New Year Goals: How I Finally Built Habits That Stick (with ADHD, Autism, and Zero Motivation)

If you struggle with consistency, habit building, or following through on goals—especially if you have ADHD or feel like traditional goal setting doesn’t work for you—this episode is for you.

I’m talking about habits, routines, and why I spent years starting things and quietly stopping, even when I really wanted change.
 

This episode comes from my own experience with ADHD, autism, and struggling with goals and consistency in a way I couldn’t explain.

For a long time, I assumed the issue was discipline. Or motivation. Or that I just hadn’t found the right program yet. So I kept researching, prepping, planning, and trying again—without ever really moving forward.

In this episode, I’m sharing the pattern I didn’t see for years and how my relationship with habits, routines, and consistency started to change once I understood myself better. 

If you’ve ever felt stuck with the same goals year after year, or frustrated that you can start things but can’t seem to make them last, this conversation will probably feel familiar.

This is what actually helped me move out of that guilty churn where I always felt like a failure, and why doing things the “right” way was never the thing that worked for me.

Topics in this episode:

• Consistency and habit building
• Goal setting that doesn’t stick
• ADHD, autism, and follow‑through
• Why routines break down
• Resistance and overthinking
• Identity and long‑term change

This is a production of Jule Kim © 2025.

Transcript

So we're at the end of the year, and I know that a lot of us are thinking about all the goals that we haven't achieved this year, or maybe the goals that we want to achieve next year, or the person that we want to become.

And maybe this is the year that we're finally going to turn over a new leaf. I know that I have spent so much of my life trying to have all of the new year's resolutions, which I don't actually bother with anymore. I don't set new year's resolutions because if I want to make a change or do something different, I'm not waiting for January 1. I'm going to do it right then, or at least most of the time, anyway.

But who I used to be did struggle with implementing new habits or routines. I would set lofty goals that I never achieved. Things just never turned out the way that I wanted to, because the follow through just wasn't there on my end. Now, somewhere over the last five years, something shifted. When I look back now, I can see that I was seriously over complicating things, which is why I'm talking through this today, because maybe it's the same thing tripping you up. So if any of this sounds like you, this might actually be simpler to fix than you think

You're listening to This is How You Think, the show that helps you remodel your mindset. I'm your host, Jule Kim. Let's dive in. 

What I'm about to share today took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. I don't know why it took me so long, but I'm telling you this, so hopefully it gives you the shortcut that I myself did not have. 

Now, given the time of year that it is, I'm going to work through this one example, which happens to be about working out. But just keep in mind that as you're listening through this episode, this approach actually applies to so many areas of my life, as in once I figured this out, about working out, it started a whole domino effect for me, and that's when everything really started to change and pick up momentum over the last five years. 

So let me tell you about my love-hate relationship with working out. I have spent so much money, a ridiculous amount of money, on expensive gym memberships, but I almost never went. I'm talking this is easily at least seven years of gym memberships, and I have probably gone fewer than 15 times in the whole seven years. Yeah.

But I did it because I thought that's what you were supposed to do. People used to tell me, whenever I asked them, How did you get yourself to start working out, and they would tell me the first thing that they did was buy a gym membership, and because it was too much money to waste, it would force them to go. 

Unfortunately, spending a huge amount of money does not work for me as a motivator. And I have so many examples, such as business coaching and software. Hello, AppSumo, I see you. Even freaking ice skates and buying lessons. But it took me such a long time to catch on to that. 

Now, the way that I was approaching working out was by focusing on what I call the external packaging, as in, I would research the heck out of programs. I would go look up the reviews on which gyms were supposed to be the best gyms. What workout clothing was I supposed to be wearing and what kind of gear was I supposed to have. It created so much freaking work for me. 

But I did this because the fitness gurus or the fitness influencers I was following online, you know how they create this visual of this lifestyle, I thought you were supposed to approach it in a certain way. And maybe in my head, I was thinking, it's supposed to be like Mr. Miyagi and the karate kid. But I never moved forward. I wasn't working out. 

And whenever I looked this up online, trying to figure out what it was, I mean, everybody online will tell you that your problem is discipline and you have to be more motivated. But for me, that was not it. That was totally not it. 

