In this episode of Lessons from a Quitter, we dive into a powerful mindset shift: what if there’s nothing wrong with the way you are? So many of us waste energy trying to force ourselves to be different—morning people, quick decision-makers, productivity machines—because society told us we should. But what if your brain is wired exactly as it needs to be? I explore how self-acceptance, rather than self-judgment, is the real key to designing a life you love. You’ll walk away with practical insight into working with yourself—not against yourself—to create more ease and fulfillment.
Ep. 351: The way your brain works is fine
Ep. 351
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Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here. I was recently coaching on this topic, uh, a couple of times in my membership in the Quitter Club and I realized it's something that everybody we need to talk about here because it's something that everybody for some reason, struggles with. And I wanna make sure you all stop it. You all understand? I get it through your head that this isn't a problem. One of the things that we end up doing is thinking that the way that we are, there's something wrong with it because we're not robots because we're not perfect. And if we were just another way, it would be better, right? So we look at other people, we look at suggestions of how we should live or what society tells us we should do, and then we think if I was just this way, then everything would be better.
And it's a lie we tell ourselves. And then we spend a lot of time trying to, uh, change ourselves and trying to make, you know, a round peg go into a square hole. Like trying to force ourselves to be a way that we are just not your brain operates and however it operates. And one of the things that I like to do with coaching, and one of the things I realized really late in this self-development game, I think a lot of people come to self personal development to change how they are to make themselves quote unquote better, to, um, become some version of themselves that I don't know gets more done and whatnot. It's not to say that there aren't certain behaviors or beliefs that you can change, and that is part of personal development. But once I realized that really the goal of personal development is not to be like other people, it's not to change yourself, to be someone you are not gonna be, it's to figure out how you work so that you can work with your own brain.
It's to partner with yourself to realize like, this is how I operate, this is how I process things. This is how long it takes me. So how do I set myself up in order to be able to reach my goals or to succeed or to create the life that I want? It is not in fighting yourself to becoming another person. And, and so I want you to understand, and I want you to really ask yourself like, what if there wasn't anything wrong with the way that you operate, with the way that you process things? What if it was a totally normal way to do it? And it's not to say that you can't like, you know, tweak certain things or really notice where maybe you're self-sabotaging or where you're um, procrastinating or whatnot. Sure there's some room for improvement, but not an overhaul to become somebody or not. And I'm gonna give you some examples of what I mean by that. A lot of times I think like, let's say as an example, I have never been a morning person. It's just truly from when I was a child, not in my DNA. I've always, I get a second wind around 9 30, 10. I don't know why. Even when I'm dead tired at like six or seven, I just seem to wake up at night. Now actually when you look back, I feel like evolutionarily
There are now tons of examples. Our study is done about the fact that like, yeah, a certain percentage of the population are people that naturally their circadian rhythm, the way that they operate, they do better in the morning. And then there's a certain amount of people that do better in the evening, which sort of makes sense I think in a tribe. If like you are protecting the tribe, like there has to be people that can be up, I don't know, stand guard or watch, uh, in the evening and then there's gonna be people that just like to get up or whatnot. But because we created a society that operates based off of um, you know, getting up early in the morning, we created this like idea that it's somehow better to be a morning person that you're somehow, you know, more likely to be successful or it just makes you kind of better.
Like I think we do attach morality to it, which is absurd. And so for so many of us who have found ourselves to just naturally be evening people, kind of like night owls, um, we spend so much time being like, I should just be different. I should be able to wake up and kind of jump into my day. I should get up at five in the morning and be able to work out. And I used to do that too. I used to think because well, school was set up for that, work was set up, you know, it was better to be able to get up and maybe work out before work and then get to work and get ready to, you know, uh, get on with your day. I just was never that person. It took me like three or four hours for my brain to come online.
Like I would be awake, but I certainly wasn't doing my best work. I certainly wasn't the most focused. It's just not the time that I, that I operate at my best at now. I can spend all of my life trying to make myself a morning person. And it's not to say that I can't come up with like tips and tricks or ways that like, and if I have to be up, I can wake up or I can look at like I actually don't operate that well that way. I operate better at night. It's just the way that I, uh, am. And so when I know that, can I set myself up? Now I have the privilege, obviously, like I have a different situation 'cause I have my own business. And so I do have more flexibility to say like, okay, I don't want to start my day at 8:00 AM and I don't wanna have them like meetings first thing in the morning and I don't want to do these, all of these things that require stuff right when I wake up or right after I get my kids out of the house for school, I can't set it up that way.
