🧠Weekly MindSweep No. 195 | Mind Your Business | Self-Worth
October 2025
Week 194: Curated Conversation: Self-Worth
*Week 195: Mind Your Business: Self-Worth
Week 196: Manage Your Mind: Self-Worth
Week 197: What’s On My Mind: Self-Worth
Let’s sweep the brain…
Let’s Sweep the Brain
🎬 Rather watch or listen instead of read? Now you can!
In the MindSweep this week:
Curated Conversation with curated GIF’s & puns (for your entertainment).
Jamie’s Second Brain Corner: Links to references. Need a map? I’ve got you!
What’s I’m Reading - The Mind Electric by Pria Anand
Collaborations with Terri Hamilton (Thursday) & Shannon Giordano and the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce (First Friday)
My face đź’ś and a link to schedule your free consultation.
The To-Do List That Measured My Worth
I used to think I loved productivity, but what I really loved was proof.
Proof that I was doing enough.
Proof that I wasn’t lazy.
Proof that I was keeping up with everyone else who was running a business, raising kids, posting content, staying hydrated, and still managed to color-code their calendars.
And nowhere did that proof show up louder than on my to-do list.
If you’ve ever written something on your list after you already did it—just to check it off—then you know exactly what I mean. That tiny, satisfying check-mark isn’t about progress. It’s about permission.
Permission to feel okay.
Permission to rest.
Permission to exist without guilt.
That hit of relief, that little surge of “ahhh”—that’s dopamine. The brain’s way of saying, Yes! You did a thing. Gold star for you, human!!
For years, my worth was tied to that check-mark. I didn’t realize it at first because it looked like motivation, drive, and success. [1]
And when you’re an ADHD entrepreneur, you get a lot of praise for your hustle. People call you unstoppable, creative, brilliant, and ambitious. They see your whirlwind of ideas and say, “How do you do it all?”
But they don’t see the crash that comes after. The shame spiral when the list wins, when your brain’s bandwidth shrinks, and suddenly you can’t make yourself care about anything that isn’t giving you a quick dopamine hit.
For me, the to-do list wasn’t just a tool; it was a scoreboard.
And I was both the player and the referee.
I was constantly judging myself for how much I could produce, not for how much I was actually living.
The Expectation of Productivity
We live in a world that confuses productivity with character. If you’re busy, you’re valuable. If you rest, you must be lazy.
We celebrate “the grind” as if it were a spiritual practice. We glorify the all-nighter, the endless calendar, the inbox zero. We equate output with goodness.
But what happens when your brain doesn’t work that way?
For ADHD and creative entrepreneurs, productivity isn’t a straight line. Our energy ebbs and flows. Our focus surges in bursts of brilliance, only to disappear without warning. We can transition from a hyper-focused state to a total shutdown in a day.
And yet, we still measure ourselves by society’s schedule.
We start the day asking, “What do I need to accomplish?” instead of “What do I need to experience?”
When creativity doesn’t show up on command, we call ourselves lazy.
When our capacity drops, we question our worth.
When we rest, we feel behind.
We forget that our self-worth was never meant to be determined by how much we do.
Every task completed, every milestone achieved, and every late night powered through becomes another badge sewn onto the sash of our Adult Merit Badge, also known as our self-image. We’re so conditioned to perform productively that we’ve stopped questioning where that expectation came from. [2]
Let’s be honest: patriarchy did a number on all of us, regardless of gender. It built an entire economy around output as a measure of identity. Work harder. Do more. Prove your value. And when you layer ADHD on top of that, the story gets even more complicated.
Creative brains crave novelty and reward because dopamine is our favorite currency. So, of course, we’re drawn to lists, metrics, and visible progress because they give our brains exactly what they’re wired to seek. But that same wiring also sets us up for a constant chase: we’re either soaring on a high of hyper-focus or spiraling into the shame of not doing enough.
For us, there is no middle ground.
In the world of entrepreneurship, that tension can feel like a matter of survival. If I slow down, I’ll fall behind. If I don’t post, sell, or show up, I’ll disappear. We’ve equated consistency with worth.
