I didn’t crawl into bed so much as collapse onto it, my shoulders sagging.

Not in a release of stress, like my husband would’ve hoped. Like I would’ve hoped. This was something closer to defeat. I tried to think back to this morning, but it seemed a week ago. All I wanted was to sleep, but there was still laundry to finish, tomorrow to prep for, and probably five other things I just couldn’t think of right now. All the stuff “normal” people could just… do.

All I could think of was the verdict that ran over and over in my mind all day. “You’re so messy, you just can’t help yourself, can you? You’re such a disaster.” Those hadn’t exactly been the words, but that was the well-worn mental rut they’d fallen into. 

Messy. When all I want is to keep a clean, welcoming home.
Unreliable. When all I want is to follow through on what I say I’ll do without fail.
Scattered. When all I want is to at least fake the role of adult. The magic purse with whatever you need when you need it, don’t worry about it. The text returned. The bill paid. Arriving on time. Make it through work without falling asleep at my computer or having absence seizures back to back. Keep up with the day without retreating into my phone. Keep Cor, my service dog, groomed as well as I know I should.

And it wasn’t that I didn’t try. I’d summon my grit and tenacity and promise myself every Monday morning that this week was the one I’d do all the things, every single day. Unfortunately, it had become just as regular that by Tuesday morning, I’d invariably see how stupid that idea was.

What they really were was more like a grim kind of pragmatism. “I’ve got to make this work. What else am I going to do; just not be an adult? So, here we go again. Let’s see if I’ve ~magically got it~ this week.”

You know the feeling, right? I’d tried the online hacks, the tricks, the apps. The habit trackers, the color-coded calendars, the planner books. Several of those. Just like the doomed Monday morning resolution, I’d start anew every January with one that boasted pockets and dividers and a high price tag (surely that meant it’d work!) Or it’d be a “Mom’s got it all,” book, or an ADHD life handler-er. Despite all those options, each one came to the same sad end.

I’d find them in May, filled with dashed hopes and empty pages since February at the latest. And every time it failed, the indictment landed in the same place.

Something about me was broken. I was somehow special enough to fail at something that worked for everyone else. Well, La-di-da. Wasn’t that how I’d always wanted to be special. 

Here’s what I needed someone to tell me, and what I want you to hear. Not just gloss over as you skim this post; slow down and truly hear it. Let the meaning sink in and sit in your mind. 

If your brain and a system don’t mesh, the onus is not on you to change. You aren’t broken, you aren’t just “not working hard enough,” and you aren’t going through some adult version of failure to thrive. Most of the systems out there are built for salability; not meant to fit the nuances of people’s lives. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Scissors are designed with the assumption that the person using them is right-handed, because most people are. What happens if you’re not? I’ll tell you, from personal experience: you’re uncomfortably aware of it. Your thumb has too much room, which you wouldn’t necessarily be aware of if you could get more than your first two fingers inside the small hole. It works, technically. But just a touch too consciously for it to feel natural.

What happens when you’re given a left-handed scissors? The same task becomes effortless. So let’s trade up.

A quick lesson in business building (yes, I promise it applies). You are invariably told to “find your avatar.” In other words, who is the one person that’s your ideal client? What are their struggles, their longings, their hidden pain points? And then you’re told to build all of your everything toward that person.

The entire industry that I was searching in was, like anything, designed for a very specific person. This is, by my best reckoning, someone with a relatively consistent life. A predictable schedule (or five, if they’re a parent). A body that does more or less what it’s told on any day you choose to check. 

That system isn’t neutral. It was built for someone in particular, but handed to everyone as though it were universal. Which it’s not. And there are a few key ways it can quickly break down for a differently-abled brain:

It assumes consistent daily energy. There’s no way to tweak it for the days you have 10% to give. A system built on daily streaks and daily output assumes every day starts roughly even, and finishes in approximately the same way or at the same time. Yours may not, and that’s not something a piece of paper should be able to guilt trip you about.

It front-loads willpower. And sometimes it’s not the willpower that’s lacking. If you’re able to lift 50lbs maximum, the person that puts a 100lb weight in front of you and then scolds you for not being mentally strong enough to lift it has the wrong read.  Sometimes, you have all the willpower to make it through the day, but your body lacks the energy. 

It measures output, not capacity. So a day where you managed a flare-up and got two things done may read as a failure. It wasn’t a failure. It was a remarkable day measured by the wrong ruler.

Here’s what I need you to understand about consistency, because getting this wrong can cost both your sanity and actual health. Consistency doesn’t mean doing 100% of the thing on 100% of the days. 

Let’s say there’s a week that your energy levels looked like this: 

• Monday: 100% – Raring to go. It’s the start of a new week; let’s crush this!
• Tuesday: 10% – Monday hit you hard, and the prospect of doing this every day for the next week is exhausting on a spiritual level
• Wednesday: 70% – Still rough, but at least it’s hump day. We’re halfway there.
• Thursday: 75% – Man, this week has been a year, hasn’t it?
• Friday: 90% – Let’s finish strong! 
• Saturday: 50% – You feel the crash from holding it together all week.
• Sunday: 32% – Tomorrow’s Monday, already? You’re proactively exhausted.

