176 - How To Chunk Down That Big Goal

We made a big goal!
Now what?
Chunk it down
Ok, but how?
Chunkercize it!
That makes no sense. 

Let's explore how an ADHD person, with a tornado of thoughts, can break a goal down and successfully forward on it. 

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Alrighty, January's all about making those big goals. We're going after the long termis, guys. We're talking one year plus goals. That's unheard of. An ADHD year with a long-term goal. What does that even look like? But you know what? We did it, right? We made a goal. So I got all juiced up. I'm gonna lose 30 pounds. But that doesn't make it automatically start happening. What does it take to get started on a long termie? Like, where do I get started? What do I do? What's going on? Well, come on in. Let's have a chat ski poo about it. You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and their depression and anxiety. I'm your host, Russ Jones. I'm an ADHD coach and I run the Platinum Award-winning community coaching of the same name, ADHD Big Brother. And I also have ADHD and depression. It's craptastic. Welcome aboard. Let's learn some stuff, laugh at some stuff. And ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Welcome to the podcast, you guys. I really want to get into talking about chunking uh of the long termises. So uh let us let's get the uptoppy stuff out of the way, right? Okay, we're normalizing talking about our mental health. We're by vocalizing how we're doing, and it is not always Peachy King. Uh I am currently in a bit of a depressive episode. Um sure that that to kind of tracks with how the world recently burned down around me, but um, I dread sinking into a dark depression. So I'm hitting this as hard as I can with the tools that I have. Great walk with my buddy Brian. I'm making sure that the people I'm close to are aware of my mental state. It just means that I'm currently, I think summarize it is like that. I'm currently being as cool as possible with going about 50% speed, if that. So if I were to summarize my mental health on a scale of one to ten, uh, I think I'm sitting right at about a four uh right now. Got my eye though. I got my eye on a solid six to seven. Let's see if we can get there. One of the ways that I'm keeping my eye on improving is spending time in the ADHD Big Brother community. So let me just do my quick self-promo for a minute and uh tell you what we have going on. Maybe you'll want to join up. We never know. Okay, it is a platinum award-winning community because we're badass on the circle platform, and they have a new Discover experiences space that they've invited me into. I'm laughing because it still kind of seems weird, but uh I'm amongst the greats like Gali Abdal, Jay Shetty, Brendan Burchard, and in terms of badass communities. Um they that's because we have a badass community. I just, you know, we all know connection is great for depression, and we've got body doubling, and I do live events to connect live with uh folks, and it's it's always a mood boost for me. Uh so selfishly, that's been amazing. Um, and we just did a workshop on chunking down, which I'm gonna be sharing about here because it was it was really helpful to me. We also have community members who will run events of their own inside our community. We have a complex trauma coach who's a member of our community, and she's gonna host an inner child workshop for us this month. And we also have a member who created a show and tell event, which is so freaking cool. So many ADHDers are like big time creatives, and a lot of us make some cool creative shit. So he created an event in our community for us to share the neat things that we have we've made or that we're working on. It is just it's so much fun connecting in that way with fellow ADHDers. I love it. But the big offer situation that I'll just put out there is back in December, I ran a $10 for 10 days in the community, and it went so well. We had like a almost a 50% conversion rate of people quote unquote testing out the community to people realizing, oh shit, Russ isn't messing around when he says this place will absolutely help you get your shit together. Um, so if you've got items on your to-do list that you've been putting off forever, join up and i slash whee will help you cross those items off. It is doable. So, anyways, I decided to keep that $10 for 10 days up and running for now. I don't know when I'll pull it. It's I I still go off my whims on these things, so I don't have a countdown or any kind of uh forced urgency situation. I hate that shit anyway. So if you ever wanted to try it out, just jump on in. And the beauty is after the 10 days, you just automatically are removed. So there's no like $10 and then you auto-pay for the whole thing. No, it's 10 days and then you're done unless you decide you don't want to be done. And then if you're someone who wants more of a group coaching type type dynamic, I've created the consistency crew that takes uh seven people max per group, and we meet on Zoom once a week, and it's meant to be accountability on steroids. You can learn more about that in the show notes, and it's an ongoing situation, so you can sign up whenever you are ready, as long as there's an opening. You can just jump in at any time. So now let's talk about chunking down. I think it's fair to say that most of us know what chunking down is. I'm sure you know, but I'll just offer this up pretty briefly. Chunking down, it's basically, you know, you take your big goal and you break it down into tiny little bitty chunks. Just little tiny, we're chunking it down. We're downwardly chunking. So if you're in our community and you maybe attended our big visualization, we did this big goal setting workshop, or perhaps you've read all about SMART goals, or maybe uh you read a book on a big vision planning and goal setting, and you got motivated to come up with a big goal. That's the first step. And I'm gonna use mine as an example, uh just as the frame of reference for all this. I'm my big goal this year uh for my health is to lose 30 pounds. It's a big one. Not gonna lie, it's a big one. It's gonna take a while. Uh, I am a skinny framed guy with 30 extra pounds right in my belly. I don't think it's subcutaneous. I think it's more of the visceral fat, which I believe is the bad kind. I