So, it's January 8th. Have you already busted your New Year's resolutions and now you're defeated because it's a new year, but it's the same old you and it just feels like a mess already? Well, let's actually try and safeguard against this sort of tendency to do this all or nothing and let's resolve to move forward with some strategies that are going to work a lot better for our ADHD brains.
A wise person once said, Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid. Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys. It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life. I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement, and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks, then I'm glad you're here. Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique. Together, we could have a joy-loving home. All right, I just want to say welcome. I hope that you are having a great new year so far. But if you are feeling a little defeated, this is the episode for you.
I just want us to talk about how we have this energy at the beginning of a new year where we feel like this is our year. I just feel it. I feel it in me. This is our year. And then something goes awry and we're just, we're so defeated because we're like, here we go again. This is the same old thing. I always mess it up. and I'm so ready for us to let go of that feeling. Life is complicated. Life is full of twists and turns.
Things don't go the way we plan for them to go but we have got to work really hard against our brains all or nothing attitude and when something is a hiccup and we turn it into this, well, that's it, we're done, it's over. I want us to figure out how to shift that into. Okay, that was a hiccup. Moving on, moving on. So how are we going to do that? First of all, let me just say, if you are listening to this when I drop it on January 8th, there are still 358 days left in 2025.
You do not have to give up yet. It is not time to claim defeat. We still have the energy to step over that speed bump and keep rolling. because honestly, January 1st is this arbitrary date and we can start over on any date. We can start over every day and keep working towards some goals that we want for ourselves. And the key is we're gonna shift our strategies so that we are not striving for consistency, which literally is our kryptonite.
And we start using our urgency, that whole thing that kicks in when our procrastination. Which is part of our existence, is put into work. Let's use our procrastination in our favor instead of against us. So how are we going to do this? Just three quick tips to lean into this and just take a breath and say, okay, okay, I am listening to this. This is my sign to just stand up, dust off, and go at it again.
So first of all, we are going to set goals that are going to expire every month or every week, instead of a goal that feels like it's all year long, because we are not utilizing our urgency if it feels like we have all year to do this.
What is an example of this? Okay, so if I'm saying this is the year I'm going to minimize my life, and I am going to declutter all this stuff because less is more, and this is the year for that, then instead of setting a goal that by the end of the year, I'm going to have half my belongings or I'm going to have gone through every room in my house by the end of the year. These are very large, long ideas or goals that our brain is not going to latch hold of.
So instead, let's say each week I will remove five items from my home. I don't have to overthink of it. It's five items every week. This, Could be done on Monday and get it out of the way, but more likely we're going to do this on Friday or Saturday as we're feeling like that deadline is approached and I haven't done five things. So look at whatever goals you set and see if you can drop them back to what does that equal for me to have to do at the end of each week? One idea.
Second idea is make sure any of your goals have some loopholes that you can still work around. Because as long as you have a loophole, you don't have to feel like, well, now that that's over, that's done.
It's done. I messed it up. So if in your head, you're like, I am going to get five things out of my house every week, or for certain 20 things by the end of the month, that allows your very inconsistent brain that if you get on a roll on one day, you will not stop yourself at five because you're going to get credit if you did 10. You will, you know, hit a zone on, let's say, the 20th of the month and you hadn't gotten anything done before then.
And then on the 20th of the month, you happen to get rid of 25 things. Then those count. You can use the loophole of that equates to five things every single week. I've done it. You have loopholes built in that are safeguards against you saying, well, that's it. I missed it. It's done. Let there be back up credit for the work that you are doing. So first, set really short deadlines. Second, have the loopholes available. And my third tip for this is create a way where you are seeing the evidence.
You have to see visually the evidence that you are meeting these goals. So if that is you open up your fresh calendar for the month and there's those empty blanks on like a Monday or Tuesday if the month didn't start. Until a Wednesday or whatever. And you just say, I'm going to put a hash mark in this box. This box represents all the things I'm removing from my house this month. And every time I get rid of anything, I'm going to put a hash mark in there.
And you will be able to watch yourself clearly getting closer and closer to 20. Or you're hitting like the 27th of a month and you're like, I don't have a single hash mark on this calendar. I haven't gotten rid of anything. Feel the urgency, lean into Today's the day I need to go find the 20 things right now and let me get them out of my house. So have that clear example. Sometimes adding two is not as effective for us as removing from.
So if you have a bulletin board or a dry erase marker or something like that, make at the beginning of every month 20 little circles and you erase one off of your dry erase board each day and you can see them dwindling so you know how many you have left at a glance. Or if it's corkboard, put up 20 thumbtacks at the beginning of every single month. And you know what those 20 thumbtacks mean.
Nobody else has to know what that means. And each time you, today I got rid of three, pull three thumbtacks back off. Tomorrow I got rid of seven, pull seven thumbtacks off. The next day I got one gone. And if all of the sudden you're like, I have no thumbtacks left and I just got rid of 12 things. Then put 12 more thumbtacks back up and tally that somewhere on your calendar at the end of the month about how many you did.
Whatever way works for your brain to see a visual of you accomplishing your goal that is very tactile and visual, that's going to help as well. And then my final bonus tip, because I said it was going to be three, my bonus tip is add some accountability in any way you can. So get with a friend and check in with each other. Have somebody that you are answering to about this. You can be their buddy for whatever their goal is. They can be your buddy for yours. And if you can't think of that person.
Come join my group. We are in there. I would love to do this with you. So to get there, you go to bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity. I'll put the link in the show notes. That is my free podcast community. You can jump in there and ask for some accountability in there. We're all listeners of the podcast. That's how you get in that group. Or if you want some added boost, my membership group was supposed to have started,
sorry, I started, stopped being open on January 5th at midnight. And guess what? I have missed my own deadline and didn't shut it yet. So I'll leave it open till tonight at midnight since I'm putting this podcast out. And if you want to jump in there, we actually are playing a bingo board game with 25 goals for 2025. And we are in there with accountability sessions every Tuesday. We have a tackle it Tuesday. And we are going to be getting things done together. And if you want and feel
like that kind of accountability would be useful to you, it's a $10 a month. Join anytime. Cancel anytime. Well, not join anytime. It closes at midnight tonight, but cancel anytime and just give that a try if you'd like the extra accountability boost. So I hope this is helpful. I'm excited for the new year. We can still do this. There's still plenty of time. So until next time, continue to choose joy.