It took me so long to figure out what was actually going on. Because, honestly, prior to maybe around seven years ago, I really lacked self awareness. And now, when I look back over my entire life, I'm like, oh, it was so clear. 

I was always the kid in my family, I'm the youngest of four, I was always the one where my siblings or my parents would tell me to do something, and then somebody would have to basically stand over me and watch me to make sure that I did it. It was like having a task master. 

It turns out I have ADHD, and also I'm autistic, and I'm mentioning this for you to just file away for now, okay.

What I didn't understand, and obviously my parents, my teachers, didn't understand this about me, is that I had already decided that something was hard, and that maybe certain approaches would work for other people, but not for me. 

So other people could go and do these things. Other people could go and be these gymnasts or these famous ice skaters or these debate champions or actors and actresses. But that wasn't for me. It wasn't in my cards. 

And I, honest to goodness, did not recognize this limiting belief within myself until around four to five years ago. 

And it all stems from me thinking something is hard. As soon as I think something is hard, it's 90% of the way to being game over. Have you ever felt that way about something where you just decided, you just assumed that you couldn't go do those things? 

Somewhere deep in my brain, in my subconscious, my psyche, because I had already felt that it was impossible I was thinking that if I had the perfect setup, that that would somehow overcome this block that I didn't even know I had. I didn't know that I was doing that because I thought working out was hard. In fact, I had labeled so many things in my life at that point as hard. 

Now remember when I said I have ADHD? So for someone like me, the sense of something being hard is where it often creates so much resistance, because the ADHD brain is really deficit in dopamine, and that is why our brains run off of stimulation. The issue was that whenever I thought something was hard, it was basically the kiss of death. That meant it was never getting done. 

But the really funny part is that if you had asked me back then, well, what does hard mean, Jule, I would have given you a blank look because I didn't know. I would have given you circular reasoning, something like, I don't know it just means freaking hard, like, shut up and get out of my face. 

But today I know that when I say something is hard, it means that it feels like a lot of work and really not fun. In my head, it feels like this thing, like you're this tiny little ant who's pushing a gigantic boulder up a hill. And a lot of times it also comes with this feeling of just like I really suck at something, like I'm just so bad at something I don't know if I'm ever gonna get better at it. And I do not enjoy that feeling like, obviously, who does? Nobody likes to feel like they're terrible at something. 

That's how it feels for me when I say something is hard. Like this is just not enjoyable, but it's not enjoyable for all of the wrong reasons, because I know that there are other things that are hard and it's immensely satisfying. 

Like even this podcast, for example. It is not easy for me to sit here and produce an episode every week where I get to talk to you and try to explain to you some of the inner workings of my brain and maybe yours. This is maybe one of the hardest things that I've ever done, and yet I choose to sit here every week and do this again and again. 

So you see what I mean? It's not just the level of difficulty in the work that goes into something being hard for me. It came bundled with all of these other things where it took me a long time to unpack that and realize, okay, wait a minute, this isn't really helping me. This isn't helping me move forward. 

Now I remember back around 2021 so it's four years ago, and I remember sitting in my living room feeling so frustrated with how my body looked. And it's not like I was super overweight, but I was definitely skinny fat. That's always been my issue. I didn't feel good in my body. My clothes were a little bit too tight. I had lost a lot of mobility from years of sitting at the desk all the time without enough movement in my day-to-day life, and I just felt so dissatisfied with everything, like the physicality of being. I just didn't like it. 

And I remember talking to myself literally saying, God, I'm so tired of all of this research, and I just don't know what to do, who to listen to. I wish someone would just freaking tell me what to do. And when I said that to myself, that's when it finally clicked. 

That is literally what every program out there is. That's what you are paying for. These are basically instruction manuals that tell you, step by step, exactly what to do. 

Why wasn't I doing it? I was procrastinating. I was self sabotaging because I didn't believe any of these programs would work for me, which is why I wasn't actually trying them. I was afraid I was going to waste all this time, all this money. So why bother? 

