What Is ‘Enough’

All the way back in September I had a sudden urge to do loads of steps. I set myself a target - starting at 10,000 and increasing the number of steps I did every day by 1% compounded over a month - which amounts to 334,493. I love goal setting as a way of forming habits and…

I actually ended up walking 439,532 steps!

I had much bigger plans though which didn’t come to fruition.

Making Goals That Work With Your Brain

I’ve got ADHD. Late diagnosed, trying not to make it my entire personality but also acknowledging that it absolutely has and continues to impact everything I’ve ever done or thought about myself.

In this post here, I talked about setting goals well and one of them was not to keep adding goals. Part of ADHDness is the drive towards interesting things a.k.a. dopamine-seeking. I get absolute engrossed in stuff, totally, but mostly I have a couple of trains of thought at all times, otherwise I’m bored and if I’m bored then I’m anxious.

So when I’ve had what I consider to be A. Good. Thought. Like a steps challenge - I’ll be chewing that over like cud. Ways I can make it better, perfect, more interesting, help other people or do good in the world. It gets exhausting and by the time I’ve finished the plans are so intricate that they’re undoable - so I fail.

They’re plans that I make for the person excited about a steps challenge, not the person who’s got a cold, a poorly cat, a flat tyre, is pissed off at her husband, and it’s raining outside. But I’ve learned how to deal with this fanciful, good-natured and excitable goal setter.

I Have Different Levels Of Goals

I think they call it differentiation and it’s actually something I learned through the wonderful business and money coach Ray Dodd. When setting business goals, she suggests setting an ‘enough’ goal which will cover costs, a ‘plenty’ goal which would be a real treat and then a ‘totally out of this world’ goal which would be you dying and going to heaven. She has different names and explanations for them.

What I think she’s getting at is to safely encourage women in business to aim higher. Feel gratitude but also feel ambition.

But as it’s Ray, there’s always more layers to it. What I get from that is more simply, enough is actually enough. I don’t have to be beating myself up trying to be perfect or even better, I can know what the base is and live a quite happy life right there.

I can allow my brain to chase the wild goals, maybe if I manage them that’s great, but it’s calming to me to know that enough is enough.

If I’d Have Carried On…

…with the compounding as I was sort of thinking about, by November the 26th I’d have been walking 20,000 steps a day and I’ll be honest, whilst I love the concept - it just wasn’t going to work for my life.

I walk about 7,000 steps an hour, I gym for about an hour three or four times a week, so by the end of the challenge I was ‘out of office’ for three hours a day - at 20,000 a day that would have been four hours. What sounded like a wonderful idea in my head was just not possible for me.

It was my ‘totally out of this world’ goal. I allowed it to be in my head but my true goal, my base and ‘enough’, was to walk 10,000 increasing by 1% every day, compounded for 30 days.

And I did it. That’s to be celebrated.

If We Bring That Round To Finance Then

It works in exactly the same way - brains (especially neuro-diverse ones) love to escalate!

In finance it is easy to get swept up in notions of doing everything right or perfectly, especially at the beginning, but also at certain times (like when the budget has just been announced).

A plan to invest a bit of money can easily become writing a budget, researching funds, signing up to a roundup feature, creating pots, percentage systems, sorting out your wardrobe to get stuff on Vinted, looking up the premium bonds that Uncle Fred bought as a Christening present, starting a new planner, making all of your Christmas pressies this year…

None of that is a problem. And if it’s working then great.

But if you, like me, create bigger and better and fancier and more complicated schemes - with all the right intentions but in fact causing you to feel stressed, imbalanced and out of whack. Maybe it’s time to think about what your ‘enough’ goal is. Allow your brain the ‘plenty’ or ‘totally out of this world’ fantasies - celebrate if you manage them - but concentrate on naming, staying grounded in and celebrating what is good enough.

Love Eleanor. xxx