Welcome back to ADHD-ish, the podcast focusing on the intersection of entrepreneurship, creativity, and the strengths and struggles of ADHD. 

Today I’m focusing on some uncomfortable truths that can really make or break your business success: the difference between being ready and merely wishing you were. 

Whether you're contemplating a pivot, rebranding your business, changing your service offerings, or even considering a new entrepreneurial adventure, understanding this distinction can save you time, money, and a lot of frustration.

If you’re new here, I’m Diann Wingert, dynamic business strategist, certified coach, and former psychotherapist with over two decades of experience.

I’m passionate about helping driven, creative, and ambitious individuals transform their lives and businesses by providing actionable insights and strategies tailored to their unique challenges, especially those stemming from ADHD. 

Through this  podcast, I combine my deep expertise with a no-nonsense approach to help you navigate the complexities of business and personal development.

5 Key Takeaways You Don't Want to Miss:

1. Learn how to identify The Wishing Phase - thoughts and behaviors that keep you stuck in a perpetual cycle of planning without action.
2. Discover why reaching a peak pain point can be a powerful motivator for genuine change.
3. Understand the importance of being willing to push through the discomfort and awkwardness of new beginnings.
4. Get the scoop on evaluating your practical and emotional readiness for change with a handy self-assessment checklist.
5. Find out how tiny, daily actions (Micro Commitments) can set you on the path from wishful thinking to real progress.

🤓 Fun Fact from the Episode:

Did you know that collecting endless amounts of information without taking action or implementing them is a form of wishful thinking?

It's called the "tipping point fallacy" – thinking you'll magically 'do' once you know 'enough.' Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work that way!

Resources Mentioned:

• Self-assessment checklist 
• Focused Space for accountability and body doubling - use my affiliate link for one free month + 25% off after that 

Share your assessment results with me: 

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Email

Ask yourself: 

"Is the cost of not changing exceeding the discomfort of change?"

Most  ADHD-ish business owners would benefit from working with a psychologically sophisticated coach who understands their brain, and to get the best possible outcome, the timing needs to be right.  

I have two openings for my signature coaching program for ADHD-ish solopreneurs, The Boss Up Breakthrough which turns your hidden gem into a stand-out, sought-after, profitable business based on your unique brilliance. 

We transform your positioning, packaging, pricing and promoting and remove everything holding you back, including fear of visibility and rejection.  Schedule a free consultation to see if we’re a fit. If I’m the right coach for you, and you are ready to make things happen, you will be amazed and what can be accomplished in what’s left of 2024! 

And, don’t forget to Follow/ Subscribe to ADHD-ish NOW, so you don’t miss a single episode! 

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© 2024 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops  / All rights reserved. Outro music by Vladimir /  Bobi Music / All rights reserved. 

If you are at a place in your business where you are thinking about anything from pivoting in a different target market, rebranding because you've expanded your focus, changing up your service offerings, whether adding or diminishing. Changing the size or composition of your team, or simply doing something new that you just haven't quite been able to get around to. One of the most important things you could ask yourself is, am I ready? So often I see people making decisions, investing time and money without getting the desired result because they either didn't ask these questions or they decided to ignore the results. So, I wanted to go through my framework and part of what I use to screen clients so that I don't let people hire me if they're not actually ready to do the work because that would be a waste of everyone's time and money and not something I would feel good about being a party to.

It's okay if I meet with someone for a consultation and they're not ready, better that they know that up front. Better that I know that up front but it can be kind of hard to know because most of us engage in a lot of wishful thinking and a lot of magical thinking, and we're not even aware of it. So I wanna break this down for you because I think it would be really helpful, and I'd like to think a little bit of a public service announcement. I'd like to think it would help business owners like us make more good decisions and have more desired outcomes.

So the wishing phase is characterized by certain feelings and behaviors. Here's some of the ways to know if you're in the wishing phase. If you're constantly checking for productivity tips and saving them on social media, but you never go back or implement them. If you are constantly purchasing planners or searching for apps, but they never make it beyond the digital download. If you find yourself saying things like, I really should or I need to or, yeah, I got to, but there's no plan or follow-up. If you feel envious of other people's success or systems while at the same time believing I could never do that. If you experience shame spirals after every failed attempt, however modest, if you make big plans when you're on a dopamine high and quickly abandon them when your brain chemistry levels out.