I actually set a lot of things up later in the day after lunch when I am more awake and when I'm really present. And I even am okay with sometimes working at night, like once my kids go to bed because that is when I actually like, find that a lot of my creativity comes out. It's a lot of the time where I don't have to deal with the admin, the admin of my business or the emails and all that stuff. And so I can really think about, I can dream up, you know, different programs or classes I wanna teach or how I wanna help people. And I think that there's a lot of shame sometimes. It's like, oh, you know, you, you have to be able to cut off your work and you have to be able to, you know, put it away. And yeah, you can, you can decide that I don't work after six o'clock if you work a nine to five or like for me, I can just decide like, this is how I work better.
I work, I'd rather not start until 11. Let's say that's not how I spend my day, but let's just say, and then I work until my kids come home and then when they go to bed, I wanna work for a couple more hours. Like that is better for my own natural, uh, body, like the way my body operates. And so I, what I get a lot of times is people will tell me that they just aren't a certain way, which number one, whatever story you're telling yourself is a lie. There is evidence that like maybe you don't do that thing, but you also likely it's not the whole truth. So what I mean by this is somebody will come and tell me like, I have a really hard time making decisions. I'm just really bad at making decisions. Okay? Or I always second guess, guess myself, right?
And I have this story of like, this is how I am and I just have to change myself. And I want you to know that first, that story is a lie, okay? Even me, my story of being a night owl, not that it's not a lie, it's not the whole truth. Like there's plenty of times in my life that I've woken up early. I clearly can. So telling myself I can't is not helpful. But it's, I just wanna know like, okay, this is the way, like it's not the entire truth. So when I say I have a hard time making decisions, you make 30,000 like decisions a day. Maybe not that exact number, but, but we, everything you do is a decision, right? Deciding not to hit snooze, deciding to get up, deciding to brush your teeth, what to brush your teeth going down, what you're gonna eat for breakfast, what you're gonna wear, you know, like with how you're gonna drive, what you're gonna listen to in the car.
All of these things are just millions of decisions. Now, they're not hard decisions and oftentimes we're kind of, um, operating on autopilot because they are decisions that we've made over and over again. Or they're, they're low stakes decisions or they're obvious decisions, right? It's like, I already know I'm gonna want to drink coffee 'cause I like coffee, so I don't need to make a decision between tea and coffee everywhere. I've already made that decision and yet it's a micro decision every day, right? So for me to say I don't, I have a hard time making decisions is not the whole truth. I've made a million decisions probably in the last month. Like I've made millions and millions of decisions in my life. And most of them, I would say 90% of them turned out well. 'cause I don't even think about them. Now when I am faced with a hard decision, when I'm faced with something that there is really a lot of pros and cons, it's 50 50.
There's not, you know, one direction that I'm very obviously want to go in, then it takes me longer to make that decision. I'm not very quick at making maybe higher stakes decisions. Now that's a more accurate statement. And I think for a lot of us, we make really blanket statements of like, I'm bad at making decisions. I take too long to make decisions. I'm, I get stuck all the time. I am always confused. I don't trust myself. And those are, again, I think like, I just want you to like be aware that that's not the whole truth. Okay? So like we don't have to live into that story. But the second and more important point is what if there wasn't a problem with that? Like, the way that you process, let's say it is harder for you to make a decision. Let's say it takes you longer.
You like to be really deliberate, you like to think about both sides of it. You like to give yourself some time to ruminate. Why is that a problem? And oftentimes it goes back to this thing because we've been told that it's really good to be able to make decisions like be decisive really fast. And we think because we're quote unquote wasting time. But I want you to really question like, how has this protected me? How has this trait helped me throughout my life? I guarantee you, you will find an ample amount of evidence that this thing that you do, the way that you do it, has actually helped you. Like maybe because you take longer to make decisions, you tend to really think about all of the things that could possibly go wrong and that might have protected you from not making a lot of decisions that you're gonna regret.
