Holding myself on Track

I don\’t know about you, but I have a brain full of great ideas! I want to do this, then I want to do that, and oh my gosh, why can\’t I start this venture over here as well?! My mind is all about the ideas, and has been for nearly 20 years as I ventured to the online world of trying to make a consistent revenue stream using the internet.

I\’ve been distracted one might say. So distracted that all of my brilliant ideas were started but barely finished, that is unless it was for a client that was paying me to stay on a deadline for them. If the venture, project, or brilliant idea was my own? I would barely finish it before I was onto some other idea.

I guess they label this as ADHD these days, but I label it as – you need a slow down, Brandy!

Recently, I realized that I wasn\’t up for playing this game anymore. I wanted to hold myself accountable for my projects in the same manner I would for a client. I started to use my Goal Mapping Coaching Sessions on myself, and holy smokes!

It worked!

Since I have been so successful in using my own life coaching program in my goal life, I thought I\’d share what I did, how it went, and what\’s going well with it so that maybe you can gain some clarity on how to pause your ADHD or squirrel brain for focus on completion of all the ideas you have.

How to Gain Clarity around Goals and Creative Tasks

One of the steps I go through with my clients is to figure out what is holding them back. This is different for each person as far as the specifics, but it\’s mostly a mindset thing. We can just let our mind get carried away if not we are not practicing the intention living part of our day.

This is where I finally said to myself, \”enough is enough\”. I love that I have all of these brilliant ideas, but not a single thing is being completed or followed through with. It\’s like I have all of these half businesses, and the only one that fully took off was the freelance writing. I\’m grateful it did, but I am trying to add life coaching into the mix so that I can do Goal Success Life Coaching full-time in real life and online.

That said, I cannot be casual with my work hours I set for myself. You see, 2025 is the year of CALM for me. That\’s my word of the year, and I cannot have CALM if I am not living intentionally. I cannot live intentionally if I have no idea what a balanced day looks like for me.

That\’s the thought process that led me to formulate a holding myself on track, or holding myself accountable, practice. I will share it now … maybe it can help you!

First Step to Holding Yourself Accountable

One must know what they are trying to create. I have a mission, and it is on my desk as well as above my desk, so that I can look at this message for myself whenever I am at my desk doing creative work hours. This mission is my personal manifestation mantra, not for public viewing.

You see, we sometimes get too oversharing about our manifestation desires. Sharing too much of our vision and goals will allow those who seek to bring us down to know too much. I say know what you are trying to create, be it writing on a piece of paper and placing it in your wallet, or hanging it on your wall, or all of the above; know what you\’re aiming for!

It\’s also important to have a WHY you are aiming for this manifestation. Bonus Tip – if this is for the betterment of mankind or just your family …. it will carry more weight. Just don\’t set it to trick the system, pretending you actually care – Source (God) knows when you\’re being honest from the mind and heart connection.

Next Mission is to Share What Your Average Day Should Look Like

Since I am a creative, wild soul, I cannot have a super strong routine holding me in. I had to adjust my personality traits to be more routine to raise my children when they were younger, especially my one child who was diagnosed on the spectrum (high functioning) years back.

Now that the children are mostly grown … and don\’t require as much routine, I get to craft my day into something magical for myself. I still have to consider the family, as my sons don\’t have licenses to drive their selves anywhere just yet, and I can\’t just go all willy-nilly without consulting my husband on some expenditure-type things. I must have respect for the family while being creative, as this is a core value system for me. (It\’s helpful if you know your core value systems when setting and achieving goals, as well.)

That said, I must make a \”preferred day\” schedule for myself that is somewhat flexible and doesn\’t get too boring. What I do is I try to balance my time between things that matter to me. These are the things that matter most to me in my life, and not all will carry into each day, and they are not listed in any particular ranking order:

• Friendship time.
• Creative Time for Play.
• Creative Time for Work.
• Client Tasks with Deadlines.
• Time to be Still and Listen to Nature.
• Any other miscellaneous responsibility or interest.

As you can see, the last one means that I feel I must have some openness with my time so that I can entertain something that interests me, that perhaps is a one-time thing or a random thing.

Once I know what\’s important for me to have in a day or week set time, I can craft out schedule time. You see, when I get together with friends I could sit or stand or walk for hours with them just talking and listening, but I cannot keep doing that while building success in my creative business industry or trying to keep my family together or moving onto our next chapter as God intends us to do.

I have to put some sort of limit on each area that matters to me. This could look something like designating a day for family time, or spending 2 hours twice a week with friends, or something. You see, while I am building my Goal Success Life Coaching business, and writing my books, I must remember that friendship and family time matters, but the time has to be a little less than I prefer just so that I can also create or expand upon the revenue streams necessary to fulfill any life purpose I have going on right now.

So, I think that\’s the next step here in keeping yourself (or me) on task, is to know what you value for time spent in your life, and adjust the daily or weekly schedule to reflect a \”balance\” of time spent in various areas on your list.

Be honest with yourself and others about the time spent. I know I shared with one of my friends recently that I can\’t stay as long as I typically do when I visit, because I do need to make sure I am balancing my time between friendship, client work/entrepreneurship work, and family. It is helpful to communicate honesty with those around you so they don\’t feel like they aren\’t important or that you simply don\’t want to spend as much time with them as you once did.

