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How to Get Better at Anything by Using This Self Encouragement Practice

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self encouragement

Whether you’re turning your sidehustle into a career, sculpting a fitter body, or perfecting your favourite sport, getting better at anything requires a simple yet specific sequence:

You do it, you encourage each of your efforts and then you repeat this process every day without cease.

Now think about the goals you’ve set after, and the habits you’ve tried to hone. If you aren’t exactly where you want to be in your growth curve, you’re skipping one or two of these simple steps. Which is it for you?

I used to be really good at starting things—step one. But, back before I began my self-improvement journey, I didn’t have the slightest concept of self-encouragement—step two. I figured that once I did something well enough, I’d get all the congratulations I needed from other people. It didn’t work out that way.

When things got really tough in my new business ventures or educational endeavors, I’d crack. I didn’t have someone orienting me toward the future, coaching me, and approving my efforts. I didn’t have me in my own corner.

Self encouragement is like the protein you consume after a workout

Lifting weights is hard on your muscles, right? The resistance/stress breaks down tissue. But if you don’t replenish your body with protein after the workout, your muscles won’t grow, which makes regular workouts frustrating and pointless. The same is true for self-encouragement and your personal growth.

You need that reflexive “good job!” or “you’re kicking ass!” to rebuild confidence after a big effort. But when you don’t get that positive self-talk, you won’t feel good enough about yourself and confident enough about the future to persist in your success effort.

“A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.” – Unknown

After landing back at my parents (for the third time) when my business venture in California went bust, I decided I would no longer succumb to the forces that had sabotaged my previous efforts. So I read all that I could from Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar. The one thing I learned was that I had to become my own biggest supporter, otherwise, I’d continue to bring myself down with negative self-talk and inconsistent effort.

That’s when I started planning self-encouragement

My greatest weakness is that if I don’t plan something out and have an action step I can check off, I just won’t do it. This weakness ended up becoming my biggest strength when I decided to take ownership of it.

Since I wasn’t encouraging myself enough to grow consistently as a writer, I started writing out ten checkboxes for self encouragement in my daily planner. That’s when I literally got addicted to success.

Before, I’d write an article and then think to myself, “Yeah…probably not gonna make a difference anyway.” This attitude prevented me from taking risks and consistently doing my best, which is crucial for any kind of success. But when I started creating self-encouragement rituals to conclude my writing sessions, I got high off of the positivity.

“Thank you so much for kicking ass today! Thank you for doing everything you need to do to be successful and to make a difference. I’m so grateful for your efforts, and so excited to see where this effort takes you. Keep it up!”

This was instant gratification in the otherwise-delayed gratification process of achieving success, and it ended up giving me the confidence and positive attitude I needed to persist, to learn from my mistakes, and to grow in the ways I desired.

Three months after I planned for daily self-encouragement, I had my first full-time job as a staff writer at a major publication. That was no coincidence. When I continued my success sequence, do, encourage, persist, it was only another year before I was on each of the major magazines I’d dreamed of writing for.

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein

I gained a following. People began seeking me out for coaching, to help them gain similar success in wherever they wanted to improve their own lives. But more important than anything, I established an identity as my own greatest supporter, which will help me to succeed in anything I set my mind to: marriage, expanding my business, etc. I owe my successes and my career to ten self encouragement checkboxes.

Here’s how to start your self encouragement practice today:

1. Start a morning routine of affirmations

Before your mind can drift to negative thoughts, immediately set yourself to positive affirmations. I mean literally right after you wake up, don’t skip a beat! Pick out the forty affirmations that you need most. “I am worthy, I am persistent, I am successful” and write them down on a 3×5 index card. Then, recite them to yourself in a mirror as soon as you wake up. Keep up the habit until you have all forty memorized.

Once you start this practice you’ll become sensitized to your inner dialogue and you’ll begin to hear everything going on between your ears, including the negative. When you start to hear you beating yourself up, that’s when it’s crucial to fall back on the positive affirmation. You’ll cement this habit by scheduling regular self-encouragement checkins in a daily planner.

