30s. And I was navigating a period of time when I was in a huge transition, having a very stressful new job. And also having a young child, I think it toddler. And at that point, I really hadn't made the shift yet, from letting go of all the things that I was able to do and felt like priorities before I had a kid into the simplicity of being able to be well and make it through those first tough couple years. So after I was diagnosed, I had the good fortune of being able to work with an ADHD coach. And one of the things she said to me has stayed with me since then, she said, one of the most important things I do as a coach is helping people to get comfortable doing less. And I'll add to that, that, for me getting clear on what it is I cared about most, and finding ways to put a lot of structure in my life. So that that is what I was spending my time on has been a huge help. You know, it's really helped me to reduce the amount of stress in my life, and also just make things happen with greater ease.What I know now that I'm an ADHD coach, though, is that setting life priorities can be especially hard for anybody with the interest driven Ferrari brain of ADHD. One of the reasons is that a lot of people with ADHD, just have too many priorities, or too many things that seem like their priorities. Because life is so exciting, there's so many things you want to do. And lots of things seem interesting. And maybe you used to get excited about something, and now you're excited about something else. But you feel like you got to still do the old thing. Or maybe there's sort of the combination of things that are really interesting. And then those other things that you know, are important. So it just gets all thrown together in this huge pile of 10 life priorities. And the other thing that's really hard for a lot of people I know with ADHD is that it can be hard, even if you have all those priorities, you know, you want to pare it down to differentiate what are truly the most important priorities. So I'll share with you a couple strategies that have worked for me or worked for some of my clients.I found a good goal is to try to see if you can get it down to three really essential priorities in your life. So one way to start getting there is to talk to a friend or talk to someone you trust, especially if you're somebody who's you know, what we call a verbal processor, who gets to clarity by talking it through with somebody and exploring different ideas, you know, you can sort of talk about something that seems like a priority, realise it's not, but look to do that, if that's something that might be helpful for you. The other thing you can do is picture an exact moment in the future. So maybe it's a birthday party 10 years from now, and just pick yourself like, extremely happy. But you know, what gets you happy, just like content and satisfied feeling like you have a full life. And then imagine from there, what is it that you've done? Who's around you? What's the structure of your daily life like? And if you can do that you can do kind of what we call backward planning, where you think about like, Okay, what would I have been focusing on? What would be three really big priorities that I would have been focusing on in these past 10 years to make that happen. And another strategy that I found really helpful is to come up with an image. This is especially helpful once you have some clarity around what your what your priorities are, and you want to remember them, you want to not forget them, you want to have the latter the inspiration and the recollection of what those are.So one way to think about it is rocks. There's a there's a way of planning in business that I think is relevant for for your life, where you sort of imagine that there's like a transparent like a glass container, right? That's transparent and you you're going to fill it with rocks and sand, you've got three rocks. So the rocks represent the really, really big important things in your life. And so you put the rocks in, and then and then everything else has to fit around those rocks. Right? The sand is all the day to day stuff and the little things To cover up, but you'd never forget the rocks, the rocks are the main part of it. And, and I know some people have actually made their own little, you know, container like a jar where they put in the rocks, and then they fill it in with sand. And they have that visible to them just so that they can remember that there's three rocks. Another image that you might come up with when that wasn't really worked for me was this idea of a three legged stool. So in this moment that I talked about, where I was really having to navigate stress, I got it down to three legs of my life. And it pictured sitting on the stool. One was family, one was work. And the other one was actually yoga, because at the time I was, I was getting certified as a yoga instructor. And in many ways that just was sort of a way of thinking about wellness. But that was my focus at the time. Every time I thought about the weekend, I thought about doing something else I got distracted. A nice common way to get back to it was just picture myself sitting on the stool, is it part of these three legs of the stool. So the last part of that is if coming up with an image works for you. And of course, I mean, these are all just suggestions and ideas, right? I mean, the way that the way that life works well for people with ADHD is to come up with what works for you. But if one of these works for you, you might also think about finding a way to actually keep it visible, you know, like, have that have that rock jar or have a picture of a stool that you hang up and have around you so that you're seeing it often and it's staying present for you.And the last tip I'll share is the idea of just getting public about your priorities, you know, finding those people in your life who can give you truly supportive accountability, and share with them what your main priorities are, why they matter to you. So that if they see you forgetting if they see you going in other directions, they can remind you to check in with yourself. So in closing, I'll recap some of the things that I've talked about today. First, is this idea of pausing to ask yourself, if I were to get comfortable doing less, Would it improve the quality of my life? And then if you do feel that way, what are the things possibly just the three things that I care most about? Where really want my energy to go toward? And then last, finding some structures, sometimes really fear structures or sometimes friendly structures, to keep those priorities present for you so that you remember them so that you stay inspired to stick with them.