And it has protected you from a lot of consequences that you don't have to face somebody else who makes decisions really quickly. That is also a strength in some ways, right? It can help you kind of move on and take action and get on with it. But you likely have the opposite consequence where maybe you have to remake decisions a lot because you make decisions too hastily. And maybe you have certain consequences that you didn't think through that you then have to deal with. Again, neither one are right or wrong. Both have pros and cons. Both are 50 50. But we tend to believe that like the way that I am, like we tend to ignore how it protects us. We tend to ignore how, um, it has helped in our lives up until this point. And we tend to think that it is, um, we only see the consequence, the hindrance of where it has hurt us.
And then we create this story of like, there's something wrong. I have to change it myself. And so I just want you to start really thinking about like, what if there isn't something wrong with that? What if the way that I process is totally normal and I, and whether it's because I learned it in childhood and it helped me and it protected me, or it's just the way I'm wired, it's just the way my brain is wired, it's just the way I like to deal with kind of, uh, decisions. What if this is just the way that I do it and that I can be okay with that and I can give myself the time and space that I need in order to make the next decision? One of the things I've noticed, like with this, um, in my own life, as soon as I started accepting the way that my brain worked, it made things so much easier. One of these is like this example of decisions I oftentimes realize I need to sit with a decision actually sometimes for months if it's a very big decision in my life. This happened when I wanted to quit the law. This happened when I wanted to start this podcast. Um, this recently happened in something that I will talk about soon on the podcast.
I think about something for months on it. And now that I've learned that this is the way I operate, I don't even pressure myself to make the decision. I know like the decision's gonna get made, I'll make it at some point, but I really need to give myself time to mull over this idea. I really need to give myself time to sit with both sides. What if I did this? What if I didn't? What if I left the law? What if I stayed, which one would be better? And I need time to really sit with all of the pros and cons and I need time to let it sort of like, I don't know, like seep into me to really figure out like, what do I wanna do here? And I need to give myself time to feel confused. I really need to let myself be in this place of like, huh, there is no right answer here.
What should I do? Where do I wanna go? And I need 'em to give myself some time to like think about that from different angles and to hear other people's experiences and to listen to podcasts and to really like, think about what I wanna do in the future and where I wanna go. And then I, I have this very strange way. I honestly, I can't tell you how it has happens or why, but I will mull over something and then all of a sudden it's as if like a light switch goes off and I know the answer and the answer's so clear and there was never any confusion. And there it is. Like there's no way to go any other way. And I get to this place and I'm like, oh my God, I already know I'm scared, but like, I wanna quit the law.
Or I'm scared, but I wanna start this podcast and there's nothing else I can do but know, like this is like deep in my soul. This is the right answer. And I think maybe now that I've gone through this a couple of times, I sort of notice that this is just the way that my, that I operate. It's the way that I make that decision. And I'm okay with that. Like, what if it just takes me a little bit longer to get that to that decision? I don't have to know within a week. I don't have to make that decision hastily. I don't have to make that decision when my body and my nervous system and my, I just, my, I'm not ready to make that decision. I can give myself the amount of time that I need to do that. What if that's not a problem?
Like, I eventually get there and I get there on my own time and it feels good to me. Another example I will give is, I, I talked about this, this is now, I don't know, a year ago maybe when I was talking, or two years ago when I was talking about, um, kind of the, the rise in self-diagnosis online, but specifically with A DHD. And I know for me for a long time I was like, wait, do I have this? Because I, a lot of the things I was seeing online, the symptoms, like the, the way that you act, it was just me to a t. And one of the things that was fascinating, the validation that I felt when I thought maybe I have this, like maybe I have a DHD and that's why I do a lot of the things I do. And I knew for myself at the time, like I likely wasn't gonna get on medication.
It wasn't gonna, you know, it hasn't been something that has hindered my life enough that I think I need to be medicated for. I clearly have been able to, uh, you know, create success and do the work that I need to do, but it was really validating to figure out like maybe my brain is just wired this way. And so this is why I forget these things. This is why I can't pay attention if there's any type of ambient noise. This is why I can't focus for really more than like 15 minutes. This is why something that should have taken me 15 minutes takes me about two hours. Um, there's a lot of these things. But I remember thinking, okay, I'm glad that I have that validation now. Like, I am glad that it can make me feel better to be like, oh, you're not choosing to not focus.
