The ADHD Self-Compassion Challenge for High Achievers with Casey Dixon
Casey Dixon is a respected Life Coach with a unique focus on science-based, innovative, collaborative coaching and advising for high achievers with ADHD or executive function challenges.
So, why is Casey back with us during our series discussing self-compassion and ADHD? Because it turns out that the way we talk to ourselves is universal. Even those living with ADHD who appear to have achieved success live with the threat of negative self-talk, denial, fear, and more. Creating a self-compassion practice is central to freeing ourselves from those feelings and moving forward.
Learn more about Casey and her work at DixonLifeCoaching.com.
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Hello, Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Who apparently I go to concerts with, and I don't remember them.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I don't know why you would bring that up. Telling me, "Remember like 15 years ago we went to a Nickel Creek concert?" and I said yes, and then you say, "I don't."
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't remember it.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. Well, that's how we start the show.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
My memory of our friendship is so much stronger than yours. That's fine. It's fine. We'll just move on. We have a great show.
Nikki Kinzer:
I do remember, wait a minute though, I do remember us going to Spelling Bee. Do you remember that?
Pete Wright:
I never went to that.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, you did.
Pete Wright:
The play? No.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
I've never seen it. I have never seen that play.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh my god, that is so funny.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
So, you didn't know?
Pete Wright:
Do you want to continue to pile on?
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, nevermind. Let's just move.
Pete Wright:
I mean, do you have any other things you did with other people that you'd like to talk about? We're doing great.
Nikki Kinzer:
Did we ever go to a play together ever?
Pete Wright:
I don't think so.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right. Nevermind. It must have been somebody else.
Pete Wright:
Oh, it was somebody else. Well, we have a great show today.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, great.
Pete Wright:
But we're still in the middle of our self-compassion and ADHD series, and today we have somebody who I've just, it's been a long time since we've talked to her. It's Casey Dixon. She's back. She's going to be talking to us about self-compassion. Her entire sort of mission is on helping high achieving, as a coach, an ADHD coach, she helps high-achieving people, and I'm really interested to hear her experience talking about self-compassion, ADHD in high achievers. Is self-compassion, challenges with self-compassion the great equalizer? We shall see today.
But before we do that, head over to Take Control ADHD to get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list right on the homepage, and we'll send you an email with the latest episode each week. You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest at Take Control ADHD, but to really connect with us, join us at the ADHD Discord community. It's super easy to jump into the general community chat channel. Just visit takecontroladhd.com/discord and you'll be whisked over to the general invitation page and log in.
If you are looking for a little bit more, particularly if this show has ever touched you or helped you understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, we invite you to support the show directly through Patreon. Patreon is listener-supported podcasting. With a few bucks a month, you can help guarantee that we continue to grow the show, add new features, and invest more heavily in our community. You can even join us for the live streams of this very show and that would allow you to hear Pete and Nikki planning his son's college trip through Eugene.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
So, that's fun. Sorry to inflict our scheduling on you all, but it's really great to be able to have members. Don't forget, at the end of every show, there's a member section, members only where we get to ask some questions from you in the chat room directly to our guest, and that takes us to Casey Dixon. But first we have a couple of announcements, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
Pete Wright:
It's the end of tax season about.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is. It's almost near. So, we're heading into our final tax study hall sessions for 2023. Tax day, in the US, is next Tuesday, April 18th, and we will have one more round of our weekend study halls this Saturday and Sunday, and then we'll be offering extra study hall times next Monday and Tuesday for anyone who needs some extra accountability for that final push to get their taxes turned in before the deadline. You can find out the times for these tax study halls on our social media, inside our weekly newsletter, our Patreon feed, and also on Discord.
Pete Wright:
And-
Nikki Kinzer:
And-
Pete Wright:
GPS.
Nikki Kinzer:
GPS enrollment, yes. So, registration to join the GPS monthly membership program is going on right now. If you feel like you've tried everything to wrangle your schedule and nothing seems to work, maybe it's time to turn on GPS.
Pete Wright:
Oh, look at that. That's so clever.