As disjointed as that week feels, that is a consistent person. You showed up every single day. The number doesn’t disqualify the showing up. Tuesday counts. It counts exactly as much as Monday or Friday, because you did 100% of what you were able to do. There are days where showing up is 100%. Where sitting on the couch in your pajamas and getting into the sunshine for five minutes is a victory. And a system that doesn’t allow for that is the wrong system. 

And one other thing I heard from someone a hot second ago that rocked my world? What happens if you run a car as hard as it can go every time you get in it?

Yeah, there’s a reason we don’t do that. Because we know that’s not what the car is made for. And yet we expect “peak performance” to be our body’s average every day we get out of bed. If someone can make it make sense, email me and I’ll give you three months’ access to The Able Life on Skool for free. 😊

In all honesty, though, this was the hardest mindset shift for me to accept. Read it as many times as you need to before you move on, because what I’m about to say next won’t do much for you if you can’t have this grace with yourself.

Here’s where this actually started to sink in, for me.

I’ve tried planners since grade school. I knew I could get my life sorted if I could just see it on paper; the entire day written out so I could actually think strategically rather than blundering my way through, accepting every side quest that crossed my periphery. There was also, if I’m completely honest, a certain aesthetic to the “planner girlies” that I very much wanted to claim. Again, largely that they “had it together.” They weren’t scrambling for an answer or a pen or whatever; they seemed to be playing life on easy mode. As such, I’d invariably get a planner every January, full of hope, and copy everything in. I’d invariably be sure I was going to get my life in order this year, and I was invariably hopeful I would finally become the “it” version of myself.

And, as I mentioned above, I invariably saw myself as a failure, come May. (Or November, if I’d gotten it for school.)

One day, I hit that moment, again; there were, like, five different schedules I needed to keep track of, all with their own due dates and expectations, and I couldn’t get life to behave for me. There it was, again: the block in my mind that I knew I could get past if only I could see everything in front of me; how the wheels turn, the due dates intersect, and how much time I actually had in the day. I just needed to feel paper in my hands for my brain to think right. But I knew my failures, and just couldn’t spend another $50 on heartbreak.

So, in a moment of frustration (and more than a bit of spite) I went, “Fine. I’ll just do it myself. And if I do it wrong — again — I’m out nothing but the paper.” Somehow, that’s not what happened. Oh, the first version needed tweaking, sure. Several times over. But it never stopped working. In fact, after a week of not using it, I could feel the lack of it and jumping back in was actually easy, because there were no months of accusatory empty pages to get lost in as I tried to re-find today’s date. Three years later, that still holds true. 

That became the Clarity Companion. And one of the world-rocking things I learned in building it (that really shouldn’t have been a surprise) was that the right system doesn’t demand that you show up perfectly. It shows up for you on the days you can’t. On the days you can only give 10%, your systems carry the tidy. The mentally steady. The prepared, the punctual, the put-together. Which (who’da thunk?) made it much easier to hit “tidy,” “steady,” “prepared,” and “knows where the thing is.” That philosophy also led to other decisions, as life went on. My desk, what tabs are open together on my laptop, the way I keep track of what we need to purchase, or fix, or do.

Archimedes once said, “give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” When you study levers, you learn that where you place the fulcrum determines how much you can move, and how easily. When you set your systems up to work with you rather than demanding you match your systems, you’re moving the fulcrum to make “moving your world” easier. That’s the exact basis and reframe on which The Clarity Companion and The Able Life are built on.

And, guess what? That “it” version of myself I mentioned, before? It’s become easier to work my way toward her, as my strategy on life has changed. Because the expectation is no longer “bibbity boppity boo,” and a complete life change. It’s a hundred different little tweaks that make it easier to do those things. Little tweaks like…

• A handful of bandaids in my Clarity Companion so I can just magically have one when it’s needed
• A pack of tissues and a pen in each purse becomes the thoughtful, helpful stranger you never see again.
• Having a treat in the fridge for when someone needs it far easier achieves that welcoming, “take a load off” atmosphere. 
• Planning to leave 15 minutes early because I tend to run late becomes an improvement toward punctuality (still working on it…)

And (while some people may not like me putting it this way,) this means that, for our purposes here, there is no such thing as “neurotypical” or “neurodivergent.” Because when your systems are set up to match the gears of your mind, that becomes the “typical” for your “neuro.” The system may not fit your cousin with her ducks in a row, but that’s because it doesn’t need to. And because that goalpost looks different for each person, there is no “typical” to measure based off of. It’s all just what works. Which frees you up to let go of the label.

When the chips are down, you fall back to your last anchor. Your closest system. So make them work for you. That’s not cheating. That’s strategizing.

The Clarity Companion was built for this. Not for the idealized, consistent, never-has-a-bad-week version of you. For the actual, real, doing-her-best version.

And if you’re looking for people who get it, who are building systems like these right alongside you, no explaining required? Come find us in The Able Life Community.