What happens when Julie overhears Martha in a DC coffee shop?? They discover they're both passionate about the same marriage-saving system and more. In this conversation, Martha sits down with Julie Shain to discuss how Fair Play transformed their marriages, reduced conflict by up to 70%, and created space for the lives they actually wanted to live.

Julie opens up about navigating marriage with three kids under five, the passive-aggressive WhatsApp chains that nearly broke her relationship, and how a simple card game became the foundation for sustainable change. Plus, she shares her expertise on building positive habits that actually stick...no perfection required.

• Why the "unromantic stuff" (laundry, dishes, logistics) can make or break your happiness
• How Fair Play reduced marital friction by 70% in Julie's household
• The research-backed reason you need to celebrate small wins (yes, even as an adult)
• Why "frequency first" is the secret to making habits stick
• How to recover from falling off a habit without throwing everything away
• The five stages of change and why relapsing is actually normal
• Practical tips for families with ADHD to implement Fair Play successfully

Julie Shain is a habit formation expert, writer, and mother of three living in Washington, DC. She created Inhabit, a newsletter and platform dedicated to helping people build sustainable positive habits. Drawing on research in behavioral psychology and her personal experience transforming her own family dynamics, Julie writes about everything from exercise and relationships to quality time and Fair Play implementation.

• Fair Play by Eve Rodsky (book and card game)
• How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids (book mentioned)
• Inhabit Quiz
• The Five Stages of Change
• Defeat the Troll Quiz
• Julie's IG
• Martha's IG

• Newsletter & Platform: getinhabit.substack.com

Love this episode? Share it with a friend who has ADHD, loves someone with ADHD or who's struggling with equity in manaing the home and family. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode!

• You keep trying to "fix yourself" with new routines and it never sticks
• You are exhausted from forcing systems that fight your brain
• You want to know when to tweak, and when to change the circumstance entirely

• Accommodations: changing how you access the thing, not the thing itself
• Modifications: changing the expectation, the workload, or the whole situation
• Why both are valid, and why one is not "better" than the other
• Real life examples: sleep, mornings, work schedules, and laundry

If something feels impossible, it does not automatically mean you are failing. It might mean you are trying to accommodate a system that actually needs a modification.

Sleep and mornings
• Accommodation: adjust bedtime routine, lower screens, simplify steps, optimize your room, set up a morning routine that helps you get moving
• Modification: negotiate a later start time, work from home, shift your work hours, or choose a job that matches your natural rhythm

Laundry
• Accommodation: lidless hamper, multiple hampers where clothes actually land, timers or NFC tags, a plan for the forgotten mildew load, systems that match your real day
• Modification: outsource laundry pickup and fold, then shift the family system to "put away only"

If you want help figuring out what to accommodate, what to modify, and what to throw out and rebuild completely, come work with me.
Find me at @marthahoffmancoaching and check the links in my bio.

Remember, you and your ADHD are not a problem to be fixed.

In this episode, I connect running advice to life with ADHD and all the pressure we feel to build perfect habits. We are told to add more and more habits, keep the streak going, never miss a day, and then we beat ourselves up the second we fall off. I am here to tell you that the real magic is in how quickly you restart, not how perfectly you never miss.

I will walk you through how to:

• Shift your focus from perfection to recovery
• Treat a missed day or a missed month as a normal part of being human
• Celebrate the 60 days you did the thing instead of obsessing over the 3 you did not
• Start again today instead of waiting for Monday or January
• Rewrite your identity from I never stick with anything to I restart quickly and I always come back

We will also talk about the sneaky stories you tell yourself about being someone who fails at goals and how to build a new identity around showing back up. Because your goals do not care if you were perfect. They care that you came back. This tiny mindset shift can completely reset your relationship with goal setting and make it so much easier to actually get where you want to go.