And here's the one I see the most, collecting endless amounts of information on the misguided assumption that, I don't know, you're gonna reach a certain tipping point where you have so much information, you click into doing mode, it doesn't work that way. All of this is evidence that you're in the wishing phase. Now if you were truly ready, you would be thinking differently and feeling differently. These are the things to look for, you are genuinely ready to do the thing when the pain point has peaked, which means your current challenges in business are actively affecting your ability to earn revenue and profit. You are either losing clients or opportunities because the existing patterns are not being addressed. The emotional toll of this eventually becomes unsustainable.

And here's one that's very personal to me, you reach a point where you are just sick to shit of your own excuses. When I literally could not imagine even thinking, much less saying to another person why I wasn't addressing something, that's what a peak pain point looks like. I also notice when someone's truly ready, their self talk starts to shift as well. Instead of saying things like, I gotta get my shit together one of these days, or, well, it worked for them, but I'm different. Or, well, I failed before, why even try again? They're now saying things like, okay, well, what's the first step that I could take now? Or, okay,

I don't have to do it exactly like she did, how can I adapt what's working for her to my brain? Or instead of evidence of past failures, equating to future failures, what did I learn from previous attempts? Or if I never wanted to look in the rearview before, what can I learn now from my previous experiences? You know how else you know when you're truly ready instead of in your wishful phase? When you accept that change may feel worse before it feels better. Doing new things, pushing through the awkward phase of feeling like you don't know what you're doing, that awkward beginner learner stage, but you accept it and you're prepared to push through it.

You understand it's uncomfortable, that's part of it. You're ready, willing, and able to face the resistance that comes from your very own brain because your brain is not going to want to put out the extra effort to create this new thing or create this change. But you're willing to feel temporary anxiety as you start to shake things up. You understand that the discomfort is part of the process and the progress, and you don't fight it. I'm not saying you're gonna love it, nobody does. But you're willing to tolerate it because you understand it's part of the process and the progress. You know, you've moved beyond magical thinking into actual readiness when you finally stop seeking the perfect system, platform, coach, program, or morning routine.

You understand that there's great progress to be made in the imperfection. And you understand that partial progress is valuable, you don't have to see these grandiose overnight success schemes. You understand that you can implement imperfectly, and you can iterate and adjust instead of attempt and abandon. That one I feel has to be said again. You understand you're ready, you're actually ready, not just wishing you were. When you are ready to iterate and adjust that means try and experiment. Instead of, well, I gave it a shot and now I'm walking away from it because it didn't work. Incremental change is change. Incremental progress is progress.

Now I'm going to go through an assessment checklist, a self assessment checklist to see if you're actually ready or just wish you were and, again, there's no shame. I have something for you regardless of which category you fall in, I promise. And I'm going to link to this in the show notes so you can take the time to do it whenever it's convenient, which if you're driving, walking the dogs, taking a hike, obviously, is not now. But many people find it really helpful to listen to these things and then go back and take the quiz later. You can link to it in the show notes. So I want you to ask yourself, and I think it's important to evaluate 3 different categories of readinesss: emotional, practical, and support.

So scale of 1 to 5, you're going to say the following statements and rate yourself for how true they are 1 being not so much, 5 being the most they can be. I'm more frustrated by staying the same than I am by changing. I can talk about my challenges without excess shame. I'm willing to invest time and money to make this happen, and I accept that the process won't be linear. In terms of practical readiness, you will ask yourself these things and evaluate how strongly you identify with them. I have identified specific pain points to address. I have the minimum necessary resources of time, money, and support.

I've cleared some bandwidth for implementation, and I have realistic expectations about the timeline. These 2 are really, really important, and a lot of people set themselves up for failure and disappointment when they work with coaches who don't ask about these things. Sometimes we're trying to cram too much into our life, and we're dooming the effort to fail, so be realistic. Do you have the bandwidth right now to implement and do you understand how long it's actually going to take? Not what somebody is trying to sell you their get rich quick system promises. And don't forget, we also need to assess the readiness of your support system.

