Shownotes
Ever wonder why other people’s advice works for many but doesn’t seem to stick for you? It may leave you wondering if you’re the problem. Today’s episode is about embracing the “find your kind” principle that will help you figure out whose advice will actually click for you.
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Transcripts
Have you ever heard advice to improve your habits or
Speaker:productivity and then you try it only to find yourself back
Speaker:at square one, maybe within a week or two. I
Speaker:honestly can't even count the number of times I've experienced this myself.
Speaker:And for so long I would follow advice that was
Speaker:logical. It was well supported, it was vetted by the person sharing
Speaker:the advice. They had tested this. It worked. But when it didn't work
Speaker:for me, I started to assume that I was the problem solving
Speaker:somehow. That is until I started to embrace this idea of
Speaker:find your kind. And today I'm sharing what I mean when I say
Speaker:find your kind, how it can help you to find momentum you can actually
Speaker:keep, and also what you should be looking for when it comes
Speaker:to who do I take advice from? And maybe who do I just let that
Speaker:advice stay for someone else. I'm also going to share an update
Speaker:about my current Instagram experiment and how that's going.
Speaker:We're now three weeks into that experiment. So let's start off
Speaker:with the inspiration for this concept. And it
Speaker:really came out of a place of a story by the author Gretchen
Speaker:Rubin. And so Gretchen Rubin, she's written many books, but this book in
Speaker:particular, which is the four Tendencies, I refer to her work a
Speaker:lot because it is very important about how I understand and how other people understand
Speaker:the context around our reaction to inner
Speaker:and outer expectations. And what was so powerful in this book is a
Speaker:story she told about and her earlier book, she
Speaker:had a book called Happier at Home or Happier and then Happier at Home.
Speaker:And she was doing all these self experiments to try and
Speaker:make her life happier. So she would decide to do something and then follow through
Speaker:with it. And so many of her readers said to her,
Speaker:okay, but how did you get yourself to do those things?
Speaker:And she was genuinely stumped by these questions. She
Speaker:said, well, I decided to do them, so I did them. And she did not
Speaker:understand what people were asking. And she shares this story in the book. And
Speaker:it was such a good example of an author
Speaker:telling us about a blind spot, saying, I had no idea why
Speaker:people were struggling to do the thing they wanted to do. It turns out
Speaker:she is what's called an upholder out of the four tendencies. And that's
Speaker:someone who's very self motivated, self driven. If they say they're going to do something,
Speaker:they do it. And if someone else expects it, they also do it. So it's
Speaker:just not a big struggle for them to take action on something they decide to
Speaker:do. Whereas when she started to develop the four tendencies and talk
Speaker:to more people. She realized there are so many people that resist
Speaker:both inner and outer expectations. That was not her experience.
Speaker:What I love about this and why I'm sharing is that it gave me
Speaker:some insight into an author who gives habit
Speaker:advice. She did write a book about habits after
Speaker:and she early on when she was sharing her experiences,
Speaker:she just didn't even think that it was an issue for people to follow through.
Speaker:So she wouldn't have asked that question that her audience was
Speaker:asking. And I think that gave me a lot of clarity
Speaker:around paying attention to authors themselves because
Speaker:they are wired differently, they have different experience, different
Speaker:contexts. And so I started to think more
Speaker:and more who is behind the advice that I am taking or
Speaker:thinking about taking and can I vet this in
Speaker:advance to make sure that it's well suited towards me
Speaker:and how I naturally operate. And yes, over the years
Speaker:enough failed things start to give you some hints as to what works.
Speaker:But then I started to think about this idea of find your kind.
Speaker:So notice when somebody else feels familiar to
Speaker:you. And when I say familiar, this could be shared
Speaker:struggles. So somebody who talks about some struggles they've
Speaker:overcome, you might have similar struggles in your life that you
Speaker:are looking to overcome. There's also shared experiences that
Speaker:can go a long way if someone has life experience
Speaker:that is similar to your life experience and there's also
Speaker:similar context. So an example is if you are a
Speaker:40 year old parent looking for a morning routine, maybe
Speaker:skip the video by the 26 year old productivity
Speaker:youtuber that just might not fit your
Speaker:context or your shared experience. Similarly, if you are
Speaker:someone who's in a 9 to 5 job with a ton of meetings,
Speaker:you're probably not going to be able to embrace monk mode for the next
Speaker:six months. Or if you're someone who has ADHD
Speaker:trying to prioritize work based on its importance and
Speaker:the the not urgent but important work which is what you're
Speaker:supposed to work on, that's probably just not going to work for
Speaker:you. And since I brought it up, I do want to
Speaker:mention the fact that if you have spent any time online
Speaker:it is safe to say that ADHD content is all over the place.