Nikki Kinzer:
Isn't that great? That's so clever. This is a great opportunity you will not want to miss. Enrollment only opens three times a year, so the next enrollment won't open until the fall. The deadline to enroll is April 29th. That's only two weeks away from the date that this airs, so there's not a lot of time left. If you're listening to this after the enrollment deadline, I would still encourage you to head over to our website and put your name on the waiting list. People on our waitlist always receive priority for enrollment and get early access to sign up. So, you can learn more about GPS and get signed up at takecontroladhd.com/gps.
Pete Wright:
Casey Dixon is a respected life coach with a unique focus on science-based, innovative, collaborative coaching and advising for high achievers with ADHD or executive function challenges. She joins us today to share her experience working with those high achievers as a coach through their own self-compassion challenges. Casey, welcome back to The ADHD Podcast.
Casey Dixon:
Hello. It's amazing to be here again.
Pete Wright:
It's amazing.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello.
Pete Wright:
Oh, well, we're so excited to have you. We've been talking about self-compassion and ADHD for a number of weeks now, and it seems to really be hitting home for folks, right? These conversations have really made an impact. I think for so many of us, we talk about people who have the lack of self-compassion as a real limiting factor for them and just how they relate to the world. And so, we're curious, if you see that as something that's limiting you from becoming a high achiever, does that mean high achievers have it all locked down? If you've already achieved, are you fine? Do you not really have to worry about this stuff?
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, I can see you're setting me up there with a question that obviously-
Pete Wright:
Was that nice? That was nice. Now you can hit it out of the park.
Casey Dixon:
You knocked it out of there.
Pete Wright:
This is all to you.
Casey Dixon:
Obviously, that's not the case. A lot of the high, well, all of the high achievers that I work with who have ADHD as part of their package have issues with low self-compassion. So, it's kind of counterintuitive because you would think that if they're able to produce and to get through school and get to some level of high achievement that they've already mastered this self-compassion, because what we've learned and are continuing to learn more about is that self-compassion does lead, greater self-compassion does lead to greater productivity. So, in some regards, my clients have overcome their low self-compassion when they are forced into an urgent or sort of high pressure situation where they can kind of ignore their feelings. So, they're using other things to get started, rather than how they feel about things. It's later on when the self-compassion comes back to bite them and they do a lot of self-scrutiny. So, yeah, it's a complicated knot, but people who are really high achievers tend to be highly driven, very ambitious, and they're constantly scrutinizing themselves for their performance, and so that can lead to very low self-compassion.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's interesting. Can you explain a little bit more by what you mean by taking the emotion out? So, they're under some kind of deadline or whatever it is that they're doing, and I know you work with a lot of lawyers, for example, so I can see if somebody is going to trial or whatever that pressure is and the deadlines are real, right? You can't push the trial date. What do you mean by that, that they can take the emotion out of it?
Casey Dixon:
So, one of the things that happens with self-compassion is that we see that something is going wrong. Somebody is suffering, whether it's another person or yourself, and you have this idea of, "Oh, I'm going to be kind and help that person to understand what's going on or help them to fix this problem." That's what compassion means. But when you are being not kind and not understanding and not helpful to yourself when something goes wrong, that's low self-compassion.
And so, if you're heading into, let's say you have to write a legal brief which is not an easy thing to do, I wouldn't want to have to try it, and you've noticed that before when you've tried that, you didn't quite do as well as you thought you should have, quote, unquote, "should," you were really up against the deadline or you missed a deadline, you got some negative feedback from your performance. So, there's past emotional things. You also have present emotional things like, "I always have to work all-nighters to get briefs done and I really don't want to do that," or that I don't feel good about this. It feels like an onerous task. I don't like writing. It makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing. So, those are past feelings and present feelings. Those two combined can be a very powerful cause for avoidance of actually writing.
Pete Wright:
That's a recipe for me going into ostrich mode.