I remember sitting there asking myself, well, what if every program is actually the right program, if I just pick one and actually do it and do it all the way from beginning to end. What if I went into it with the assumption that actually any of the programs will work? I just have to pick one. So that is what I did. I picked one. 

And I finally accepted something that I had been resisting for years. I was never going to be someone who goes to the gym. That's when I made the decision to let go of the gym membership. 

So then I asked myself, okay, so what am I actually going to do? Well, the one thing that I had always wished for was a gym at home. Did I have a gym at home? No, I did not. But you know what, you can still work out at home. You don't have to actually have a full on gym. So I decided to start removing every single barrier. 

I started to remove the friction, all of the things that I really hated about going to the gym. You got to carve out the time in your schedule. You got to actually go there, right? You have to leave the house, which as a super hard introvert with what I self identify as with major cat energy like that is a big deal. It's already a huge point of friction. So I was like, You know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna work out at home. 

That's when I bought some weights. I signed up for an exercise program that let me do all of the exercises and the weights at home just on the floor, and I would do the workout while I was watching TV or listening to audiobooks or podcasts or something, to take my mind off of how tedious and how not fun it was, I was choosing to ignore all of the advice out there that says, if you work out, you have to watch your form really carefully, and you have to do it this way, and you have to use certain types of machines, and you need a personal trainer. 

I decided to just throw all of that out of the window. I was like, I don't care. It's more important that I work out in some form or fashion, instead of trying to do it the right way, I just chose some of the clothes I already had, and I decided from here on out, these are my workout clothes, these tops, these bottoms and these socks. I decided, no more shopping, no more prepping, no more trying to set everything up. I was just going to work with what I already had. I'm tired of spending money on things I don't even use anyway. So every single friction point I could remove, I removed. 

Here's where I'm going to switch back to you for a second. I want you to think of one goal you have right now. What is the simplest version of that? Forget about trying to do it perfectly. Forget about trying to dot all your I's and cross your t's. What is the bare minimum thing you can do where you can say you have moved forward on this goal? 

Now, even after doing all of that, it wasn't just about making things easier. There was more to it, and this is the part that I call knowing yourself like you must know yourself and know your brain. 

For me being ADHD, but also autistic, it comes with really serious sensory issues that actually most of my life I wasn't really allowed to have because everybody around me told me that I was being too sensitive and too picky, too particular, and I didn't comprehend that that is just the way I am, and that that's actually very common for people with ADHD and/or autism. 

Whenever I went to the gym, the lights were too bright, they were too fluorescent. The music was too loud. There were usually too many people, especially if you go in January. There are weird smells, like people smell, the equipment smells, the rubber mats, all of the plastic, like these things they have a smell. When you put all of this together, it's such a sensory nightmare for someone like me. 

This is the biggest reason why I never went to the gym. It's a reason that I have never shared with somebody, because I felt embarrassed, because I felt like it made me look like some kind of ultra delicate flower, like someone who is being a diva, but it was the truth of how I felt. 

When I look back now, I finally understand that I had been trying to force myself into an environment that actively worked against my nervous system. 

This is where I say that knowing myself matters more than following what's supposed to work. It matters more than following the correct process. Because what is the point of having a process if you're never going to follow it?

So that is where I started. I did the 90 day program for the one that I bought, and I actually did it all the way through from day one to day 90. I finished it. I did not skip a single day. I went on to eventually add a rowing machine that my husband bought and then a treadmill. But I only did this after I made it through the program. 

I felt super accomplished, really proud of myself, because I finally proved to myself that it wasn't that I couldn't work out – I could actually do it if the conditions were right for me. 

If you're listening to this and thinking through your own stuff, where are you trying to make yourself fit into an approach that is never going to work for you? Think about the way that you've been approaching your goal. Is it actually set up for you and how you work and how you need to be? Or is it actually set up for how you think you should work? This is a really important question that you need to answer, especially if it's something that you've been stuck for years trying to do and you just haven't been able to do it. 

So this was all of what got me started. I figured out a lot of the practical stuff, but something else also had to change. See today, I have now worked out for more than two years straight, almost every day. The only time that hasn't been true is when I've been sick, or when I've been traveling, and even when I traveled, I would still manage to fit in a workout here and there. 