But creativity doesn’t work that way.
Creativity Doesn’t Follow Society’s Schedule
One of the most liberating things I’ve learned through a lot of trial, error, and nervous-system meltdowns is that creativity doesn’t obey calendars. You can’t spreadsheet your intuition. You can’t plan inspiration. You can’t schedule a transformation on a timeline.
Creative entrepreneurs know this deep down, but we still try to fit our process into a nine-to-five box because that’s what looks respectable.
That’s what feels safe.
We build businesses around our gifts, then guilt ourselves for not running them like factories. When we can’t keep up with that impossible pace, we question our capacity. When our capacity fluctuates (which it will), we question our worth. [3]
Self-worth and capacity are not the same thing.
Your worth is constant. Your capacity is variable. That’s the human design, and it’s especially true for neurodivergent brains.
Yet we forget. We push. We override. We measure days in output instead of energy alignment. And every time we do, we reinforce an old neural pathway: “I am what I produce.”
The Neuroscience Behind the Pattern
So why does it feel so good to check the box?
It’s dopamine, you know, our favorite neurochemical. Every time you complete a task, your brain rewards you with a small burst of pleasure and motivation. That’s normal and healthy.
But over time, when that dopamine loop becomes your primary source of validation, your brain learns: I only feel good when I’m productive. [4]
This is called reward conditioning, and it’s especially strong in creative brains because dopamine regulation is trickier for us. We seek stimulation and novelty to feel a sense of balance. Productivity gives us that hit, but it also becomes addictive.
That’s why rest can feel uncomfortable, and why we sometimes sabotage ourselves by working past our limits just to feel “in motion.”
Next week, we’ll dig deeper into the neuroscience of this. How dopamine, executive function, and self-worth are intertwined, and how you can rewire your brain to find that sense of safety without needing to constantly produce.
Awareness: Seeing the Pattern
So What Do We Do With All This?
First, we name it. We stop pretending this is just about time management. It’s about identity.
When you realize your drive to produce is also a drive to prove, everything changes. You stop trying to fix your focus and start tending to your self-worth.
You start asking new questions:
When do I feel most valuable?
What triggers my guilt or urgency to do more?
What am I afraid might happen if I slow down?
What does my brain label as “lazy” or “wasteful”?
What would it mean if “enough” wasn’t something I had to earn?
Your answers reveal your inherited programming, the stories passed down from family, culture, and yes, capitalism.
Then, zoom in on your micro-behaviors:
Adding something to your list to check it off?
Justifying rest by calling it “recharging for productivity?”
Feeling uneasy when there’s no visible progress?
None of these means you’re broken; they mean your brain has been trained to equate worth with output.
And you can train it differently.
Creativity doesn’t happen in the checklist; it happens in the margin.
In the walk you take without your phone.
In the nap that resets your nervous system.
In the quiet space between “what’s next” and “what’s now.”
The world doesn’t need you to be more productive. It needs you to be more present.
That’s where the magic lives.
Awareness is where change begins, but it isn’t the whole story. Once you understand how productivity and self-worth are intertwined, the next step is to give your brain a new script to interrupt the old loop and build a gentler one.
That’s what this is really about: rewiring the pattern. When you teach your brain that your value isn’t something you earn through output, you start living and creating from a place of enoughness.
Rewiring the Pattern
1. Name the Story Out Loud: Catch yourself measuring the day by output? Pause.
Say it out loud: “My brain is looking for proof I’m valuable.” That single moment breaks the loop and weakens the old wiring.
2. Redefine the Evidence: Create new metrics for success that are not tied to quantity.
Here are some examples to try:
I honored my capacity today.
I worked in alignment with my energy.
I stayed curious instead of critical.
Write them where your to-do list lives. Let them become your new benchmarks.
3. Celebrate Rest as Resistance: Write “Rest” on your list and check it off first. Teach your brain that rest counts. You’re pairing dopamine with recovery, not depletion.
4. Detach Worth from Capacity: Low-capacity days aren’t failures. They’re data. When your nervous system asks for rest, remember that’s wisdom, not weakness.