2. Create ten checkboxes for self encouragement in your daily planner

If you don’t already have a daily planning habit, you won’t get the life you want until you start planning for it every day. You don’t need to plan much, just your top five to eight goals, and the habits you intend to do every day (self-encouragement being the most important one). After you list your first three or four goals at the top, break the page up with “encourage yourself!”—followed by ten checkboxes.

As you check off your goals, make sure to encourage yourself for your efforts. For example, if one of your goals were to run five miles in the morning, when you check that goal off you’ll immediately applaud yourself and then check off a self-encouragement box. “Thank you so much for taking care of my body and making me feel good about myself, you’re doing awesome!” Check.

When you refer to your planner throughout the day, you’ll notice that there are more checkboxes than you have goals. Use those empty checkboxes as reminders to affirm yourself. “I am generous, kind, patient, uplifting, creative, dependable, perseverant, etc.” Check.

Keep this up over the course of a month and you’ll be on your way to mastering whatever it is you want.  

By holding yourself accountable to a self-encouragement practice, you’ll grow the resilience and confidence you need to persist in the things you love and to master the skills and habits you desire. All it takes is a blank sketchbook and the routine of planning out each of your goals at the beginning of a day, including ten checkboxes for self encouragement.

What self encouragement practices do you do? Comment below!

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Entrepreneurs

The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship with ADHD (And Why Most Advice Is Making It Worse)

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Image Credit: Joel Brown - Addicted2success

You’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined… and you’re definitely not broken.

You’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, and right now you’re probably sitting on 19 unfinished projects, 47 open tabs, and a brain that feels like it’s running on 12 different radio stations at once.

You’ve read the books. You’ve tried the planners, the Pomodoro timers, the accountability groups. You’ve even hired coaches who promised to “fix” your focus. Yet here you are — brilliant ideas, massive potential, and a business that still feels like it’s one step away from collapsing under the weight of your own mind.

Here’s what almost nobody in the entrepreneurial space will admit:

The real struggle isn’t your ADHD. It’s that you’ve been trying to run a neurodivergent brain inside a neurotypical business model — and then beating yourself up when it doesn’t work.

Most advice for entrepreneurs was written by people whose brains work differently. They preach consistency, routines, long-term planning, and steady execution like those things are universal truths. For the ADHD entrepreneur, those “truths” feel like trying to swim upstream in cement. You can force it for a while (and you have), but eventually your brain rebels, the burnout hits, and you’re left feeling like a failure who just needs to “try harder.”

That cycle is quietly destroying more talented founders than cash flow problems or bad hires ever could.

The deeper layer most people never reach is this: your ADHD isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a different operating system entirely. And when you stop trying to install Windows on a Mac and start building everything around macOS, the game changes completely.

The Hidden Addiction That Keeps ADHD Entrepreneurs Stuck

You already know the surface symptoms — time blindness, rejection sensitivity, starting strong and fading fast, shiny object syndrome.

But the real trap is more insidious.

It’s the addiction to chaos and novelty.

Your brain is wired for dopamine. New ideas, big visions, last-minute sprints, high-stakes pressure — these things light you up like nothing else. The boring, repetitive, systems-building work that actually scales a business? It feels like torture.

So unconsciously, you keep your business in a state of controlled chaos. You say yes to too many things. You chase the next exciting opportunity. You avoid building the boring infrastructure because “I work better under pressure anyway.”

And every time the pressure gets too high, you crash, swear you’ll get organized next quarter, and repeat the cycle.

Meanwhile, the neurotypical advice keeps telling you to “just build better habits.” As if your brain is a poorly trained dog that needs more discipline instead of a high-performance race car that needs the right fuel and track.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s neurology.

And until you stop treating your wiring as something to overcome and start treating it as your greatest strategic advantage, you’ll stay stuck in the same exhausting loop.

The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who finally break through don’t “fix” their brains.

They redesign their entire business to work with their brains.

They stop trying to become the consistent, routine-loving founder the gurus talk about. Instead, they become the architect of a system that leverages their natural strengths — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, relentless drive under pressure — while outsourcing or automating everything that drains them.

This is the layer most ADHD entrepreneurs never reach because it requires something terrifying: accepting that you are never going to be “normal” at entrepreneurship… and that’s exactly why you can win bigger than most.

