Shiny New Object Syndrome? Here’s How to Stop It From Sabotaging Your Success

Picture this, I'm sitting in my office surrounded by open browser tabs, 27 of them, to be honest. My whiteboard features four different business models, my notebook, detailed plans for two different course launches, and my calendar had reminders for a webinar series I completely forgot about. Meanwhile, my actual money making offer, gathering digital dust in a folder on my desktop labeled Q1 priority, sound familiar? Well, that, my friend, is shiny object syndrome in its natural habitat, and it is costing entrepreneurs like us thousands in lost revenue and countless hours of scattered effort. It's not just a quirky personality trait, it's literally how our ADHD brains are wired.

Now by the end of this solo episode, you're not only gonna understand why your brain does this, but more importantly, you will have practical strategies for how to work with this tendency instead of trying to just force yourself to focus because that advice is absolute bullshit for brains like ours. Okay, now to unpack all this, we need to get neurological for a minute or two. Your ADHD brain has a different relationship with dopamine than a neurotypical brain does. Dopamine is that lovely neurotransmitter that I talk about all the time because it's the one that makes us feel motivated, focused, and rewarded.

See why it's important? Now for most people, ordinary tasks release an adequate amount of dopamine. But our brains, they're more like a dopamine desert landscape, chronically underproducing it and constantly thirsting for more. And this is why we are drawn to novelty, like moths to a flame. New ideas, new projects, new strategies, they all trigger a dopamine release. And once the novelty wears off, that dopamine faucet starts to drip, drip, drip instead of flow, and you guessed it, we are off seeking the next source, desperately seeking dopamine.

Now doctor William Dodson calls this the interest based nervous system. And unlike neurotypical folks who can use importance, priorities, or consequences to motivate themselves, our brains are predominantly motivated by interest, challenge, novelty, urgency, and let's be honest, passion. No wonder consistent business operations can feel like torture. But what makes this especially tricky for entrepreneurs is that innovation is actually valuable. So coming up with fresh ideas and spotting new opportunities gives us a competitive edge.

So the problem isn't the shiny object radar, it's that we tend to chase all shiny objects, abandoning perfectly profitable projects before they've had a chance to mature. I want you to think about it this way, innovation is your edge, but execution is your moneymaker. And execution requires seeing things through the boring middle phase, that is our biggest challenge. Now how does this play out in real business scenarios? Well, let me count the ways. First, there is, the product service proliferation syndrome. I mean, you launch something, you get a few new clients, and instead of hunkering down and optimizing and scaling that offer, you immediately create three new ones. So now you got five half baked offers that will never outperform one fully developed one.

But damn if our brains don't convince us otherwise. I remember when I first started this coaching business, I had a perfectly good, in fact, an excellent one to one coaching package. Clients loved it. It was selling well. I got terrific testimonials, there were no problems. You'd think I would just go ahead and focus on that, hell no. Within three months, I had sketched out plans for a group program, two different courses, a membership site, and was even considering getting another certification.

Meanwhile, my actual income generating offer, the one I had proven was effective and sold well, got neglected so not surprisingly, my revenue plateaued. Now there are other potential traps, including the marketing method whiplash. You know this one, I'm sure. One week, you're all in on LinkedIn. The next week, or maybe if you've got a little more discipline the next month, you've abandoned it. And now you're chasing after Instagram reels, stories, carousel posts, you name it. By the following week, you are convinced Pinterest is going to be your freaking salvation. You follow me?

Each platform takes time to master. And while so many people love to say you can repurpose and repurpose and repurpose, the experts in social media will tell you each platform requires a different skill set to master. So it's not really true that you can create it once and post it everywhere and succeed. The algorithms just don't work that way, and they're never gonna reward that behavior. Here's another one, actually, it's my personal favorite. Tech tool obsession. You spend hours setting up a new CRM, a new project management system, a new email platform, and you are convinced this is the one this is the one that will fix your business. Three weeks later, maybe two, you are researching alternatives because the one you thought was your magic pill, your soul mate, just isn't quite doing it for you.

The common thread, we are fantastic at starting things. But the moment something requires consistent effort and the dopamine hit of novelty has worn off, we are looking for the next exit strategy. And this can be really hard to hear, but trust me when I tell you there is no shame in this game. Every single thing I am telling you, I have done and continue to struggle with trying not to do. Now the good news is, because there's always good news on ADHD ish, is that once you understand your brain and you radically accept this is not a character defect friend, this is just how you're wired, then you can get busy figuring out how to work with it. And this episode is full of strategies just like a number of other solo episodes I've done and will continue to do.