You're not choosing to forget people's names or whatnot. You're not choosing to procrastinate. I have a really hard time, you know, with these types of executive functioning. And I remember at the time thinking like, why do I need this to make me feel okay about myself? Why did I need this like diagnosis or this label to think, huh, that's just the way my brain operates. I already knew that was the way my brain operated right? Now I understand obviously the diagnosis is helpful if you want to get medicated or if you want to, I don't know, uh, be, um, like find different remedies or different ways of dealing with it. But for my purposes, like when I knew that I wasn't going to actually like, do anything about it, like I wasn't going to, um, get medicated or try different types of interventions, I simply wanted it because I wanted to feel like, hey, you are not, there's nothing wrong with you.
You are not like just dumb or lazy or bad at business or whatever. You, your brain operates this way. And it was a really powerful lesson. 'cause I kept thinking, what if I just accepted the way that my brain works, regardless of if there's an answer by science as to why it does that, right? Can I just accept that like I, you know, these are, this is one I focus best and this is how long I can focus for and this is how I make decisions and um, this is how I operate, right? And this is the way that my body even operates. This is when I have the most energy. This is when I have the least energy. This is how much energy I really have throughout the day. And that's gonna change as I, you know, get older as my kids grow. All of these things.
And so I say all this because I think if you also think about like, what if there's no problem with the way that I operate? What if it's not some inherent flaw in me? What if I don't have to change exact, like all of how I am in order to be a different person? What if I don't have to keep praying that I wake up with a different brain and a different disposition and I just change everything about me? Instead, what if I start working with myself? What if I'm like, this is the way my brain operates. Maybe it's not neurotypical. Maybe some of you are also neurodivergent, you're a spicy, whatever they wanna call it. Maybe your brain operates in the way that it has always operated, right? Maybe it doesn't fit in the kind of, um, neurotypical confines that our society was built on. Um, and so maybe that's simply accepting that like you were never going to fit into that.
You know, that's, you are never gonna be that square peg that goes into that round hole. You were never gonna fit into that. And that's okay. I, I think about this. Even when you think about, let's say women and like women's hormones and the rollercoaster that that is, um, not even just, you know, monthly, but then throughout your life, whether you're pregnant, whether you're postpartum, whether you are going through pain, menopause, whether you go through menopause. There's these such, these wild fluctuations. And then you think about how our entire system has been set up on the male hormonal system, which is on a 24 hour cycle. And so we all expect women to simply act like men and have the same amount of energy and the same output every single day of the month. Even though your hormones are wildly different throughout the month and every day of your life, even if you are postpartum and you just had a baby and your hormones are all over the place, or you're building a life and you're growing a baby and you're pregnant, or you're going through menopause and everything is wildly fluctuating, right?
It's wild to expect yourself to have the same amount of output and operate in the same exact way when there's this, these huge physical changes within you. And yet that's what we expect of ourselves. And then we get mad at ourselves. Like instead of thinking like, okay, this system is a little insane and there's nothing wrong with me. I'm gonna obviously have less energy if I'm going through X and more energy when I'm going through y we think, why am I just not as productive? Why can't I get it together? Why can't I be more focused? Why do I feel so tired? Why am I wasting so much time? And so my invitation to you through this episode, and I think feel like from the people that I'm constantly coaching on this is what if there isn't a problem? What if you are just built the way that you are built and it is your job to learn what that is?
And it is your job to partner with your brain and your body and your nervous system. And it is your job to figure out what you can handle and what you can't and how you operate and how you operate best so that you can set yourself up so that you can know. Like for me, I know that accountability is like one of the biggest things that will get me to work. So I set up accountability for myself. I got a trainer to work out 'cause I know otherwise I'm not going to, right? I set up kind of coworking with friends because I know that's the time that I'm gonna get the most done. There's apps now that you can sign up where you do coworking sessions with other people online. Like there's ways to kind of create, to, to support yourself when you realize I work better in this way, but not with shame and hatred, not with thinking that I, I should just be better at working at myself.
I should be able to be a self-starter. I should be able to just get going. It's like, well, I can't, I've never been able to. Now what we can spend the rest of our lives hating ourselves or the rest of our lives wishing we were something different when we're not gonna be, or the rest of our lives waiting to wake up with a different brain or crazy concept. We accept that this is the way I function now what can I do in order to set myself up in the best way that I can or to operate within this society? So I want you to really think about and really like think about like how is it that you've always operated since you are a child, right? Like, how is it, what are certain ways in which your natural energy levels or your natural focus or your natural sleep cycles or whatever, like what has it kind of been?