I strongly recommend that you have at least one person who knows about your goals, who really knows the things that are most important to you in your business, and what you really want to accomplish with your business. If that happens to be your romantic partner, wonderful, it doesn't have to be them. Some people prefer not to talk so much about their business with the romantic partner, and I respect and honor whatever feels best for you. I also want you to ask yourself this, I have identified potential accountability partners. Many people really, really need accountability partners in all ways, shapes, and forms.

So if you don't have actual people or if you're not part of a group, a membership, or a community that provides that, I strongly suggest you look into body doubling with one of the platforms, that provides that, including Focused Space, which is the one I'm partnered with and I will link to their website in the show notes as well. Here's the next 2, I've considered what professional support I might need, and I'm not talking just hiring a coach. I mean, do you need to hire a graphic designer? Do you need to hire a copywriter? Do you need to hire a professional podcast editor? Do you need to hire someone to do market research for you?

Most of us aren't good at every possible thing that needs to be done in order to launch a new service line. So what professional services and supports do you need? And the last, I'm ready to communicate my changes and progress to relevant stakeholders. So many of us are trying to do really hard things in isolation. It will be so much easier for you to get the support of just having other people know what you're up to so that they can ask you how it's going. This is usually a very good thing. Don't be so concerned that you won't be going fast enough, working hard enough, or making progress to other people's satisfaction.

So here's the thing, if this self assessment has revealed that you actually aren't as ready as you thought you were, that's good news. Okay, I'm a silver lining kind of gal, but hear me out. You could have made the mistake of hiring a high priced coach or consultant, joining an accountability challenge, or signing up for some fancy schmancy software to build out your new thing when you're not actually ready to do it. So pump the brakes and listen up. I know I know we all want what we want when we want it, I'm no different.

But one of the benefits of this kind of self assessment and self reflection is that we can make better choices, which means better outcomes. And I don't know about you, but I am much more interested in the big wins than in the quick hits, which tend to fizzle out quickly. So if you need a little help nudging yourself along so that you can move from wishing to ready, here are a few simple strategies you can do all by yourself to ease on down the road. Okay, here's how to move from wishing to actually ready. And this is kind of like the pre contemplation contemplation phase in the change model. You're not actually doing the thing yet. You're making yourself ready to do the thing and you're definitely moving beyond wishful thinking and magical thinking.

So you take out a piece of paper and a pen. This works so much better the old fashioned way. Do not do this on your computer screen. A regular piece of paper can be lined, not lined. Maybe lined is better and a pen. Draw a line down the middle. On the left side, the actual costs of leaving things the way they are. Whatever lost revenue, write it down. Missed opportunities, write it down. Time wasted, write it down. Emotional energy resources drained, write it down. Then on the other column, calculate the potential benefits of doing the thing. Whether that's adding the service line, pivoting or rebranding, whatever the thing is that you wanna do. What are potential benefits?

Well, reduced stress, enhanced professional reputation, increased productivity, improved client relationships. How about increased joy? Because you're actually doing the thing that you really wanna be doing. Put it down, and then do a cost benefit analysis, there is a cost to doing nothing. Just as there is a cost to change, weigh them out. Then if you decide it's more beneficial to start working in the direction of your dream, start with a micro commitment. Choose one small thing you wanna work on, one small thing you want to address, one small thing you wanna change. Commit to a 5 minute daily practice, you're gonna work on this 5 minutes a day. Period. No excuses.

Maybe you need a little calendar where you mark an x each day to stay honest and in momentum. Focus on the process and the progress over the outcome, and document small wins because trust me, everything counts. If you do this, if you start with a micro commitment and you work on it a little bit at a time, you are getting yourself ready for the bigger commitment. Whether that's hiring a coach, joining a program, you name it.

We gotta start somewhere. And if you're in the starting blocks, you need a little bit of traction. You need a little bit of tread on your tires. You need to get yourself in momentum. But you know what else you need? Safety nets. We all need them. And I'm talking fallback procedures, support resources, early warning systems for when you start to go off the rails, and each of us knows exactly what that looks like. And people you can turn to when you start experiencing struggles, challenges, or disappointment.