Casey Dixon:
It absolutely is, and I think one of the things that our clients are really adept at when you're a high achiever with ADHD is using avoidance coping mechanisms. The thing that overpowers that avoidance are the other motivators, the other key motivators. So, you have this ball of avoidance. You're like, "Ooh, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it." But then urgency walks into the room and takes over and says, "You don't have a choice, man, because this is due tomorrow morning." Or, other people walk into the room and they're like, "Okay, let's go. We're going to do this," which is another reason why co-working works so well for our clients. Or, you're like, "Wow, there's a new twist to this brief. Something interesting just came down. I got an email from the other attorneys on this case, and they're like, 'Ooh, new twist." Now interest, high interest has walked into the room.
Dixon Life Coaching, we call that the ADHD trifecta. Those are the three things that motivate people with ADHD, right? Urgency, interest, and other people. So, those things can overpower or at least battle against this ball of avoidance or ostriching, as you called it, so that you can kind of get started. So, that's how you put away that low self-compassion to get things done, and high achievers are experts at using high urgency and high interest and other people to get things done.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because in the avoidance piece, when they're in avoidance, they're also incredibly... or incredibly hard on themselves, right? And so, there's so much guilt and shame wrapped around that. So, what the urgency and the people and the interest that what you're saying is that if you have those three things together, it can actually get you moving, then it can actually initiate that action.
Pete Wright:
Does it actually dampen the feelings of the lack of self-compassion? You said something earlier that really triggered me which was that those sorts of self-doubt, self-compassion issues will bite them later, and I'm curious how that manifests in this conversation.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, yeah. So, the ADHD trifecta stuff, urgency, other people, interest walks into the room, into your brain, your dopamine is all lit up and it floods your prefrontal cortex, and now you're able to focus and get down to work and write, regulate your emotions a little bit more, push them aside. And then later, they're going to come back out and say, "Wow, you did it again. You did it at the last minute. You relied on other people. You couldn't get started the way you intended to get started. Why can't you ever? Why do you always?"
And so, this is that very low self-compassionate voice that often uses what I call absolute language, you always, you never, you can't. That comes back when that person is reflecting on their behavior, and the problem is it becomes a rehearsed script. So, we rehearse that over and over and over and over and over again. That becomes part of our own play, our own performance, our own identity, our own role in the world, so that the next time I have to write a brief, ooh, here it comes again, that same voice that's not compassionate is telling you, "You can't, you never, you won't, you don't," and then you have to really overpower it again by using urgency and other people, et cetera. That can backfire, right, because it creates stress and...
Nikki Kinzer:
And burnout.
Casey Dixon:
And burnout which is what we were talking about-
Nikki Kinzer:
Which is what you were talking about the last time you were here, right?
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, exactly.
Nikki Kinzer:
So, yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright:
There's not a little bit of this that feels like, "Oh, Pete, the call is coming from inside the house." It's like you're here. It's like you're in my living room talking to me. I feel like the biggest challenge for me being bitten on the back end of these projects that I've waited till the last minute and I've used adrenaline to get myself through a given project and the urgency, interest in other people is I always have those feelings, again, absolutes, always, I always have those feelings because I cannot remember an experience of not having those feelings. But once the project is done, the release of freedom that comes from being finished with a hard task is almost just enough to let me forget that I had trouble in the first place. So, it's a self-perpetuating cycle in that my behavior doesn't change.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh wow.
Pete Wright:
And it's as if I come to rely on urgency, interest, and other people as the coping strategy to do important things and hard things when I know I'm not doing them well and I know I'm not doing them emotionally sort of healthily. Does that make sense?
Casey Dixon:
Such a beautiful point because what happens is that you've now proven to yourself once again that you need to rely on that stuff, which means you've taken away your sense of agency and autonomy and your own ability to do things that you intend to do in the way that you intend to do them, which is another way of not being compassionate to yourself. You're saying that, hey, you can't do it without those things. And so, I'm intentionally, whether I'm conscious of it or not, as an adult with ADHD, creating chaos and urgency and this relying on adrenaline and doing all-nighters and pushing aside my self-care and beating myself up because those have become the things that I think work.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Well, I think they work because they've demonstrated to work at a certain level of performance and satisfaction.
