More breast cancer resources, just for you!

MORE FOR YOU

Additional Resources for Your Breast Cancer Journey!

We hope you've enjoyed your first few newsletters. To help make your experience a little better we've pulled together some of our best resources to help you navigate Breast Cancer!

RESOURCES FOR YOU

Tips for Finding Support

Download this exclusive guide with tips on getting support while living with breast cancer.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Navigating a New Diagnosis?

Breast Cancer Resource Center

Your guide to health and well-being at every moment of your journey.

TAKE ME THERE

Until next time,

Take care of yourself, and we’ll
see you again soon!

View in browser

Did a friend send you this email? Subscribe here.
To see all newsletters, click here.

Privacy | Unsubscribe or Manage Preferences

We may feature your messages to our inbox within our content. Please do not provide any personal identifiable information. Replies may be edited for length and clarity. For more, see our Privacy Policy.

Our website services, content, and products are for informational purposes only. Healthline does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should not be used as a substitute for medical advice from a healthcare professional. Healthline encourages you to make any treatment decisions with your healthcare professional.

Every product we recommend has gone through either Healthline’s or Optum Now’s vetting processes. If you buy through links on this page, we may receive a small commission or other tangible benefit. Healthline has sole editorial control over this newsletter. Potential uses for the products listed here are not health claims made by the manufacturers. Healthline and Optum Now are owned by RVO Health.

The system worked. Then it stopped.

Hey friend,

You finally found a productivity system that worked.

For 3 weeks, it was great! Then one morning it just... wasn't.

You assumed you were the problem.

You're not. You were experiencing the novelty cliff, one of the most predictable experiences of ADHD motivation. New strategies run on novelty, the fresh excitement of something new. When that freshness runs out, the strategy goes flat, right on schedule.

Almost every productivity system sold to you completely ignore this. It hands you one clever method, while quietly implying that if it stops working, it's your fault for not trying hard enough.

ADHD Motivation Mastery is built the other way around. You learn all four motivation levers: interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency. So when one stops working you can pivot to another (instead of concluding that you're the problem).

One module in the course is specifically about making that pivot on person, while another one is designed to help you spot the warning signs before your momentum starts to drop. And the Motivation Playbook you'll build is where you write down what worked and when, so future you doesn't have to start all over from scratch.

Someone answering my survey put it best, asking for "a buffet of strategies to rotate through systematically."

That's the course.

$99 through Monday, or 3 payments of $33. It goes back to $150 on September 1.

Enroll now →

— Jesse

A Family Therapy Pop Quiz

͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

A Family Therapy Pop Quiz

Sharpen your pencils!

Kathleen Smith

Aug 27

READ IN APP

Panamanian white-faced capuchin family in a tree, Costa Rica. Source: Shutterstock

I’ve got a quiz for you!

Gary and Emily’s daughter recently departed for college. Gary wants Emily to stop checking on her so much.

Should Emily:

A) Take his advice and try to do better, while secretly feeling resentful about his interference.

B) Ignore his dumb advice and keep up the intense focus on the daughter.

C) Tell him she wouldn’t have to do it so much if he cared about their daughter more.

Ridiculous, right? There must be an option D here. But this is exactly how we often act when someone pressures us to change.

We end up:

Trying to be what they want us to be. (Ugh, fine.)
Doubling down without thinking. (Take that, Gary!)
Trying and change them right back. (How’s that medicine taste now?)

People are going to try to manage you as surely as the sun rises. You can slip into autopilot (those a, b, c, reactions), or you can see it as an invitation to get clearer with yourself about how you want to direct yourself. Option D is differentiation. Who am I? What do I believe? How do I want to function?

Maybe Emily could ask herself questions such as,

What kind of quantity and quality of contact do I think is useful for my relationship with my daughter?
When is contact more about managing my anxiety, and when is it more about wanting to have a thoughtful connection?
What’s going on in the triangle with me, my husband, and my daughter? It’s likely he’ll feel on the outside of our closeness, so how do I stay thoughtful when he is reactive? How do I want to stay connected to him? How do I want to not get in the way of his connection to our daughter?

Then she’s responding with statements like,

Gary, I hear your thinking. I’m going to spend some time to get clearer with myself about what I want my contact with her to look like.
It is an interesting challenge, isn’t it? How much contact did your parents have with you when you were in college? Mine were . . .
I hear you, but I think I’ll get the farther with this challenge if I take this on myself. I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.
Gary, just let me cook.

Okay, that last one is a joke, but sometimes humor is a good way to remind people that you’re in charge of yourself.

Here’s your exercise: Think of a dilemma where someone is directing pressure (or anxiety) towards you. What are those a, b, c reactions you’re likely to fall into? Is there a different way to manage yourself? One that has more to do with your own best thinking, rather than trying to calm or attack the other?

Good luck to us all!

Similar posts:

Why We’re So Allergic to Being Managed (paid subscribers)
What Should People Expect from You?
Staying Smart When Others Are Anxious (paid subscribers)

News from Kathleen

Reading: Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting by Lisa Genova.

**BONUS JOURNAL for the TRUE TO YOU paperback! I’ve created a digital bonus journal to accompany the paperback launch of True to You. Email me a copy of your receipt and I’ll send it to you.

Email me if you want me to teach your organization about systems thinking, or you’re interested in doing family systems consultation/therapy with me.

Buy my books True to You and Everything Isn’t Terrible for more in-depth stories of people working on their relationships and themselves. If you love them, consider giving them a review on Amazon so other folks can find them. If you haven’t gotten the free digital workbooks for them, email me.

Want to read more of my writing? Check out my newsletter archives. Paid subscribers can access the entire archive. Follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.