5. Replace “Productive” with “Present: ”When your brain demands proof of productivity, ask instead: “Was I present for my life today?” Presence builds connection. Connection fuels creativity. Creativity sustains business.
6. Build in Reflection: At day’s end, skip the output review and reflect instead: What energized me? What drained me? You’re teaching your brain to value awareness over activity.
Rewiring takes practice, not perfection.
It’s not about throwing away the to-do list; it’s about changing the relationship you have with it. The list isn’t the problem; it’s the story underneath it.
Start to rewrite that story, and the check-mark starts to lose its power.
Redefining Enough
I still write to-do lists. But they don’t own me anymore. And yes, because this a practice, sometimes I still catch myself adding an extra line just so I can check it off:
“Sent that email.” ✔️
“Watered the plants.” (wait, I have plants?) ✔️
“Fed Walter White Boots” ✔️[5]
And when I do, I laugh, because I know exactly what’s happening. My brain is chasing safety. It’s whispering, Please tell me I’m okay. Please tell me I did enough.
And I answer it differently now. I tell it,
We’re good. We matter even without the check-mark.
The truth is, your worth doesn’t rise and fall with your productivity. You are not your output. You are the human behind the work. The one who dreams, connects, creates, and sometimes needs a nap in the middle of the afternoon.
Creativity doesn’t follow society’s schedule.
It follows safety, curiosity, and trust. And when you start measuring your business by those metrics, everything changes. [6]
The world doesn’t need more productive entrepreneurs.
It needs regulated, self-trusting, boundary-holding, heart-centered ones who know that self-worth isn’t something you earn.
It’s something you already are.
My questions for you this week :
What story does your to-do list tell about your self-worth?
How does your brain react to rest—relief or guilt?
Reply and share with me!
✨ If this hits home, let’s explore what your brain is really chasing when it’s chasing the next check-mark.
Join me for a MindSweep Mapping Session—a 90-minute deep dive to help you see your patterns, reframe your relationship with productivity, and reconnect with the part of you that already knows you’re enough.
You’ll walk away with a visual map of how your brain links self-worth, creativity, and capacity, plus practical tools to help you rewire those stories into something softer, stronger, and sustainable for you and your business.
🧠Your brain. Your business. Mapped.
👉 Book your free MindSweep Chat: www.chickbookcreative.com/mind-sweep
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Jamie’s Second Brain Corner:
[1] Did you miss our month on Success?
[2] Did you miss our month on Expectation?
[3] Did you miss our month on Capacity?
[4] Did you miss our month on Validation?
[6] Did you miss our month on Trust?
[X] What is Curated Conversations?
[X] Did someone say MindSweep MAP?!
[X] Follow Chickbook Creative on Substack!
[X] NEW>> Now on Apple Podcasts!
MONDAY: 8 am - Curated Conversation - Zoom
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What I’m reading
The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains
by Pria Anand
Stories are etched into the very structure of our brains, coded so deeply that the impulse for storytelling survives and even surges after the most devastating injuries. But our brains are also porous—the stories they concoct shaped by cultural narratives about bodies and illness that permeate the minds of doctors and patients alike. In the history of medicine, some stories are heard, while others—the narratives of women, of Black and brown people, of displaced people, of disempowered people—are too often dismissed.
In The Mind Electric, neurologist Pria Anand reveals—through case study, history, fable, and memoir—all that the medical establishment has overlooked: the complexity and wonder of brains in health and in extremis, and the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the thin veneer of a different story.
Find it where you browse for books.
Collaborations!
Join us on Friday, November 7, 2025 from 9am-11am.
For November, Shannon and I will welcome Tim Holtsnider of Passages
How the Workplace Has Evolved, the Challenges it’s Creating and Possible Solutions.
From Fortune 500 boardrooms to four continents, Tim Holtsnider has seen the workplace evolve. He’s sharing what’s changed, what’s next, and how to prepare. Join us!
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12:00 - Take 5—a guided meditation with Terri Hamilton of Positively Terri to ground your week with peace and focus.
12:05-1 pm Round-table Share
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