don't know fucking anything about that stuff. It's just all in my belly. And I don't, I'm not that concerned with how I look. It's mostly the health type stuff. Like, um, you know, like uh my blood pressure and my energy and my mental health and my aches and my pains and my focus. I bet you if I was 30 pounds lighter, if I was living the life of a gentleman 30 pounds lighter, I might feel a little bit better in all those categories, no? You think? And 30 pounds is like a trackable number. That's why I use that. It's I can look at the scale, the scale will tell me the number and I will track. Um, and I know there's mixed opinions on the number on the scale, but it's no big deal for me. Okay, but just because I'm all juiced up and motivated to achieve this goal, it don't mean it's gonna happen. Do you guys ever do this? You get all juiced up about a goal because you, you know, you decide you're gonna do it, and then maybe you just kind of jump into the middle. You say, I'm gonna just start doing bench press. You just start doing random shit to get there. And this is why this is and this is where chunking down might help. I'll explain how we did it in our workshop in the community, and you can do this on your own. And for you community members, if you're listening, we recorded that one, so it's on a uh replay. You can check that out. The way we worked on this that was really helpful was we set a timer for 15 minutes, and it's like a body double session as we listed, we purged, we vomited every single thing that we think we need to do to achieve this goal. I like to put this stuff on a timer because it forces us to keep thinking about it. Like when that initial round of brain dump goes dry, we're like, okay, I'm done. Yeah, it forces us to keep our brain activated and exploring. You know, it's not about going until it's done. This is just for this exercise. It's just to purge it. You know how we'll have a billion ideas on how we're gonna get to the goal? And our brain will be like, I gotta do this thing, but I can't do this thing until this other thing gets done. And then that other thing requires purchasing this other thing, but I can't purchase that thing until I know where the thing goes, and I won't know where the thing goes until I get the other thing. But how can I get the thing if I don't know where the other thing is? But we ah, damn it. So we don't do anything, right? Because we're just constantly in this paralysis of can't do this until this happens. So we purge it all. The swirling tornado of to-dos, we purge it all. And it feels good to get it out of the head. And when I purge, I purge everything. I'm purging thoughts, I'm purging to-dos, I'm purging feelings, concerns, no filter. It's in my head, I get it out of my head. The exciting thing that can happen is that we get insights from the exercise. From this purging, I creatively came up with a way to view my health. This is just gonna maybe it's unique to me, maybe you'll get a benefit out of it. I don't know. I broke it down into four E's. Which is just random. It just happens to be eating, exercise, education, and executive function, right? What am I eating? How am I exercising? How and what am I learning so that I can make healthy choices? And how am I working with my brain to do the stuff? But we can't stop there. In the workshop that we did, uh, after we talked shop about our big list, well, I got a page and a half. Holy shit. Well, we all went back in for a five-minute timer, and during that five-minute session, during that timer, we read over our page and a half list to find, to extrapolate, to uncover the 10 most important things that would have the greatest impact on our goal. I like a nice short timer for this because it doesn't allow waffling of opinion, right? It creates a sense of urgency. Force me to make some hard decisions. This is where you separate out the things that they seem the easiest, you know, or the things that seem the most fun. These are the ADHD dream tasks, right? Like, oh, that one's better. But it's a black and white decision now. It's is this going to have the most impact? It's a really interesting exercise, especially when our brain kind of knows what's going on here and and what might be coming. So it tries to find loopholes and reasons to justify the fun thing or the easy thing or the thing that's not truly, truly the most effective or the most important. It is a huge challenge to be critical and definitive in this top 10. So I'll share mine. Um by the way, I only got to nine. Timer ran out, had to stop. And if you know me, you know that I love, love quitting when the timer goes off. It is the greatest reward on a task like this. Oh, I get to quit when the timer goes off. Thank ye, Lord. Alright, so I'm gonna share mine. Uh and here they are. Um, just because it's fun to compare notes, and I'm a big transparency person, right? You know, I'm not just a coach, I'm a big brother. I do this exact same shit as you guys. I do the same work that I advise. I have ADHD. I just happen to love the hell out of self-improvement and nudging forward, and I just think it's super helpful to hear the specifics as opposed to like this big, broad, like, hey, you want to achieve your goal? Okay, break it down. Break it down into smaller chunks. All right, see you later. Now, show me the work. Let's do the work. Okay, here's my nine. Number one is get my heart rate to 120 for 30 minutes daily. And that's I think that's just good ADHD advice in general, right? Like just you gotta get your heart rate up. Um, 30 minutes seems kind of long right now, but we'll get to that. Number two is to stop drinking. See, that's ah, goddammit. That's not the fun one, but it's absolutely not doing my health any favors, so it's all right. Number three is research, the best possible diet for myself. Yeah. That goes in education. What might it be? Hmm. I don't necessarily throw in with all those, like, you know, the keto, the gluten-free, the pescateria, veg, veg, veg, viva, high omegas. There's a lot of confident information out there from people, and it's god, isn't it so contradictory? Like anytime someone presents me with the end all be all, like this is what you have to do, it's definitive and it's science backed. Science has backed it. If you'll notice it, science is right behind it supporting it. It's saying, hey, we