Nikki Kinzer:
Of stress, though, right? At the expense of so much stress. So, it feels like to me, when you can look at that and say, "Okay, we know that these things work and they can help us," there's a level there, I think, of acceptance and self-compassion also that says, "Okay, I need other people to help me get started." That's okay. That's okay to know that about yourself, right? So, if there's a compassionate way to say, "All right, I know this is how I work best, and I really do want to do some body doubling, or I want to work with coworkers on this," to be able to accept that in a loving way and not feel bad about it. You can incorporate that into your plan and be okay with that, because it's kind of like the I don't want to rely on timers, but if you have ADHD, you kind of have to rely on timers, right?
Casey Dixon:
I don't want to rely on them either. I just happen to have mine.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah. So it feels, yeah.
Casey Dixon:
I think that in order to talk about this, I think there's a couple things. One is being really intentional about how you use your motivators, right? Yes, sometimes I need to rely on other people to get myself motivated to do a task, especially an onerous or a boring task that doesn't have a deadline, and it seems like I'm not really sure what it looks like when it's finished, et cetera, et cetera. You had mentioned taxes. That's not an easy thing for most people to do because it's not exciting.
Nikki Kinzer:
No, no.
Casey Dixon:
It's a lot of yucky paperwork. So, when you have something that you need a little extra motivation for, then you can try to use the ADHD trifecta stuff, the urgency, the other people, and the interest in intentional, small ways that are distributed, rather than this big tidal wave of, "Oh my god, they're due tomorrow and I'm a horrible person because once again, as always-"
Nikki Kinzer:
Here I go.
Casey Dixon:
"Here I go," and then I'm now beating myself up and going down that script. So, that's one piece of it. I think the other piece is just you were saying accepting who you are and how you work best. How I work best is not always the same, right? It depends on the context that I'm in, the kind of thing I'm trying to accomplish. And so, acknowledging that in this situation, these are the supports that I have learned that I need to rely on. Congratulations me. That's a loving, kind way of saying the same thing like, "Oh, I need to use other people to get things done, I'm a horrible person," blah, blah, blah. So, I think it's also about accepting your ADHD in a really deep way and not just saying, "Well, yeah, I have ADHD, but I'm going to mask that and skirt around that and pretend like I can go through my day like a person who does not have ADHD." Wouldn't that be great? And then by the end of the day, because that doesn't work, you have more ammunition to put in your low self-compassion bunker.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's True.
Pete Wright:
But again, that's part of the self-reinforcement, isn't it? Here I am, just again, thinking about myself, but that space, the liminal space between completing a project and right before the self-compassion, the tragedy of the self-compassion gap sets in is a really amazing place because it allows me to pretend that I'm a guy without ADHD.
Casey Dixon:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right? For just a little bit, I kind of get to feel what that's like. To me, that is demonstrably the easiest way to get there is to feel real bad for a little while and then feel real good for a little while, and then it goes back into the same cycle.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. And this is, I think, where the high achievers that I work with and other people who are very thoughtful about how they approach the world, how high achievers tend to be really driven, they have an idea about what they want to get from their lives, they try to go out and they get it. And so, when you are self-reflective, like you just were right now, Pete, whether you're a high achiever or not, that can be a place of negotiation, right? So, you can always prove to yourself that this is the only way that this works.
I had a client tell me that the only way that she can get done, anything for her, she's a professor, for her students, she can't get her grading done unless she does it in the middle of the night, unless she sacrifices an entire several nights of sleep. Now, you and I know, we all know that that's not a healthy way of approaching her job, and she knows that too intellectually, but she can prove it to herself that's the only way she's been able to get it done in the past.
Nikki Kinzer:
She can do it. And it's what she believes.
Casey Dixon:
Right. So, when she's working, and this is where coaching I think can be a huge tool, whether it's in a group or one-on-one, we have to prove to her big, giant, fast-thinking brain that's really adept at negotiating in the moment, like, "Hey, that's the only way I can do this," that there are other ways, that she also has the capacity of doing this in a different way that she hasn't maybe been able to do in the past, and then we can start to change that internal script into one that is more self-caring and self-compassionate.