So enough talk about the problem, let's talk about solutions. How can we harness this natural curiosity, natural creativity, and actually finish stuff? Well, strategy number one is something I call dopamine scheduling. A few episodes ago, I talked about the dopamine menu, this is the dopamine schedule. Bottom line, your brain needs regular doses of dopamine to stay engaged, this is not a negotiable. So instead of just waiting for the dopamine to show up naturally, because it won't, you need to artificially create it.

Some easy ways to do this with practice, because nothing works the first time, even though we desperately want it to. Take that big project and break it down into smaller milestones. Ones that would seem reasonable to a neurotypical person, but for us, we need micro milestones. Then attach a meaningful reward to each one. Don't tell yourself you don't get a reward till you're done. You're never gonna finish it that way and you damn well know it. So here's an example. You finished writing that sales page, fifteen minute dance party.

You sent out your weekly newsletter four weeks in a row without even being a day late. That's a lunch out with a friend. You are hitting your revenue targets by yourself, that new tool or gadget that you've had your eye on or you've been taking in and out of your shopping cart. Without the rewards, we're simply not going to stay the course. And with the dopamine scheduling, you're essentially training your brain to stick with things without the need for steady dopamine. You will get dopamine from doing it this way, but it's going to be in more controlled, predictable dosages and not the big spikes and valleys.

You ready for the next strategy? This one is called the sexy middle. Now if you've heard me or anyone else talk about the messy middle in business, that's the hard part. And it's true for every project. It's true for every business model. It's true for every stage of business. Once the novelty wears off, we feel bored, and that's what we call the messy middle. So I want you to start thinking about the sexy middle. Now this is true for your business in general, it's also true for every project, program, service, or offering that you create in your business. Most projects have an exciting beginning, a boring, messy middle, and a satisfying end.

So the middle is typically where we bail right? The trick is to figure out how to turn it from the messy middle or the boring middle to the sexy middle. The hidden challenges and creative problems that exist, they're already there in what otherwise feels like drudgery. Now, don't believe me? Let me give you an example. For example, instead of seeing send weekly email on your to do list as a chore, reframe it as, how can I write the most engaging email my subscribers have ever read? Turn it into a creative challenge. When you're in maintenance mode with a program or service, like all the sexy shiny stuff has worn off, and now you're just delivering it.

Ask yourself, what is one small innovation that I could introduce this month that would make this better? I think of this as the surprise and delight factor. What's good for you is good for them, meaning your clients or customers. So what is one small innovation? What is one small change? What is one small way that you could surprise or delight your customers with an existing program or service because it's also going to delight you. It's going to give you an extra squirt of dopamine because novelty is where we get it best. You are not abandoning your core offer and racing after a new one. You're simply making your existing offer better and rewarding yourself with a little bit of dopamine and novelty as you do.

Strategy three, accountability structure. Now most people when they hear accountability and structure, they're already tuning out. And when both of them are added together, you for sure want to tune out, but stay with me. Because when your internal motivation starts to fail, as it always does, external accountability is one of the most reliable ways we have to save the day. This is not about having someone nag you because no one likes that. It's about creating situations where there are real stakes to not following through, not made up ones that you don't take seriously.

So how might this look? A business accountability partner who you check-in with weekly, and it really should be someone who's at a similar stage of business, a similar level of seriousness about their business, and a similar level of success in their business. If you have a business accountability partner with someone who's nowhere near as experienced as you, this is not going to work. Trust me. Another way it could look is publicly announcing deadlines and deliverables. I have used this for many things that I was procrastinating on because when I had the idea, it was super sexy and shiny, but I didn't do it right away and then I didn't really feel like doing it. So I announced that I was going to do it publicly, oftentimes on this podcast, and with a deadline, which meant now I have to do it or I'm gonna feel like a jerk, which I try to avoid whenever possible.

Another way you can do it is by prescheduling a launch and telling your clients about it. Most of us disappoint ourselves all the time, but we despise disappointing others. So by announcing to your clients, this is when it's going to happen, you're going to do it, I almost guarantee it. Here's another way. Setting up a financial penalty for not following through. Now I know people who donate to a cause they hate when they miss a deadline, that does not work for all of us. And I think in our current economic and political clients, that might be kinda risky. But for some people, this works really well so if you think it might work for you, give it a shot.

You can also pay for coaching or mastermind groups where you are required to report on progress. I was in a mastermind group a number of years ago, and every week when we met online, we had to report on the progress we made on the goals that we had announced to the previous group. If we did not make progress because we did not take action, we missed our turn and everybody knew why. It happened to me one time. You were not allowed to explain it. You were not allowed to excuse it. You were not allowed to justify it. You just had to sit there and miss your turn, and everybody knew you didn't honor your commitment to yourself and it was public. It never happened the second time, let me tell you.