Your ability to see connections others miss. Your tolerance for uncertainty. Your capacity to go all-in when something lights you up. These aren’t liabilities. They’re unfair advantages in a world that rewards speed, creativity, and bold moves.

The shift is simple but brutal:

Stop trying to manage your ADHD. Start designing your business around it.

How to Actually Build a Business That Works With Your Brain

  1. Stop fighting your energy cycles — weaponize them. Most ADHD entrepreneurs try to force 8-hour focused days. That’s insane. Instead, track when your brain actually works best (for many it’s 10pm-2am or random 4-hour hyperfocus bursts). Build your schedule around those windows. Protect them like gold. Do the deep, high-leverage work then. Use the low-energy periods for admin, calls, or recovery.
  2. Build “chaos containers,” not rigid systems. Traditional project management tools feel like cages. Create loose but effective structures that give your brain freedom. Use tools like Notion with massive flexibility, or body-doubling (working alongside someone virtually), or even hiring a “chaos wrangler” — an assistant who thrives on turning your scattered ideas into executable plans.
  3. Turn your rejection sensitivity into rocket fuel. That intense fear of letting people down or looking stupid? Channel it into creating ridiculously high standards for your customer experience or product quality. Use it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you.
  4. Outsource the parts that make you want to die. The execution, follow-through, and maintenance phases are where most ADHD entrepreneurs lose. Hire or partner with people who love the details. Your job is vision, strategy, and big swings. Let someone else own the spreadsheets.
  5. Create external pressure on your own terms. Deadlines and public commitments work wonders for the ADHD brain. Use them strategically — announce launches, create beta groups, or work with coaches who understand neurodivergence instead of fighting it.

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who are quietly crushing it right now aren’t the ones who finally became “disciplined.” They’re the ones who stopped apologizing for how their brain works and started building empires that are specifically engineered for it.

They have teams that handle the boring stuff. They have systems that flex with their energy instead of fighting it. They’ve turned their “flaws” into the exact reasons their businesses stand out.

Your ADHD brain is not the enemy. The enemy was trying to play the game by rules that were never designed for you.

The moment you accept that and start designing everything… your calendar, your team, your offers, your processes — around how you actually operate, the struggle doesn’t disappear… but it becomes manageable, even exhilarating.

You were never meant to fit the mold. You were meant to break it and build something better.

The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter entrepreneur. It needs the chaotic, brilliant, all-in, slightly unhinged visionaries who can only operate at full power when the game is built for them.

That’s you.

Stop trying to fix yourself. Start building the business that was always meant to be run by a mind like yours.

Your next breakthrough isn’t going to come from working harder or being more consistent. It’s going to come from finally giving yourself permission to work differently.

And when you do that? Watch what happens.

The same brain that once felt like a curse becomes the exact reason your business becomes unstoppable.

You’ve got this. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it.

If you want to learn more from me or send me a personal message I’ll respond to you on Instagram at https://instagram.com/iamjoelbrown speak soon!

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Health & Fitness

The Health Planning Habits That Support Long-Term Success

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Image Credit: Joel Brown - Addicted2success

Most people think about health planning only when something forces them to.

A medical bill arrives unexpectedly. An insurance issue appears during treatment. A diagnosis changes how future care needs are viewed. Suddenly health planning becomes urgent instead of preventative.

The problem is that long-term health stability is usually shaped by smaller habits built quietly over time, not just by major decisions during emergencies.

That includes physical health habits, of course, but it also includes how people approach insurance coverage, preventative care, financial preparation, and long-term healthcare planning before problems become immediate.

The families who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often not the ones avoiding every issue entirely. More often, they’re the ones who built systems early enough to make difficult situations feel more manageable later.

Consistency Matters More Than Perfection

A lot of health advice still revolves around extreme change.

Perfect diets. Aggressive routines. Complete lifestyle overhauls.

In reality, most long-term health success comes from consistency people can realistically maintain for years instead of months. Small preventative habits tend to matter more than dramatic short-term efforts that collapse under pressure.

That principle applies financially too.