It is not personal. Let your family and friends know this so that they understand where your mind and heart connection is, even if they don\’t understand or respect that (my connections usually respect it, but some may not so be prepared for that.)

Be Open Yet Firm to Your Schedule Now that You Have It

This is the part of the process that often gets harder before it gets easier. This is why so many people enjoy having my 8-week Goal Success Life Coaching plan on their side. They get access to me to help them stay on track, and work through those issues that come up so that they can learn to repeat this process in their unique way for future goal success (as well as current goal success).

Once you have this method in stone, you can easily learn to be firm but also adaptable so that it feels like this even flow process. Think of a balanced yin yang symbol. This is a dark and light wheel that is balanced at all times. It\’s my favorite symbol, and I once had a poster of a yin yang on my wall during my pre-high school years – I guess we call them middle school (Grades 6,7, and 8).

What I did to work through my schedule is to align it with something similar to my husband\’s work schedule and my sons\’ needs. While yes, my sons are nearly 17 and 19, they don\’t have a license, and we all enjoy our active lifestyle, so if they want to do a walk, or run (I don\’t run, but they do), or boxing training with me in some way – I am there for them. This is why I say \”open and adaptable\”, if you have any age kids in the home, you must learn to be semi-adaptable, for the kids are your priority, especially when younger.

The key is to really start off by having a list of things you want to complete, know what your time limits are, and go from there. I use a small legal pad to write down my ideas. I have them all jotted down which is much more organized than my old method of having Post-It notes all over my desk.

Grab these legal pads, they are the best option and tiny enough to put in a laptop bag or place on a small desk space. (affiliate link)

Scratch Off One Thing at a Time

Now, this is the part where you must hold yourself accountable. It\’s time to start checking off tasks. My husband was like, \”Doesn\’t it feel good ot cross something off your list?\” I said, \”NO! I actually feel better when I am in the creative process, hence why I have a bunch of ideas that are incomplete!\” Duh!

And then I laughed, he laughed, we all laughed.

The part of this that allows my creative soul to feel amazing, checking things off is that I don\’t do them in order. I like to be a little rebellious and have fun during this \”routine\” process of actually holding myself on task.

Yes, I do have an element of child-like tendencies that need to be met whilst I still stay mostly responsible in my adult life.

You can handle this however you see fit. Maybe you are the person who likes to write your ideas in some order, ranked from more important to less important, and check them off in this order. Again, I get more clear on this from client ot client when you work directly with me in 1 on 1 coaching.

I personally just like having the brain dump list and check off things as they get completed. Today I don\’t have much of a rank in priority for items, as I have been working for myself since 2006, so I have some idea of what I should or shouldn\’t do next, with all being about the same outcome of possibilities for a revenue stream or helping others

Once I had my list, I started bringing myself back to the task at hand. For example, I knew after The Gifts With Spirit event in Gorham, NH that I had to get my poem book live. This meant I did have a priority item on my brain dump legal pad list – the poem book.

This involved taking out my old poetry journals, it seems I have 2 of them, with one that I must have typed up in high school as it has notes from my English teacher on them. I had to type them from a pencil and pen on paper to a Word document that was formatted properly for my publishing program.

I did this and hired someone to make my book cover on Fiverr. She has done great work for me on my other book of stories, which will hopefully be done by the end of the year. Once I had it all typed up, I had to print and review, then make notes of edits, write a dedication page, and insert other details I wanted to include in this book.

Now that Love Wanted is LIVE and out there for you all to purchase, you can find it on my Amazon Author Page – do follow me there, please ,it is time to move forward onto my next thing. This was setting up a couple coaching programs.

I set up my Goal Success Program here on this shop and my Self-Publishing Coaching consulting session, as well as a business advice consult package over on Brandy Ellen Digital LLC. I am not sure which project I will work on next, as I am pretty happy with accomplishing most of these tasks.

Celebrate Each Accomplishment!!!

Do not underestimate the celebration part of each completion. Don\’t just check something off and move onto he next, rather make time to do a little dance, or have some sort of little celebration ceromeny to give yourself a pat on the damn back for being accountable and DOING THE THING!

We must remember that doing something, no matter the size task, is important. If you have struggled completing things in the past, and now you are completing them left and right? Dude, you need to celebrate this!!! Give yourself a little party .. even if it\’s just a little dance in the living room or screaming happy words at the sky, do something ot feel FABULOUS about your success.

Just in the month that I started forcing myself to be accountable for my brain dump ideas one by one, I was able to complete the following:

• Provide quality time with my family whilst being super present.
• Maintaining a proper calmness by having morning Earth time (grounding, walking, etc)
• Publishing Love Wanted
• Developing my One-on-One Coaching Program for Goal Success – give me a try!
• Getting two consult packages up for those who want advice on the biz and publishing side of their venture.
• Spent quality time with my husband during the few days he is home, and even celebrated his 50th birthday with him without getting overwhelmed.

I\’d say that, after half a year of having these ideas on my paper without completing them fully, is a success! I completed this in a month or two months time, although most were partially started before then.

So, I say this – if you are ready to give yourself the love and care that you lend to others, why not give this concept a try! If you want to have it morphed into something more definitive for you and how your mind works – we can chat, schedule a consult or hire me as your life coach for a few weeks to see how this flows fo you.

Much love!