Hey, everyone, its Erica. Today I'm going to chat a little bit about what you do after you've just come up with these great priorities and plans, and you just really want to stick to them. And you have ADHD. So sticking with things over time, is especially hard for you. I mean, it's hard for everyone. But there are so many things that make it more difficult for people with ADHD. I mean, you look at the fact that novelty and things being new and fresh is such a great motivator. And once you want to try to do your plans over and over, it's just not fresh and interesting anymore. And then you have the fact that, if you're working memory, your short term memory just isn't that great. So many people I know come up with a great strategy, a habit they want to do, a plan. Then they can't remember what the habit was, and then they can't remember where they wrote it all down. So if any of these are a challenge for you, I'm going to chat a little bit about what I've learned through working with my clients, and being along the ride, for trying to break habits you want to break and for building habits that you want to develop. I'm going to give you a speed version of the best science on habit formation. And I'm going to give you my favourite ADHD tweaks on that advice. And I'm also going to tell you a little story, that's one of my favourite favourite coaching moments. So here we go.So there's four basic steps in any habit, whether it's getting up on time, or eating a cookie, after dinner, there's the cue. There's the thing that triggers you to do some kind of action. Then there's the fact that there's going to be some kind of reward at the end of this and there's the realisation that there's going to be that reward, so you kind of have this craving. Next, there's the routine, there's what it is that you do. And then last you have getting the reward. That's it. A cue, a craving, the routine, and the reward. So for example, if you're building a habit of looking at the schedule for the rest of the day as the first thing you do, when you get to your desk, it might look like this: you have a cue that you've set up, it's a big post it that flashes, when you open up your computer that says "check the calendar first", then you think about the fact that "oh, I'm going to feel really good when I check the calendar, I might not be running around so much. So yeah, I want to do that", then you actually go and you look at the calendar, and then afterward, you do feel really good. Maybe at the end of the day, you say that was a great day.So you've got these four steps. That example might make it sound easy, but in reality, starting a new habit and staying with it can be very hard to do and to sustain. What makes it easier is to have tiny, tiny, tiny goals. If you have the goal of being 1% better the next day, if you have a goal that is so tiny that you definitely can do it, it makes it a lot easier to start on that path. And if you think in advance about, "okay, what is going to be my cue? What's going to remind me to do this thing? What's going to be a failsafe cue, because I've ADHD and the first cue's don't always work for me? What is going to be a cue that, once I get bored with that cue, I'm going to actually still remember it?" So maybe that means the post-it's need to change colour or be different. Or you need backup cues. You're going to have to have some kind of cue that gets you started. Then you have to think of a reward, something that you are going to be excited about, but it can be something really small, like give yourself a high five or just being able to tell your brother that you actually worked out this week, three times, whatever it is. And then you're going to set yourself up so that you know exactly what the routine is. So for example, looking at this checking the calendar, if you know every little step of what that involves, it's going to be a lot easier to do it, if you know that your routine is "this takes five minutes, what I do is I open up the calendar, I scan for what's happening in the morning, I check whether there's anything that is going to take longer than planned. And I look in the afternoon, I make sure there's a time for lunch and I make sure there's enough open space and open time in the day", something like that, like you're very clear about what it is that will help you to do the routine.Probably my favourite book about this is called "Atomic Habits" written by James Clear, you should check it out. I love what he says, he points out the fact that we hear people talk about having these big goals and "I just set the goal" and you have this impression like "wow you just set a lofty goal and then suddenly you get there". But that's actually not really what happens we don't end up rising to the level of our goals. What happens with success is that we set up these systems. And we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems, systems being the thing that reminds you what you're doing, the thing that helps you get back on track, when you fall off the habit, the thing that makes it appealing and attractive to do that habit each day. Those are the systems.One of my favourite moments as a coach this past year was when I got a screenshot from a client of a 13 mile run that he had done. Now, it was exciting because the background was that, probably only a month earlier, one of his goals had been to actually start exercising regularly. And, looking back on it, this doesn't always happen. He really did almost all of the things that all of this habit literature talks about. So I'll give you this example. First of all, he hadn't exercised in a while asked him when have you exercise? You know, when did it work? He said, "well what I tend to do is I just come up with this like grand exercise plan, and I'm going to work out three hours a day. And then after about a week, I'm bored with it, I missed one day, and then the whole thing falls apart". I said okay, so what he decided to do was to start very, very small, five push ups when he woke up before breakfast every day, and to run one mile on the treadmill, at least three times a week. He figured out his cues, the cue for the push ups would be right after he brushed his teeth, which he does every single day. So it was simple, he brushes his teeth, he knows he's going to do the push ups before breakfast, so getting breakfast is the reward. So he brushes the teeth, he does the push ups, then he gets breakfast. So he's got all those parts, the cue, the craving for breakfast, the routine of the push ups, and then doing the breakfast reward. And it gets him in the habit and the successful habit. And then when it came to doing the running, he also figured out "okay, before lunch that works for me. So what I'll do is I'll set a timer for when it's coming to be lunch, or I'll just get hungry, and I will have my running shoes right next to the treadmill, I'll do my running and then I'll get to have lunch." That habit was very easy to start. But of course, like everyone, he fell off at a certain point and he hadn't done his running for a while. He decided to sign up for a half marathon then. Just a really keep it interesting just to really challenge himself and to create some kind of time urgency, like, that half marathon was going to be very unpleasant if he wasn't in shape for it. And what I loved most of all, after he sent me the screenshots of his running time, was that I asked him if he was going to sign up for another half marathon and he said, "absolutely no. I'm not going to do another half marathon. It was fun, but I'm not going to be interested in doing it again. So I think I'm gonna do a century, a 100 mile bike ride. That's what I'm gonna do next because I need to keep it interesting for myself and I need to start something fresh.”So I hope this story might be inspiring to you. And I also hope that the, just the system of mapping it out. Your cue, what you'll crave is the reward, the actual routine and then getting the reward is something that you can use just bit by bit to start building habits that you want and sustaining them over time. Till next time.