Speaker:You basically trip over ADHD content when you're on the Internet right
Speaker:now. And I think it's for a good reason because there are so many
Speaker:people over the years, whether they were diagnosed or not. The
Speaker:traditional advice was not really working. Saying
Speaker:you should prioritize work that's important but not urgent. That
Speaker:doesn't fly with how someone With ADHD is wired. Their
Speaker:actual brain chemistry just doesn't work that way.
Speaker:So finding other people who have ADHD as well,
Speaker:I think has been really, really helpful. It also helped me to understand
Speaker:that I likely had it, and then it helped me go and actually pursue a
Speaker:formal diagnosis and go down that path, because the more I heard
Speaker:stories, the more I thought, that really sounds like me. Those are some common
Speaker:struggles that I have had for a very long time now.
Speaker:I also think that ADHD content is really popular
Speaker:because a lot of people who even don't have
Speaker:adhd, or maybe they haven't struggled with it over their life, but they
Speaker:seem to be experiencing a lot of the symptoms. I do genuinely believe
Speaker:that technology is changing our brain chemistry. The amount of
Speaker:time we spend online is changing our dopamine levels, and
Speaker:it's actually causing these dopamine levels to swing more
Speaker:wildly. And then you can end up with these symptoms that are very much
Speaker:mirrored with someone who has lived their whole life with
Speaker:adhd. And it can cause issues with your attention. And I just,
Speaker:I say that because even if you don't have adhd, you might find that some
Speaker:of the advice might even be suitable towards you.
Speaker:But regardless, the point that I'm trying to make is
Speaker:every single person giving advice about habits and
Speaker:productivity, myself included, has their own way of working,
Speaker:their own context, their own lived experiences. And
Speaker:when you're listening to advice from others, I want you to pay attention
Speaker:to your internal reaction. Does this sound
Speaker:like it really suits you? Will it fit
Speaker:how you naturally operate? And will it help you to
Speaker:find your flow? Because if not,
Speaker:let it go. Have permission, give yourself permission to just let that go.
Speaker:That advice might work really, really well for someone else, which is
Speaker:wonderful. But don't spend your time trying to fit
Speaker:yourself into something that is not designed for you. And
Speaker:when you do finally find your kind, it does
Speaker:also help you find your flow. It can feel more aligned,
Speaker:and it's something that will flow more naturally. It allows you to find
Speaker:momentum and a rhythm that works for you and something that is more
Speaker:sustainable than trying to push yourself into someone
Speaker:else's idea of what works or what does work for someone else, but
Speaker:it doesn't actually work for you. Speaking of flow,
Speaker:I want to get into sharing a little bit about my current
Speaker:experiment with Instagram. It has been
Speaker:three weeks in since I have started posting every
Speaker:single weekday. I take the weekends off on purpose. I want to have some boundaries
Speaker:with social media, and I've been paying a lot of attention to this
Speaker:whole Idea of who do I take advice from and what are things that I
Speaker:know work for me that don't work for other people. And an example
Speaker:of this is me deciding to join
Speaker:an accountability group or a challenge. So my friend
Speaker:Chanel has a community of content creators, and
Speaker:she said, I'm going to run something in September to post whatever
Speaker:you commit to so that you're consistent. So if you want to post every single
Speaker:day, great. If you want to post 3 times a week, great. For me, I
Speaker:decided 5 times a week, every, every weekday. And that has been helping.
Speaker:And I know this because there are days where I genuinely did not
Speaker:want to post anything. And I started to come up with excuses of,
Speaker:oh, well, you know, it's been a really big day, but I
Speaker:know that I'm in the challenge and there's actually a tracker and I want to
Speaker:put the little X beside my name under that day's work. And
Speaker:so that has been driving me. And I. And I know that works for me.
Speaker:And I've shared it countless times of how that external
Speaker:accountability, which, if you're not sure. Gretchen Rubin, four
Speaker:tendencies that. That is really helpful for me. The
Speaker:other thing I've been doing that has been really helpful for me
Speaker:is asking the question, what would this look like if it
Speaker:were fun? And starting to pay attention to the answers. And I just.