What is it now and what is like one way that you can support yourself, that you can be okay with? Like, okay, I'm not gonna do my best work at 8:00 AM so how do I shift around my schedule to make sure I have time to do my best work? Um, the more you partner with yourself, the easier you will make it to actually get your work done and actually do the things that you wanna do. So that's my advice for you, my friend. There's nothing wrong with you. Good news. . Good news is that there's nothing wrong with you. Um, bad news is that you have to just simply accept how you are and love yourself and figure out a way to make it work. I hope this was helpful and if it was, join me again next week for my next episode.
And it's a lie we tell ourselves. And then we spend a lot of time trying to, uh, change ourselves and trying to make, you know, a round peg go into a square hole. Like trying to force ourselves to be a way that we are just not your brain operates and however it operates. And one of the things that I like to do with coaching, and one of the things I realized really late in this self-development game, I think a lot of people come to self personal development to change how they are to make themselves quote unquote better, to, um, become some version of themselves that I don't know gets more done and whatnot. It's not to say that there aren't certain behaviors or beliefs that you can change, and that is part of personal development. But once I realized that really the goal of personal development is not to be like other people, it's not to change yourself, to be someone you are not gonna be, it's to figure out how you work so that you can work with your own brain.
It's to partner with yourself to realize like, this is how I operate, this is how I process things. This is how long it takes me. So how do I set myself up in order to be able to reach my goals or to succeed or to create the life that I want? It is not in fighting yourself to becoming another person. And, and so I want you to understand, and I want you to really ask yourself like, what if there wasn't anything wrong with the way that you operate, with the way that you process things? What if it was a totally normal way to do it? And it's not to say that you can't like, you know, tweak certain things or really notice where maybe you're self-sabotaging or where you're um, procrastinating or whatnot. Sure there's some room for improvement, but not an overhaul to become somebody or not. And I'm gonna give you some examples of what I mean by that. A lot of times I think like, let's say as an example, I have never been a morning person. It's just truly from when I was a child, not in my DNA. I've always, I get a second wind around 9 30, 10. I don't know why. Even when I'm dead tired at like six or seven, I just seem to wake up at night. Now actually when you look back, I feel like evolutionarily
There are now tons of examples. Our study is done about the fact that like, yeah, a certain percentage of the population are people that naturally their circadian rhythm, the way that they operate, they do better in the morning. And then there's a certain amount of people that do better in the evening, which sort of makes sense I think in a tribe. If like you are protecting the tribe, like there has to be people that can be up, I don't know, stand guard or watch, uh, in the evening and then there's gonna be people that just like to get up or whatnot. But because we created a society that operates based off of um, you know, getting up early in the morning, we created this like idea that it's somehow better to be a morning person that you're somehow, you know, more likely to be successful or it just makes you kind of better.
Like I think we do attach morality to it, which is absurd. And so for so many of us who have found ourselves to just naturally be evening people, kind of like night owls, um, we spend so much time being like, I should just be different. I should be able to wake up and kind of jump into my day. I should get up at five in the morning and be able to work out. And I used to do that too. I used to think because well, school was set up for that, work was set up, you know, it was better to be able to get up and maybe work out before work and then get to work and get ready to, you know, uh, get on with your day. I just was never that person. It took me like three or four hours for my brain to come online.
Like I would be awake, but I certainly wasn't doing my best work. I certainly wasn't the most focused. It's just not the time that I, that I operate at my best at now. I can spend all of my life trying to make myself a morning person. And it's not to say that I can't come up with like tips and tricks or ways that like, and if I have to be up, I can wake up or I can look at like I actually don't operate that well that way. I operate better at night. It's just the way that I, uh, am. And so when I know that, can I set myself up? Now I have the privilege, obviously, like I have a different situation 'cause I have my own business. And so I do have more flexibility to say like, okay, I don't want to start my day at 8:00 AM and I don't wanna have them like meetings first thing in the morning and I don't want to do these, all of these things that require stuff right when I wake up or right after I get my kids out of the house for school, I can't set it up that way.
I actually set a lot of things up later in the day after lunch when I am more awake and when I'm really present. And I even am okay with sometimes working at night, like once my kids go to bed because that is when I actually like, find that a lot of my creativity comes out. It's a lot of the time where I don't have to deal with the admin, the admin of my business or the emails and all that stuff. And so I can really think about, I can dream up, you know, different programs or classes I wanna teach or how I wanna help people. And I think that there's a lot of shame sometimes. It's like, oh, you know, you, you have to be able to cut off your work and you have to be able to, you know, put it away. And yeah, you can, you can decide that I don't work after six o'clock if you work a nine to five or like for me, I can just decide like, this is how I work better.