So if you, like me, are someone who really toes the line with public accountability, by all means, build that in. My personal favorite is public accountability, it might not be for you. For some people, that just triggers a whole lot of unhealed trauma and rejection sensitivity, so you do you, boo. Just because it works for me, doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. I once told my email list exactly when I was going to be launching a new offer, and then I prepaid a designer to create the assets for that offer by a specific date. You better believe it went out on time and not a moment late. Now we're gonna talk about the project pre mortem.

Now you've probably heard of a post mortem and you know what that is, but the pre mortem changes things up. And I think it might be a game changer for you. So before you start a new project, imagine it's six months later and your project has failed because you lost interest. I want you to think about what specifically caused you to fail like, get nerdy with it. Where exactly did you get bored or stuck? Then create a specific plan for managing through those danger points. Now you probably know that you're gonna lose steam after the initial launch. So you could pre plan a phase two innovation that you can get excited about, but only after you have properly executed phase one.

Now this strategy, the project pre mortem, does require that you have some experience with, you know, crapping out on yourself because you won't recognize the pattern if you haven't experienced it enough times. But if you are kind of a serial shiny object chaser, and you've had many, many, many programs, products, offers, launches that you've had a strong start and then they fizzled out, this is going to be very, very helpful for you because you'll be able to connect the dots and then prevent it from happening again. Lastly, there's the shiny object fund. Now here's the truth. You have ADHD and that is not going away, which means you are never going to stop having new ideas. Trying to suppress them is kind of like trying to hold that beach ball underwater.

It's exhausting and ultimately futile. It's gonna pop up and hit you right in the face. So instead, create a dedicated time and resource budget for exploring new ideas without abandoning your core business. And I have my team help me with this because I still have shiny object syndrome, and I know I always will. Some ways this might look, one Friday afternoon a month. A lot of business owners take Fridays off or take Friday afternoons off, or they take one Friday a month off, whatever works for you. But one suggestion is one Friday afternoon a month is designated for exploring new concepts. Everything goes into the idea parking lot and is saved for that day. If you're constantly giving yourself permission to evaluate every shiny new idea, you are going to be chasing far too many of them at the expense of your more proven offers.

So stick them in the idea parking lot, have a designated monthly time to review them all. An additional benefit of this is most of the time we're only looking at one shiny object at a time. There's no competition, so they all seem beautiful and glorious. But when you stick them in your idea parking lot for a month or up to a month, and then you evaluate them together, it's a much more competitive idea environment and will much more readily prove to you which of those ideas are really worthwhile considering, and which were just kind of a flash in the pan. You can also designate a specific percentage of profits that will be allocated to testing new offers.

I know a number of business owners that do this, and it has helped them tremendously to curtail the constant amount of time, energy, effort, focus, attention, and dollars that was being allocated to testing out new things. We do not have to test out every new idea the moment it happens. If you set aside that designated time or a designated percentage of your profits, that idea has to prove itself worthy instead of just being a momentary distraction. You can also use a structured innovation process where new ideas go into your capture system, and you evaluate them along with a trusted advisor or your team on a quarterly basis. Now to be able to use this, you're gonna have to have a more developed business, and you're gonna have to have more self restraint.

Because once a quarter, if you're used to scratching every shiny itch, a quarter is gonna feel like a decade from now. So use where you are in business and also, you know, how much or how little control you have over your shiny object syndrome now when deciding which of these ideas to experiment with and implement in your own business. All of them give your creative brain permission to play, while your executive functioning brain, what's left of it anyway, can maintain control over allocation of your resources. The key is that you're saying yes and rather than no. We don't like to hear no and we don't like to say it to ourselves. So yes, you can explore that shiny new idea and you're going to finish the current project first.

So let me wrap this up before I get distracted by another topic idea. Shiny object syndrome is real, friend, but it doesn't have to derail your business. Your ADHD brain's capacity for fresh, novel, creative thinking and connections is so incredibly valuable, especially in today's rapidly changing business landscape. The trick is channeling that creativity through systems that ensure execution and implementation, so they don't go to waste. Remember, consistency compounds over time. So a good idea that's executed consistently, almost always outperforms a brilliant idea that is executed sporadically. So this week, I want you to pick one. Just one strategy from today's episode and implement it. Just one.

Maybe you'll decide to set up your dopamine scheduling system, or maybe you'll create your shiny object fund parameters. Start small, but start. And to make it easier for you to go from idea to execution, I created a companion handout for this episode that summarizes all of these strategies and helps you get started. You can grab your copy by clicking on the link in the show notes. And be sure that you are subscribed to or following the show because you are not gonna wanna miss next week's interview with doctor Michael Freeman. Doctor Freeman is a leading psychiatrist, researcher, consultant, and entrepreneur, and he specializes in the strengths and vulnerabilities that ADHD brings to entrepreneurial ventures. You are going to love this interview, and I can't wait to share it with you.