Speaker:I sat down one day with a notebook and just really considered that
Speaker:question. What would this look like if it were fun?
Speaker:Because if I take something too seriously, it starts to
Speaker:feel like a chore. If I feel like I have to do this,
Speaker:then I start to resent it. If I feel like I'm doing this because it's,
Speaker:you know, expectations that don't align with what I actually
Speaker:want, then that's also. It can really drag me down.
Speaker:So I'm instead trying to say, okay, one, I am not going to take myself
Speaker:super seriously. I am not going to worry about
Speaker:metrics. Right now. I just want to focus on getting into the
Speaker:habit of being consistent and also playing around a
Speaker:little bit. And that means trying new things. So,
Speaker:for example, I yesterday decided to create
Speaker:a reel that didn't have my face and was
Speaker:just showing a picture of markers that I bought for the two
Speaker:weeks six years ago that I thought bullet journaling was gonna
Speaker:change my life forever. I knew it's kind of related to what I was talking
Speaker:about today, where I was trying to embrace something that was just did not
Speaker:fit my brain and did not work for me, but it was
Speaker:just a totally different type of Reel or short form
Speaker:content that I have ever made before. I'm just not
Speaker:hanging on too tight. If the results are not what I expect,
Speaker:then that's fine. Instead, when I think what would make this
Speaker:fun? It's the ability to experiment, to be creative,
Speaker:but also feel like I'm talking to a friend, what would I want
Speaker:to send a friend, what would I want to say to a friend and, and
Speaker:just not putting a ton of pressure on myself right now to
Speaker:get it perfect. That doesn't mean I'm not learning
Speaker:though. So I am seeking out
Speaker:creators that teach some of the different
Speaker:concepts around what works, what doesn't, explaining some of the
Speaker:algorithmic changes that have happened over time, taking a look
Speaker:at how I'm setting myself up. So I do still want to continue to
Speaker:improve. But right now my focus is on just getting into that
Speaker:consistent habit because that's just my start. I just want to be in action. And
Speaker:then as I get used to it, then I will start to tweak and refine
Speaker:and play around with things like how do I capture someone's attention
Speaker:in the first few seconds who's never met me. So there are things I'm still
Speaker:paying attention to. So I'm taking it seriously enough, but
Speaker:not so seriously that I resent it. The other thing
Speaker:that's really important for me with this experiment is paying attention to
Speaker:biology and, and in particular the time of day and
Speaker:my energy levels. So early on when I was creating, kind of
Speaker:setting up my method, I wanted to have a nice big block of time. So
Speaker:I blocked, I said for an hour in the afternoons, knowing that
Speaker:that's maybe when I'm a little bit more distracted and might be a good time
Speaker:to create on my phone. However, what I have found
Speaker:is that I sort of earmarked it later in the afternoon, around
Speaker:three when I really start, my mind starts to wander.
Speaker:But so many of the days it would actually, the day would get away from
Speaker:me and then all of a sudden I am making a reel at, you know,
Speaker:5pm And I don't want that. And it also doesn't
Speaker:feel like a good fit. My energy is really starting to flag and that's probably
Speaker:why I'm starting to get distracted around that time of day. So I think what
Speaker:I'm going to try instead is a still afternoon,
Speaker:but right after lunch and that is usually a time of
Speaker:day I work. You know, I'm self employed, I work out of my home,
Speaker:I am by myself and after lunch I often
Speaker:want to be able to talk to someone. That morning is nice and
Speaker:quiet and I'm doing a lot of focused work. And then later in the day
Speaker:I do have that a little bit more, I don't know, chatty energy.
Speaker:Maybe that's why I love this so much, is that I can actually chat to
Speaker:people when I'm recording these podcasts live on Wednesdays. All that to
Speaker:say I'm going to play around with that, that's another part of the experiment and
Speaker:see how does my energy actually go and also
Speaker:when am I feeling good about the content and is this actually
Speaker:fun? And again, when I'm taking advice, I want to take
Speaker:advice from people that suit me. If
Speaker:someone says, hey, batch all of your content, and I know from experience
Speaker:that batching a whole bunch of content just does not work well for
Speaker:me, I. I'm going to let that advice be for someone else
Speaker:and look for other people who have advice that I know is going
Speaker:to help me find my flow. And I do that through
Speaker:finding my kind.