Lastly, for your micro commitment, define what progress looks like, set realistic timelines, plan for review and periods of adjustment because you might need to make some changes. In fact, you should probably count on it and set some checkpoints. So it's not just start and then check again at the finish. Moving forward and staying in momentum, being consistent with taking action, requires being able to be realistic, get in momentum, stay in momentum, and then check-in and see where you might need to adjust. And before I go any further, because so many of us think if I just want something bad enough, it just has to happen. I'm sorry. This is magical thinking, and I want you to keep your eyes and ears wide open.

So when you are working on moving yourself from wishful thinking to readiness to act, but you're still doing any of these things, you're still stuck in the wishful phase. Are you ready? Okay, if you are saying I totally wanna do this, I'm just waiting for the right time to start. There is no right time. There is the time when you decide it's right. If you are waiting for more information, if you have more information, then you'll be ready to begin. This is a lie you're telling yourself, and it's magical thinking and wishful thinking. It's also not going to correct itself, this is very addictive and very habit forming and trust me, I know from experience.

If you're waiting for the conditions to be perfect or if you're waiting for a magical burst of motivation to suddenly empower you to start that micro commitment. This is all evidence of wishful thinking. Or if you just find yourself believing, if your mindset is, I just don't see why this has to be so hard. I mean, you're just such a Debbie Downer, Diann, for god's sake. Why can't I just find one solution that will fix everything? Why can't I just transform everything at once? Like, this should be easier. This should be more comfortable. I shouldn't have to struggle.

Well, you're probably not listening to this podcast if that's what you think. But in truth, if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. And there's a reason why that thing that you want so much that you've listened to this episode this far hasn't happened yet. And that probably has something to do with the fact that you have not yet been ready to face the discomfort. So maybe now by now, you're talking back to your phone, to the podcast app, and you're saying, but Diann, what if I am ready, so ready? But the shit is literally hitting the fan in my personal life. Well, hey, you might be surprised by what I'm about to say. There are very legitimate times when the smartest, wisest, and most humane thing to do is pause and regroup.

If you're in the middle of a major life transition, experiencing a period of unusually high stress, when you don't have the resources emotionally, practically, or socially in place, or your core business literally requires a 100% of your undivided attention to keep the lights on and the payroll paid, now is not the time. No matter how much you want it to be. Pause and regroup. Now if it sounds like I'm allowing you to let yourself off the hook for anything and everything, then not so fast. I said if you're in the middle of a major life transition, experiencing unusually high stress, don't have the resources, or when your core business requires all of your attention, those are pretty extreme circumstances.

The ones when you're waiting for the right time, waiting for it to be easier or more comfortable, or waiting for someone to give you the one solution that will solve everything and change everything, or waiting for that motivation fairy to land on your shoulder and sprinkle fairy dust in your eyes, that's not a pause and regroup situation. So to wrap up, when you are kind of on the edge, like, I do notice that I kind of default back to some of that wishful thinking. I gotta be honest with myself. But I also experience periods of certainty and readiness, then what?

Is that a pause and regroup? No, I would say at that moment, ask yourself, is the cost of not changing exceeding the discomfort of change? If you have the basic support systems in place, basic, adequate, satisfactory. When you can commit to a small specific action and you're willing to learn from your setbacks instead of viewing them as evidence that you're a failure, then you're ready enough. Remember what I said earlier, there is no perfect time or perfect conditions. So ask yourself, what's the smallest step I'm willing to take today? What support do I need to sustain the step I take today? How will I handle it when I experience a setback? What do I want this to look like in 30 days? And if that's too much, how about 10? How about 5? And what is different now from my past attempts? And if you can answer these questions concretely, you are ready to move from wishing to doing.

Now because support and accountability are so important, I want you to know that you can share your results with me. You can write a podcast review for this episode. You can DM me, you can email me. And all the appropriate links for all the appropriate places are right in the show notes where you expect them to be. And if this episode has shown you, you really are ready to address the things in your business that are holding you back from what you really want, then maybe it really is time for us to have a chat.