I actually have a quote from her that I wanted to read because she talks a lot about accepting her ADHD, and that has been a long road. She's wrote this and I print it out. She just wrote this yesterday. I was like, "Oh my god, this is perfect." But she said, "At first, I thought accepting my ADHD was about learning all I could and then coming up with compensatory strategies." So, that's why people call coaches, right? I want strategies and tactics, and I need to learn more about it. "Next, I realized that I had to have a lot more compassion for myself because medication and supports cannot fix all day, all the time, non-ADHD functioning. Now I feel like I'm having to re-examine what it really means to accept my ADHD self, to not be shamed, to quit masking, to start making major shifts in my life, to actually like and love all of me and truly honor that in how I choose to live so that it's okay for my ADHD to show up."
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Casey Dixon:
I know, right?
Pete Wright:
That's great.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Casey Dixon:
That just came through in our group yesterday, and I think that's exactly the transformation that working with somebody who can hold a judgment-free space and be in a group with other people who are struggling with similar things can provide a lot more than just compensatory tactics and strategies. The cool part about that is that this compassion that she's now discovering for herself will also lead to greater productivity and less procrastination. So, it becomes this sort of snowball effect of not only do I love who I am and I bring my whole self to every situation with kindness and asking how I can help and support myself, but I'm also getting more done now. So, I'm really starting to change that script in a really deep transformative way.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, kudos to you. I can imagine that that was a wonderful thing to witness.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I mean, because that's what we look for is that acceptance, and that was beautifully written. What a testament of the work that she's been doing too on herself and really taking a deep dive in what this means and how she wants to live. I don't know this woman, but I get it, I see what she's doing. Beautiful.
Pete Wright:
You know, I have to just say what I hear when I hear her talk about that, and all the greatest wishes for her success and that awareness is huge, and also what I am hearing is, man, it is just a lot of work. It is a high calorie burn living with ADHD. I hear her say that, and I realize, yeah, I relate to so much of that, and I am still exhausted every day.
Casey Dixon:
Absolutely, it's an acknowledgement that, yes, living with ADHD and with high expectations of what you want your life to look like is exhausting, can be exhausting. So, this is also part of that acceptance. It's like, okay, I see that suffering. I see that exhaustion. I can do that for my clients. I'm compassionate towards them. But I also need to sort of say, okay, how can you acknowledge that in yourself and approach yourself with a huge amount of self-compassion. How can I care about you myself in this knowing that I'm exhausted? How can I help myself knowing that this is a huge lift for me? What can I do to support myself knowing that fully and accepting that awareness that living life with ADHD takes extra special intentionality and attention in order to do it in a way that you can thrive and not be exhausted all the time?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. And how do I make it a practice that I don't forget every day, right?
Casey Dixon:
Right.
Pete Wright:
It's so easy to just let go of that stuff and not make it something that I can't build a habit out of loving myself because I naturally, when I'm in that trough of despair, don't love myself.
Casey Dixon:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right?
Casey Dixon:
And so, I'm going to just challenge that-
Pete Wright:
Please.
Casey Dixon:
... take out the absolute word, which is I can't build a habit of loving myself, because you absolutely can build a habit of loving yourself, but it's just like building any other habit when you have ADHD. You have to sort of focus on that and figure out, okay, well, how do I incorporate this new habit into my life and make sure that I follow through with it, and that's where the support of other people, again, is going to be really, really important. I'm sure you've had tons of episodes on here about how to build a habit when you have ADHD, self-compassion can be one of those.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Well, and it's a different kind of exhaustion at the end of the day when you put self-compassion compared to putting shame and beating yourself up. So, you can still be exhausted but you're caring for yourself. That's different. It just feels different.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I would rather be exhausted from the work and from the effort that I put into doing a good job than be bone-weary by being broken down by my own shame.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. Wow, that's such a great distinction. Yeah, that's really, really important. You know, cognitively, emotionally, physically, the end of the day might not be the best time to have a self-review session.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right. On your craziest day, yeah.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. We're all worn out and we know that ADHD rages when your energy is low.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you're tired, you're hungry, you haven't exercised. I mean, all of those things come into play.