I work, I'd rather not start until 11. Let's say that's not how I spend my day, but let's just say, and then I work until my kids come home and then when they go to bed, I wanna work for a couple more hours. Like that is better for my own natural, uh, body, like the way my body operates. And so I, what I get a lot of times is people will tell me that they just aren't a certain way, which number one, whatever story you're telling yourself is a lie. There is evidence that like maybe you don't do that thing, but you also likely it's not the whole truth. So what I mean by this is somebody will come and tell me like, I have a really hard time making decisions. I'm just really bad at making decisions. Okay? Or I always second guess, guess myself, right?
And I have this story of like, this is how I am and I just have to change myself. And I want you to know that first, that story is a lie, okay? Even me, my story of being a night owl, not that it's not a lie, it's not the whole truth. Like there's plenty of times in my life that I've woken up early. I clearly can. So telling myself I can't is not helpful. But it's, I just wanna know like, okay, this is the way, like it's not the entire truth. So when I say I have a hard time making decisions, you make 30,000 like decisions a day. Maybe not that exact number, but, but we, everything you do is a decision, right? Deciding not to hit snooze, deciding to get up, deciding to brush your teeth, what to brush your teeth going down, what you're gonna eat for breakfast, what you're gonna wear, you know, like with how you're gonna drive, what you're gonna listen to in the car.
All of these things are just millions of decisions. Now, they're not hard decisions and oftentimes we're kind of, um, operating on autopilot because they are decisions that we've made over and over again. Or they're, they're low stakes decisions or they're obvious decisions, right? It's like, I already know I'm gonna want to drink coffee 'cause I like coffee, so I don't need to make a decision between tea and coffee everywhere. I've already made that decision and yet it's a micro decision every day, right? So for me to say I don't, I have a hard time making decisions is not the whole truth. I've made a million decisions probably in the last month. Like I've made millions and millions of decisions in my life. And most of them, I would say 90% of them turned out well. 'cause I don't even think about them. Now when I am faced with a hard decision, when I'm faced with something that there is really a lot of pros and cons, it's 50 50.
There's not, you know, one direction that I'm very obviously want to go in, then it takes me longer to make that decision. I'm not very quick at making maybe higher stakes decisions. Now that's a more accurate statement. And I think for a lot of us, we make really blanket statements of like, I'm bad at making decisions. I take too long to make decisions. I'm, I get stuck all the time. I am always confused. I don't trust myself. And those are, again, I think like, I just want you to like be aware that that's not the whole truth. Okay? So like we don't have to live into that story. But the second and more important point is what if there wasn't a problem with that? Like, the way that you process, let's say it is harder for you to make a decision. Let's say it takes you longer.
You like to be really deliberate, you like to think about both sides of it. You like to give yourself some time to ruminate. Why is that a problem? And oftentimes it goes back to this thing because we've been told that it's really good to be able to make decisions like be decisive really fast. And we think because we're quote unquote wasting time. But I want you to really question like, how has this protected me? How has this trait helped me throughout my life? I guarantee you, you will find an ample amount of evidence that this thing that you do, the way that you do it, has actually helped you. Like maybe because you take longer to make decisions, you tend to really think about all of the things that could possibly go wrong and that might have protected you from not making a lot of decisions that you're gonna regret.
And it has protected you from a lot of consequences that you don't have to face somebody else who makes decisions really quickly. That is also a strength in some ways, right? It can help you kind of move on and take action and get on with it. But you likely have the opposite consequence where maybe you have to remake decisions a lot because you make decisions too hastily. And maybe you have certain consequences that you didn't think through that you then have to deal with. Again, neither one are right or wrong. Both have pros and cons. Both are 50 50. But we tend to believe that like the way that I am, like we tend to ignore how it protects us. We tend to ignore how, um, it has helped in our lives up until this point. And we tend to think that it is, um, we only see the consequence, the hindrance of where it has hurt us.
