Happy New Year! Making resolutions is common, and technically so is not being able to stick them for many people. Let's change that this year. Better yet, you have the power to make that change. In this podcast, Dr. Heller explains three basic rules for setting up resolutions. Start small, make them measurable, and establish tangible steps to use to implement the goal. For example, with working out, identify how often you wish to do this, a way to track each time you workout, and a clear plan of what activities you will do to work out. Getting equipment, apps, or whatever else you need set up and ready to go is also important to make a goal into a routine and stick with it. Good luck! 

The holiday season is here...And so is a once again worsening Covid-19 pandemic. If you are experiencing anxiety about the pandemic, holidays, or life in general, Dr. Heller provides a few simple anxiety reducing tools to help you navigate the current issues as well as anxiety year round. Feeling anxious? Take the first step towards feeling at least somewhat better by listening to the podcast right now. Don't procrastinate! 

Always running late? Are you disorganized? Do you lose things easily? Do you have trouble staying focused and getting things done? 

Executive function (EF) skills are mental processes that are used to navigate daily life and complete tasks. Attention, working memory, planning, organization, impulse control, and task initiation are many of the skills that are included under the umbrella of EF. Dr. Heller walks listeners through a basic understanding of EF issues, a few disorders including ADHD and anxiety that often include EF weaknesses, and what to do if the issues described sound like you.

There are many ways to make improvements in your EF skills. The sooner you start, the happier, more relaxed, and productive you likely can become. 

Life gets busy. Many people feel like there are never enough hours in the day. Dr. Heller walks listeners through his block planning method. This involves categorizing work tasks into a few categories and then scheduling times throughout the day and week to complete tasks within those domains. While this system may not always work perfectly, and needs to be adapted to each person's unique needs, it has the potential to help you to be more productive, less stressed, and increase your efficiency. 

Creativity is a broad category. Identifying why creativity is important to you can be a good starting point. It can be fun, a good outlet for self-expression, used for work, and the list of possible reasons is endless. Identifying things that work for you to enhance your own creativity as desired and minimize stumbling blocks such as perfectionism, anxiety, stress, shame, or guilt is important. Dr. Heller provides a brief overview of these items and discusses a few tools for helping you to find what strategies work for you to maximize your own creativity. 

Anxiety is an extremely common issue that many people experience. At the same time, people do not always understand how it manifests or that they are even anxious. In addition, anxiety can lead to other negative issues including guilt, shame, nervousness about getting anxious, decreased productivity, and general unhappiness. Dr. Heller provides a brief overview of what anxiety is, ways that it often manifests, and common approaches to treat it. 

ADHD is probably one of the most commonly known mental health disorders by name. At the same time, many people do not understand what the disorder actually is and how it impacts people across the lifespan in academic, social, occupational, and countless other domains in life. This podcast episode is devoted to providing you with a basic understanding of what ADHD can look like beyond the commonly known symptoms of trouble paying attention and sitting still. 

Many people would love to be the best version of themselves. But, what does that look like? Dr. Heller provides a framework to identify what is important to you and how to pick tangible things to start doing to transform into the best version of yourself. Transformation is a process, so start today! 

Getting started on tasks can sometimes be difficult, especially when you have to create your own structure during the day. Whether it is 9 AM, 2 PM, or even 2 AM, if you are stuck and do not know where to begin to get yourself going with being productive today, this is the strategy for you. In this podcast, Dr. Heller maps out his four-minute quick planning tool to get you started in being productive within five minutes.

This dilemma of when to try to make changes versus trying to get others to accommodate your needs is relevant in lots of situations. If you think about this question with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), common questions arise around whether it is better to get extensions when you can't complete tasks on time versus working on better implementing tools to get tasks completed within the expected time frame next time. Obviously constantly relying on exceptions being made may make it harder to view deadlines as actual deadlines. At the same time, if you keep trying to meet deadlines and cannot make them, that is also a problem. This issue is also relevant with deciding when you stand up for yourself to get your needs met with a co-worker, spouse, child, or other person versus letting them get their way if it has negative consequences for you (i.e., letting a co-worker schedule a meeting with you that interferes with your ability to attend your son's basketball game). The goal of this podcast episode is to raise awareness of this dilemma and help you to think about your mindset in different situations. Finally, by understanding where you stand on different issues that arise, you can begin to make decisions on what situations you keep trying in different ways to meet external expectations versus trying to get other people to accommodate to your needs.