Casey Dixon:
So, it might be time to learn how to say, "Okay, I'm not going to necessarily engage in self-compassionate love and caring, but I'm not going to engage in that shame habit," which is also a habit. Either I'm going to find something else to do, and then in the morning when I'm fresh, or whenever your best time for your cognitive awareness is, I'm going to practice a little mindfulness, which we also know can help aid with self-compassion, and then do some intentional self-loving. That could be journaling or mirroring what you're saying to yourself or reframing, and these are things that coaches also are really adept at and can help you to do. And so, if you meet with a coach regularly, whether it's in a group or one-on-one, you start to hear the coach's voice in your mind helping you to replace that script. The coach's voice, if you have a coach that's adept at working with people with ADHD, is going to be a non-judgmental voice that will be more compassionate, and not in a fluffy sort of way, right?
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Casey Dixon:
This is not about sort of, oh, let's just make you feel better by false cheerleading. It's much more about let's look at the negative self-criticism, the negative feelings, and I'm going to mirror them back to you and say, "Okay, I see that you're suffering. What is it that we can do to help?"
Nikki Kinzer:
I have a question around burnout because I want to connect us back to when you were here last, and one of the things that I really took away from our conversation, and I actually talked to my own clients about and I referenced you being on the show talking about it, is that with burnout, you have to kind of take a step back and reflect and what do you let go. What has to change in your life? Because it's not working the way it is currently. I know with a lot of high achievers, they do have a lot of work, and sometimes that work is just not, it can't be done in a day. They might want it to be, but it can't be. So, I'm curious about that connection between self-compassion and burnout. How would you talk to a client or coach a client who is obviously experiencing this and also feeling really bad about it because they feel like they should be able to do everything?
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. I mean, obviously, when you're coaching, it depends on the client and they're setting the agenda, I'm not.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sure.
Casey Dixon:
If I were to say, "I'm noticing that you're experiencing burnout or the symptoms of burnout." I feel overwhelmed. Somebody's going to discover that I'm not getting everything done every day. I'm putting a mask on, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I'm forgetting to eat, sleep, breathe, or move. I'm putting myself second to the workload, and then we take a look at the workload and we're like, "Wow, it's never going to get finished." And so, you've set yourself self up for this failure, really. So, there's a couple ways of approaching that. One is to get that to-do list cut down to size which means making trade-offs, looking at things that you can delegate or delete or do later or diminish the size or scope.
Nikki Kinzer:
Those four Ds.
Casey Dixon:
The five Ds. I got five Ds now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Five Ds, five.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, and the first one is disappoint, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. That's right. I love that one.
Casey Dixon:
Who can I disappoint today and still feel okay about myself and my life? And it's okay, we all have to disappoint people in order to function as human beings and can put ourselves back in the driver's seat. But the other thing is sort of embracing the counterintuitive which means it's counterintuitive for us to believe that. We don't just tell ourselves, "Work harder, be more efficient, get more done," when you have that overwhelming to-do list. That backfires. We know that doesn't work.
I mean, we have tricks and tips. Yeah, you can make yourself more efficient, but ultimately you have to sort of say, "Okay, I got to accept the reality and not just live in wishful thinking land of time and space and physical, cognitive, and emotional capacity and being a human being. I got to embrace all that stuff and give myself some compassion." Again, counterintuitively, the more you do that, the less inefficient you will be, the less your productivity will be hampered by those negative emotions that we talked about. So, we kind of have to hit it from both ends. Let's look at the to-so list and see what we can do, and let's look at how you're treating yourself and see if we can transform that.
Pete Wright:
It makes me want to go into my to-do list and actually create a tag called disappoint and tag tasks to remind myself this is something that I could give away in my life.
Casey Dixon:
That's one of the things I know when Nikki and I were at the conference, the international ADHD conference in November, somebody after my talk on burnout stood up and said, "Oh my gosh, I have this amazing to-do list and I'm never going to get a handle on it," and I said, "I challenge everybody in here to go home and look at their to-do list and take 20% of the stuff off of it." Just take it off and see what happens in your life. Now, maybe you don't get to 20%, but if I ask you to do 20% and you take off 5%, then you've made some improvement, right? We're talking about marginal improvement. And then because you're being self-compassionate, give yourself a nice externalized and intentional voice that says, "I have made a difference in my life today by caring for myself."
