Success with ADHD is possible.
(with a little translation.)
We believe this so strongly that we created an entire show with the premise of helping adults with ADHD find greater success. Our biggest hangup was how to take the highly individualized work we do as coaches and translate (ha, get it?!) it to a show that has something for every listener. Thus was born our trademark process.
Understand it. Own it. Translate it.
Before we get to the steps, one big caveat: Our intention here is not for you (or us!) to fully complete a step before moving on. Rather, the goal is for you to use these steps to tackle individual ADHD related challenges, to consider them in terms of your ADHD and how it shows up for you, and to ultimately have a greater understanding of how your ADHD is showing up in the context of that challenge to create meaningful and sustainable change.
Understand it: Learn the art of awareness.
A recurring pattern we’ve noticed in our years as ADHD coaches is that while most of our clients are aware they have ADHD, most are not aware of how and when their own ADHD shows up.
Why does this matter?
To put it simply, the way the world works is not designed for us. It is designed for the neurotypical majority. When those of us with ADHD try to apply neurotypical solutions to ADHD challenges, we are actively working against the way our brains process information and understand the world around us.
To complicate matters, because we tend to live in now or not now, those of us with ADHD are not very good at reflecting on and learning from past experiences in a meaningful way. Our ADHD actually stands in the way of building the meaningful awareness that we can leverage into learning and new habits. The good news here is that this skill can be learned by developing a sense of curiosity and becoming keen observers of our experiences.
Own it: Be your authentic self.
Have you ever found yourself actively trying to hide your ADHD tendencies? Do you feel like an impostor trying to fit in with the neurotypical world around you? Yeah, we’ve been there too.
Owning our ADHD does not mean not managing our ADHD.
Owning our ADHD allows us to take the new understanding we’ve developed and turn it into steps, actions, strategies, and processes that work with our unique brain wiring instead of against it, without spiraling down the vortex of self judgement about our ADHD tendencies.
Translate it: Articulate your ADHD experience.
If your experience is anything like ours, you’ve had people in your life who judge you as lazy, unreliable, or unmotivated. The recurring theme of our childhoods was something like: he’s smart but lazy, she would do well if she would just try harder.
That’s where translating comes in. See you, like us, have known that you are different your entire life, but maybe you’ve never been able to adequately explain why to the neurotypicals in your life.
When we understand how and when our ADHD shows up, and we own it to a point that we know what we can change and what needs to be managed, we can better articulate those truths to the people that matter.
The real power of translating is in being able to help the neurotypicals in our lives understand why what might seem easy to them is hard for us, why we sometimes falter despite the best intentions, and how we can work together with those who care about us to foster mutual support and to create solutions that work for everyone.
But translating doesn’t end there. We view translating as something that surpasses effective communication. Understanding, owning, and translating ADHD is about learning about our own ADHD experiences to ultimately leverage it and engage at a more effective, more fulfilling level than ever before. Applied knowledge is truly powerful!