People often spend more time researching investment strategies than understanding their healthcare coverage or preparing for future medical costs. But healthcare instability can disrupt long-term financial plans surprisingly quickly when households are unprepared for how expensive even routine care can become over time.

The practical side of health planning is becoming harder to separate from overall financial planning now than it used to be.

Preventative Planning Reduces More Stress Than People Realize

One overlooked benefit of health planning is emotional stability.

People who understand their coverage, maintain preventative care routines, and think ahead about healthcare decisions often describe feeling less overwhelmed when unexpected situations happen. The goal is not eliminating uncertainty entirely. That’s unrealistic.

The goal is reducing how chaotic healthcare decisions feel under pressure.

That’s one reason broader conversations tied to healthcare and health insurance have expanded significantly over the last several years. Rising costs, changing coverage structures, and increasing healthcare complexity have made long-term planning more important for average households than many people expected.

Healthcare is no longer something most families can comfortably approach reactively forever.

People Underestimate How Quickly Healthcare Costs Compound

One reason health planning habits matter so much is that healthcare costs rarely arrive in one dramatic moment alone.

More often, they build gradually:

  • recurring prescriptions
  • specialist visits
  • ongoing treatment plans
  • insurance deductible increases
  • long-term care considerations
  • unexpected procedures layered on top of existing expenses

Families often absorb these costs incrementally until they realize how much financial pressure accumulated over time.

That gradual buildup is part of what makes proactive planning valuable. People who think ahead about coverage structures, emergency savings, provider networks, and preventative care tend to adapt more smoothly when healthcare needs eventually increase later in life.

The difficult part is that many households delay these conversations because they feel healthy right now.

Healthcare Decisions Have Become More Complicated

Another challenge is that healthcare systems themselves continue evolving quickly.

Insurance structures change. Telehealth expands. Employer-sponsored benefits shift. Prescription pricing fluctuates. Patients now carry more responsibility for understanding deductibles, provider networks, and out-of-pocket exposure than previous generations often did.

That complexity creates decision fatigue.

Even relatively organized households sometimes feel uncertain about whether they’re making good healthcare choices because the systems themselves are difficult to navigate confidently. A lot of current health insurance trends discussions reflect this larger issue, healthcare planning is becoming less about isolated medical events and more about long-term sustainability across entire households.

People want predictability, but healthcare systems increasingly feel harder to predict.

The Most Effective Health Habits Usually Feel Boring

One thing people rarely admit is that good long-term planning habits are often not particularly exciting.

Scheduling preventative appointments. Reviewing insurance annually. Building emergency savings slowly. Staying physically active consistently. Maintaining realistic routines instead of dramatic cycles of burnout and reset.

None of those habits feel dramatic at the moment.

But over long periods, they create stability that becomes incredibly valuable once life gets complicated. The people who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often the ones who built ordinary systems early instead of waiting for perfect motivation later.

That applies financially and physically at the same time.

Why Long-Term Success Depends on Adaptability

Health planning is ultimately difficult because people’s lives keep changing.

Careers shift. Families grow. Aging parents require support. Medical needs evolve. Financial priorities change over decades in ways nobody predicts perfectly in advance.

That’s why the strongest long-term health planning habits are usually flexible rather than rigid.

The goal is not building a flawless plan that never changes. It’s creating enough structure, awareness, and preparation that future adjustments become manageable instead of overwhelming.

Most people cannot control every future health outcome. They can, however, build habits that make uncertainty easier to navigate when it eventually arrives.

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Life

Why Moving to a New City Can Change Your Mindset

Discover how moving to a new city boosts neuroplasticity, builds resilience, and reshapes your mindset

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How relocation changes your mindset

Relocation is always a challenge. Rebuilding and restarting your life requires you to step outside of your comfort zone. (more…)

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Change Your Mindset

The Hidden Reason You Can’t Stay Consistent

If motivation keeps failing you, the real issue isn’t discipline. It’s the identity shaping your habits and long-term success.

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Identity-based habits

Success often looks like a time-management problem. You buy a planner, set reminders, and hope that next week will be different. For a few days, it works. Then stress hits, motivation drops, and old patterns return. (more…)

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