So, self-compassion needs to be said or written or externalized just like everything else, right? We have timers and sticky notes and lists and alarms and other people to help us when we have ADHD. Self-compassion also needs to get out of your head and into the external world in order for it to have an impact so, like you said, Pete, you don't just forget next time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Casey Dixon:
That you've actually achieved something.
Pete Wright:
Because you will.
Casey Dixon:
You will.
Pete Wright:
Everything I hear, it's like my wife reflects often how great it is to have the experience of having given birth, knowing that people say it was really hard but that she has no memory of it. It's just fun. Why don't I get that? Isn't there a hormone for ADHD like that? I would love that.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, one of the things I have to say, when you talked about the disappointment before, it connects also with people pleasing and boundaries and allowing yourself to disappoint. I think that when you were talking about that before, my daughter, it was interesting, she was invited to go on a trip with a friend and it was to Mexico. So, we got her a passport, everything, and getting ready for her to go. About two weeks before the vacation, she really didn't want to go. She had a lot of social anxiety. She didn't want to go to another country with a family that wasn't us. It was somebody else's family, and she just had a lot of anxiety and she was really just, "I don't know what to do."
I actually, I thought of that disappointment and I thought, "You know what? If this isn't right for you, then I think it's okay to disappoint your friend and let them know you can't go. They're not going to understand. They're probably going to be mad and they're going to be disappointed, and that's okay. But you're doing what you need to do for yourself, and that is more important than making this person mad because you don't want to be in another country for 10 days and not be able to come home."
Casey Dixon:
Right. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
You know?
Casey Dixon:
Well, and I think if we look at that really great example of through a lens of self-compassion, the first thing that you had to do as her mom is to notice that she was suffering, rather than getting angry or frustrated because, man, we did all that stuff. We got you a passport, we made plans, we made a packing list, we talked to the other parents about what you were going to do there, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. So, what you're recognizing, as a compassionate human being, is that your daughter in that moment was suffering in a big way and with deep emotions about whether she can handle this, what does she want, making choices, disappointing her friend, disappointing herself, disappointing you. And so, you're stepping in there with a caring, helpful voice, right? I care about you. I want to help you in this situation, rather than a frustrated voice. She is probably being frustrated with herself, in that moment, and that's a lack of compassion for herself.
So, I think it's important for you as her parent, and this is something that coaches can also do with their clients and people can do for themselves, is you mirror back what you're witnessing, right? I'm witnessing you. Even considering going to Mexico, another country for 10 days with a friend was a very courageous consideration. We've walked through all of the things that you needed to do there, which is an incredible amount of self-awareness and planning and organization and follow through. And then you realized you weren't ready, which is a great self-awareness, and then you were able to advocate for yourself by saying, "Hey, Mom, I don't think I'm ready for this." Now, you have to go through some difficult conversations to do what's right for you in the world. That is a boost rather than a detriment to her, depending on how you frame it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and it all comes back to you, Casey, talking about disappointment. Seriously, I thought about it when we were talking about it.
Casey Dixon:
Gosh.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm like, "That conversation was so important to just to give yourself the permission." It's okay to disappoint other people.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. And this also goes back to our conversation about burnout, and one of the things that I talk with my clients is they don't really, especially the really driven, high achiever types, they don't really like things to be okay or to have permission. They want to be hyper responsible. They want to be at their best game all the time. They want to be making powerful choices that advance the ball down the field. So, rather than framing it as it's okay and you have permission to disappoint, I frame it as it's your responsibility to make choices that disappoint other people. Because if you don't, that ball is not going to advance. You're not going any further down the field. You're going to be stuck, which is what you're experiencing right now. So, you have to take it and do it.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's part of it.
Casey Dixon:
It's part of it.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is just part of it.
Casey Dixon:
Yep.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
It's intentionality. It gets back to something that I was going to ask earlier and I sort of refrained, but I think this kind of leads into the answer to this question, which is when you see people who come in who are fixed in their belief that the sort of binge-starve productivity cycle is okay for them, that that's how they get things done, and they're so busy and so high performance that change is not an option, right? They're fixed in that belief system that things are not an option. But my sense is they probably can't sort of see that it's that exact system that is getting in the way of them actually feeling better about the world they live in.