And then we create this story of like, there's something wrong. I have to change it myself. And so I just want you to start really thinking about like, what if there isn't something wrong with that? What if the way that I process is totally normal and I, and whether it's because I learned it in childhood and it helped me and it protected me, or it's just the way I'm wired, it's just the way my brain is wired, it's just the way I like to deal with kind of, uh, decisions. What if this is just the way that I do it and that I can be okay with that and I can give myself the time and space that I need in order to make the next decision? One of the things I've noticed, like with this, um, in my own life, as soon as I started accepting the way that my brain worked, it made things so much easier. One of these is like this example of decisions I oftentimes realize I need to sit with a decision actually sometimes for months if it's a very big decision in my life. This happened when I wanted to quit the law. This happened when I wanted to start this podcast. Um, this recently happened in something that I will talk about soon on the podcast.
I think about something for months on it. And now that I've learned that this is the way I operate, I don't even pressure myself to make the decision. I know like the decision's gonna get made, I'll make it at some point, but I really need to give myself time to mull over this idea. I really need to give myself time to sit with both sides. What if I did this? What if I didn't? What if I left the law? What if I stayed, which one would be better? And I need time to really sit with all of the pros and cons and I need time to let it sort of like, I don't know, like seep into me to really figure out like, what do I wanna do here? And I need to give myself time to feel confused. I really need to let myself be in this place of like, huh, there is no right answer here.
What should I do? Where do I wanna go? And I need 'em to give myself some time to like think about that from different angles and to hear other people's experiences and to listen to podcasts and to really like, think about what I wanna do in the future and where I wanna go. And then I, I have this very strange way. I honestly, I can't tell you how it has happens or why, but I will mull over something and then all of a sudden it's as if like a light switch goes off and I know the answer and the answer's so clear and there was never any confusion. And there it is. Like there's no way to go any other way. And I get to this place and I'm like, oh my God, I already know I'm scared, but like, I wanna quit the law.
Or I'm scared, but I wanna start this podcast and there's nothing else I can do but know, like this is like deep in my soul. This is the right answer. And I think maybe now that I've gone through this a couple of times, I sort of notice that this is just the way that my, that I operate. It's the way that I make that decision. And I'm okay with that. Like, what if it just takes me a little bit longer to get that to that decision? I don't have to know within a week. I don't have to make that decision hastily. I don't have to make that decision when my body and my nervous system and my, I just, my, I'm not ready to make that decision. I can give myself the amount of time that I need to do that. What if that's not a problem?
Like, I eventually get there and I get there on my own time and it feels good to me. Another example I will give is, I, I talked about this, this is now, I don't know, a year ago maybe when I was talking, or two years ago when I was talking about, um, kind of the, the rise in self-diagnosis online, but specifically with A DHD. And I know for me for a long time I was like, wait, do I have this? Because I, a lot of the things I was seeing online, the symptoms, like the, the way that you act, it was just me to a t. And one of the things that was fascinating, the validation that I felt when I thought maybe I have this, like maybe I have a DHD and that's why I do a lot of the things I do. And I knew for myself at the time, like I likely wasn't gonna get on medication.
It wasn't gonna, you know, it hasn't been something that has hindered my life enough that I think I need to be medicated for. I clearly have been able to, uh, you know, create success and do the work that I need to do, but it was really validating to figure out like maybe my brain is just wired this way. And so this is why I forget these things. This is why I can't pay attention if there's any type of ambient noise. This is why I can't focus for really more than like 15 minutes. This is why something that should have taken me 15 minutes takes me about two hours. Um, there's a lot of these things. But I remember thinking, okay, I'm glad that I have that validation now. Like, I am glad that it can make me feel better to be like, oh, you're not choosing to not focus.
You're not choosing to forget people's names or whatnot. You're not choosing to procrastinate. I have a really hard time, you know, with these types of executive functioning. And I remember at the time thinking like, why do I need this to make me feel okay about myself? Why did I need this like diagnosis or this label to think, huh, that's just the way my brain operates. I already knew that was the way my brain operated right? Now I understand obviously the diagnosis is helpful if you want to get medicated or if you want to, I don't know, uh, be, um, like find different remedies or different ways of dealing with it. But for my purposes, like when I knew that I wasn't going to actually like, do anything about it, like I wasn't going to, um, get medicated or try different types of interventions, I simply wanted it because I wanted to feel like, hey, you are not, there's nothing wrong with you.