we we back this. And I'm like, I'm like, I think science sure backs a lot of shit, doesn't it? I remember eggs have been on a roller coaster of science-backed information. It's been I don't know if it's good or bad anymore. Um, anyways, so that that's neither here nor there. I'm not trying to pick a fight with science. I love science, okay? Put me down as a science lover. I'm just cautiously, skeptically going to research possible diet. Number four is drink a gallon of water a day. That's a shout out to you, Rivka. Member of the community. My go-to for health stuff. And I curse Rivka. Curse you! At the same time for this recommendation drinking a gallon of water a day. How that's so much water. I have had that on my thing for a while now, and I have not achieved success at that yet. But I don't know, you know, if our bodies are more than 50% water, I guess it would, I'd think it would be good. Maybe replace some coffee, maybe replace some alcohol with some water. Oh god. Okay, number five is figure out the calories that I need. Oh, that's a good one. Like I've done that before. I think this is a quick one, and it'll help me keep my eye on the ball. How many calories does a guy like me need every day? Let's go to the map. Number six is input data. That's basically me taking my initial measurements so I can have, you know, a fun thing to follow over time, like how big's my waist? How what's the circumference of my arms? Hmm, we'll see. That might make this a little bit fun. Uh, number seven is create the categories, education, eating, exercise, executive function. I already did that, so that's done. Um, number eight is pick 10 dinners that are healthy that I can cycle through that my kids like. That's a good one. That's something I haven't done yet, and I think it'll help me by eliminating choices. Um, nine is create my list of black and whites. Yeah, that's that goes up there with the no drinking. That's it's a list of things that I will not do. And I've done this before in the community for short spells, like no chips, no alcohol, no eating after eight o'clock p.m., stuff like that. I will most likely Yeah, to do that one, I'll have to create a challenge to the community and and and get accountability support. But it's gonna help me. So those are my nine things. Nine things that I have determined myself are the most efficient for me. And here's what I'd love to share with you guys at this point. This is not the right way to do this, and I stand by that. It's also not the wrong way to do it. It's just a way to do this. We're only ever in service of moving our needles forward on our big plans, or you know, our big visions, big goals, whatever. As are we moving closer or are we moving farther away? Or as many of us are, are we just immobile? Are we just we're not going anywhere? This is just a way to get that big goal out of your head and into some steps, right? Like, so now that you can see those steps, that still doesn't mean we're gonna do anything. I mean, big fucking deal. I chunked down my big goal. Who cares? This is where, okay, then we get the accountability kicking in. This is where we connect with some individuals that are working on something big themselves. We motivate each other. This is where we make commitments to each other and we support each other's efforts. Could be a spouse, could be a family member, a friend, a coworker, could be our community. But for you and me right now, let's just let's make a commitment with each other for this week. Like you and me. I personally think that the most important thing for me is to get that physical exercise every day. So I'm gonna commit to raising my heart rate to 120 for a minimum of 15 minutes. I know I fucking said 30, okay? Barbara? Um, but I'm not gonna 30 minutes is too big for me right now. I think I'll do it. I'll go for 15. That'll be my hard and fast rule. I'm gonna start off easy and I'm gonna build up. So, there you go. Would you like to join me? Let's just for for this week, let's just stop learning how to do stuff this week and let's make a commitment to do something. We just we just did the learning for the chunking down. All right. So let's take the rest of the week off of the learning and let's do. Here's something I noticed. I want to say this uh before I go uh about adults with ADHD. And this is from years of coaching and from the online community that I continue to grow. Adults with ADHD, we are not short on knowledge. We are phenomenal at the reasons why we are the way that we are. And the result is that we're exceptional at explaining why we didn't do the thing or why we could we can't do the thing. We could pinpoint exactly, well, this is the reason why. It's the dopamine, the lack of interest. I had no urgency, the RSD was kicking, no motivation. I didn't uh eat right, sleep was way off, and there's just too many choices. We're extremely able to talk about it, to talk about the why not, which is great. It's glorious. I mean, the fact that that we have the psychoeducation, the fact that we know, and at the same time, that's not the end of the conversation. There's no period at the end of the sentence. The reason why I couldn't, we need to follow that up, right? Okay, so there's the reason why I can't or I couldn't do the thing, followed by the coaching question, right? What can you do next time to overcome that reason? What is that for you? I invite you to participate. Shoot me an email, define your commitment. What are you gonna be doing this week? Just by putting it out there, just declaring it with no other reason than to put it to a voice increases the likelihood that you're gonna act on it. What item on your list of 10 are you gonna put time into this week? And if you want to experience top rate support, I really want you to try out our community for 10 days. Treat me to a fancy latte. What's for what's $10? What is it? A fancy latte and maybe a cake pop? And in return, I will treat you to the greatest online group of ADHDers getting their shit together and offering unrivaled support to you. And they don't even know you. Just watch, come in. You really have to experience it to get it. I'll just leave it at that. All right, I hope this has been helpful. I wish you guys all kinds of chunking down success. And with that, I hope you have a fantastic week. And I will talk to you later.