Casey Dixon:
Right. And I think this is true for anybody at any level of what we call achievement, right? It's like, oh, I'm doing this. I'm fixed in how I go about things, and so far it's working okay. So, they can prove, like you said, they can prove to themselves that that works. But what they don't realize yet is that they're only working at a 65% of their true capacity, and even though they've reached great levels of success, they can do even more and live a more satisfied life and still take care of themselves and their friends and their families, literally living longer.
I had a client one time, and I talk about her a lot, she was coaching with me. She's a lawyer in big law which is in itself crazy busy and always overwhelming and stressful, but she's like, "Well, it's not like this job is killing me." And I said, "Okay, well, let's take a look at how many times you were in the hospital this year."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Casey Dixon:
She's like, "Oh, that's right. I was in the hospital three times this year with serious problems." And I'm like, "What's going on there?" She's said, "Well, to meet my billable hours, I'm not eating, I'm not sleeping, I'm not spending time with my kids, I'm constantly stressed out. I knew I wasn't feeling well, but I didn't have time to go to the doctor until I'm at the ER now." So, through really thinking about and readjusting her mindset to one of self-compassion, the crazy thing is that her billable hours went up by 150% because we told her to reduce her billable hours, right? So, her firm and she and I came to an agreement where we were going to say, "Okay, you don't have to do 2,000 billable hours this year. We're only going to aim for 1,700." Meanwhile, she was at about 1,700, she could never get to 2,000. Then all of a sudden, she's at like 2,200, and I'm like, "Wait, what is going on?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Casey Dixon:
So, this is that counterintuitive nature of flipping that script and how powerful, now that's one example, but how powerful it can be to really, really embrace the self-compassion habit.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you so much.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Thanks, Casey.
Nikki Kinzer:
This has been such a great addition to our series, and your point of view, it's wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, my pleasure. I absolutely loved it.
Pete Wright:
Tell us a little bit about what you're working on and where people can learn more about you and your coaching.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah. So, dixonlifecoaching.com, all of it's there. D-I-X-O-N lifecoaching.com. One of the things I'm really excited about is that we're relaunching our course. It's called Live Well ADHD which is a six-module online part with 160-page book, workbook, and it has drop-in accountability calls three times a week, but we're going to relaunch it so it includes a live six-week training program so that people who have ADHD who might not find it so easy to get through an online course without the live pieces have even more support. So, I know that this is, we're talking here in April, one of those will be starting in April, but we'll be doing that three times a year. So, I'm really excited about that. And also, of course, we're running The Focused Lawyer groups, The Focused Professor groups, and also Performance Powerhouse which is group coaching for people who are not lawyers and professors but are high achieving basically knowledge workers with ADHD, people who use their brain and their knowledge at work, of course one-on one coaching. And now we're up to seven team coaches on the Dixon Life Coaching team, so I'm really excited about-
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. 17? Is that what you said?
Casey Dixon:
Seven. Seven.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I was going to say, wow, you added a lot of people since the last time we talked.
Casey Dixon:
I'm sure we'll stick with seven for a while, but it's a amazing group of really powerful coaches who all bring something up to the table.
Nikki Kinzer:
You have an amazing group, and I got to see one of them speak about the chronic illness and pain in ADHD is really good, yeah, yeah.
Casey Dixon:
Yeah, we're starting to do a lot of specialized programming. We run a chronic illness group three times a year when you have chronic illness in ADHD. We have a planning power-up sort of intensive class that we run three times a year. So, there's all sorts of stuff going on there, and they can also just reach out to us at info@dixonlifecoaching with any questions and we'll help you out, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Fantastic. Well, link in the show notes. As always, thank you, Casey. You're fantastic. We appreciate you anytime you come to talk to us.
Casey Dixon:
Thanks, Pete and Nikki.
Pete Wright:
But as Nikki, said such a great perspective for this series, just really perfect and timely, so thank you. As for the rest of you, we appreciate you downloading and listening to this show, for sure. Thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to this conversation, head over to the show talk channel. That's where we'll be over in our Discord server. You can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Casey Dixon and Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