You are not like just dumb or lazy or bad at business or whatever. You, your brain operates this way. And it was a really powerful lesson. 'cause I kept thinking, what if I just accepted the way that my brain works, regardless of if there's an answer by science as to why it does that, right? Can I just accept that like I, you know, these are, this is one I focus best and this is how long I can focus for and this is how I make decisions and um, this is how I operate, right? And this is the way that my body even operates. This is when I have the most energy. This is when I have the least energy. This is how much energy I really have throughout the day. And that's gonna change as I, you know, get older as my kids grow. All of these things.
And so I say all this because I think if you also think about like, what if there's no problem with the way that I operate? What if it's not some inherent flaw in me? What if I don't have to change exact, like all of how I am in order to be a different person? What if I don't have to keep praying that I wake up with a different brain and a different disposition and I just change everything about me? Instead, what if I start working with myself? What if I'm like, this is the way my brain operates. Maybe it's not neurotypical. Maybe some of you are also neurodivergent, you're a spicy, whatever they wanna call it. Maybe your brain operates in the way that it has always operated, right? Maybe it doesn't fit in the kind of, um, neurotypical confines that our society was built on. Um, and so maybe that's simply accepting that like you were never going to fit into that.
You know, that's, you are never gonna be that square peg that goes into that round hole. You were never gonna fit into that. And that's okay. I, I think about this. Even when you think about, let's say women and like women's hormones and the rollercoaster that that is, um, not even just, you know, monthly, but then throughout your life, whether you're pregnant, whether you're postpartum, whether you are going through pain, menopause, whether you go through menopause. There's these such, these wild fluctuations. And then you think about how our entire system has been set up on the male hormonal system, which is on a 24 hour cycle. And so we all expect women to simply act like men and have the same amount of energy and the same output every single day of the month. Even though your hormones are wildly different throughout the month and every day of your life, even if you are postpartum and you just had a baby and your hormones are all over the place, or you're building a life and you're growing a baby and you're pregnant, or you're going through menopause and everything is wildly fluctuating, right?
It's wild to expect yourself to have the same amount of output and operate in the same exact way when there's this, these huge physical changes within you. And yet that's what we expect of ourselves. And then we get mad at ourselves. Like instead of thinking like, okay, this system is a little insane and there's nothing wrong with me. I'm gonna obviously have less energy if I'm going through X and more energy when I'm going through y we think, why am I just not as productive? Why can't I get it together? Why can't I be more focused? Why do I feel so tired? Why am I wasting so much time? And so my invitation to you through this episode, and I think feel like from the people that I'm constantly coaching on this is what if there isn't a problem? What if you are just built the way that you are built and it is your job to learn what that is?
And it is your job to partner with your brain and your body and your nervous system. And it is your job to figure out what you can handle and what you can't and how you operate and how you operate best so that you can set yourself up so that you can know. Like for me, I know that accountability is like one of the biggest things that will get me to work. So I set up accountability for myself. I got a trainer to work out 'cause I know otherwise I'm not going to, right? I set up kind of coworking with friends because I know that's the time that I'm gonna get the most done. There's apps now that you can sign up where you do coworking sessions with other people online. Like there's ways to kind of create, to, to support yourself when you realize I work better in this way, but not with shame and hatred, not with thinking that I, I should just be better at working at myself.
I should be able to be a self-starter. I should be able to just get going. It's like, well, I can't, I've never been able to. Now what we can spend the rest of our lives hating ourselves or the rest of our lives wishing we were something different when we're not gonna be, or the rest of our lives waiting to wake up with a different brain or crazy concept. We accept that this is the way I function now what can I do in order to set myself up in the best way that I can or to operate within this society? So I want you to really think about and really like think about like how is it that you've always operated since you are a child, right? Like, how is it, what are certain ways in which your natural energy levels or your natural focus or your natural sleep cycles or whatever, like what has it kind of been?
What is it now and what is like one way that you can support yourself, that you can be okay with? Like, okay, I'm not gonna do my best work at 8:00 AM so how do I shift around my schedule to make sure I have time to do my best work? Um, the more you partner with yourself, the easier you will make it to actually get your work done and actually do the things that you wanna do. So that's my advice for you, my friend. There's nothing wrong with you. Good news. . Good news is that there's nothing wrong with you. Um, bad news is that you have to just simply accept how you are and love yourself and figure out a way to make it work. I hope this was helpful and if it was, join me again next week for my next episode.