The other question here is, what made everything stick? Because most of us can easily start something, but again, most of us will only last a week or two weeks, or maybe a couple of months, and then it just kind of falls by the wayside. So that's the other question, right? Like, what actually makes things stick? 

I know for me, this was a really big turning point. I very consciously made a decision in how I talked about it, so there was no more of saying things like, I'm trying to be healthier. I didn't say I'm working on this. I just said I work out. 

That was the other big shift that happened for me. It's the identity shift of deciding that this is who I was. And the reason why I'm pointing this out is because when something is a part of your identity, you don't negotiate with yourself. You just do it because that's what that kind of person always does. 

Now, if you've ever read Atomic Habits by James Clear, he covers some of that I forget in what chapter, but he talks about how, if you're trying to build habits, is that it has to start from inside out. Whereas most people try to change a habit, they try to establish routines, but they do it from outside in, and it just, it doesn't work. That's why it doesn't stick. 

Now you may be listening and your brain might be fighting you. It might be pulling up some resistance. This is where I am going to tell you that you are allowed to give yourself permission. In fact, you're not just allowed. I am demanding you give yourself permission. You are allowed to decide that this is who you are from now on. 

I've done this for so many things, whether it was creating content, filming hundreds of reels, blogging, speaking to audiences all over the world, publishing my affirmation cards, and even traveling. 

All of these things at one point in my life, I thought these were all very hard. But this is where I learned to apply the same approach that I took with working out. I chose to see all of these things as opportunities. The best and coolest things that I've ever achieved, they all started from the same place. 

It was this energy of possibility, of exploring just for fun, to see what I could do. I didn't have this pressure to do things the right way. I just did them because I wanted to. 

When was the last time you approached something that way, just for fun, without any pressure, and just to see what would happen? 

When I think back to myself as a kid - it's what I call playground energy. There were no guides. There were really no rules other than don't hurt each other, right? It's like you have total freedom. You can go on whatever slides or swings or the monkey bars, you can just play in the sand if you want. 

So there's so much room for curiosity. There's a sense of mystery and wonder, of just letting things be new, without being terrifying, or without having expectations or trying to perform. You got to do things just because you wanted to. 

For me the biggest example I have of doing this, was when I was a blogger. When I started blogging, and this is going to betray my age here, but it was around 20 years ago. 

I started blogging, it was 2004. I was in law school at the time, which, when I think about that that was insane, because I also decided to start a blog. I was already under this insane workload, but I think maybe that's why I decided to blog, is it gave me an outlet for that pressure from law school. 

When I looked it up, in one year, I had written 169 posts. That was probably my most prolific period of writing until 2021. 

169 posts just because I wanted to. Because they started from a place of fun. Not from trying to make any money, not trying to prove myself or my worth. I was just sharing something with the world because I thought it was cool and it was worth it for me, just the act of doing it was worth it for me.

So all of that to say is that this is probably one of the biggest conscious shifts I've ever made in my life. Not only did I decide to be this person I am today, I also decided to stop labeling things as hard. 

My approach, which is something that I actually teach to my clients now, is that I believe in reframing things to the truth. So it's not that something actually is hard. The thing is just what it is. The truth is that it feels uncomfortable for me because I haven't done it before. Like most people, I do not like being not good at something, and that's okay, But it doesn't actually feel so bad if I can hold on to that playground energy, that sense of wonder and exploration and just getting to do whatever I want. 

I just have to find my way into it and then decide that that's who I am now. I will learn, because growth is inevitable. 

So if you're thinking about your own goals right now, you might find this last little tidbit helpful for me. I only work on one thing at a time because I know myself, it doesn't work too well when I'm trying to move the needle in five different directions all at once. If you're heading into this next year with a huge list of things that you want to change, maybe try picking just one. 

What's one thing you really want to achieve, and how can you make it easier today? 

So that's it for today. 

I would love to hear from you - what are your goals for next year? Text the link in the show notes and let me know. I will give you a shout out if you send me a note. 

Thank you so much for listening, and as always, I believe in you. See you next time.