By Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG – March 13, 2023
When you’re observing someone else, it can be easy to make judgments and describe who they are and what they do. When you have to turn the tables on yourself, particularly if you have ADHD, it can be challenging. This is especially true if you are a creative type or a problem solver.
When emotions come into play, they can overwhelm you and make it difficult to articulate who you are and what you do. Continue reading “ADHD: A Different Mindset to Selling Yourself”
Many with ADHD are stuck applying the obvious solution as if they are the same as everyone else. The bottom line is this: Those who are diagnosed with ADHD have brains that are just wired differently.
Do you control what you pay attention to? Think about it! On the one hand, we have politicians, marketers, and corporate America all fighting to gain control of what we pay attention to for their own self-serving benefit. On the other hand, we have our pets, friends, parents, kids, and significant others all desperately vying for us to pay attention to them. Let’s face it, paying attention is hard work! It takes effort… and lots of it. 
Athletes who have ADHD often suffer from psychological issues such as depression or anxiety and other emotional challenges that stem from ADHD. These athletes may experience less than ideal performance on the playing field. As an ADHD and attention coach, this topic is significant as I coach sports players who suffer from symptoms of ADHD in their performance, both on the field and off.
During the COVID pandemic, many people had no recourse but to work from home. Unfortunately, they struggled with getting things done and their productivity declined, perhaps for one simple reason. There’s no one around to take off some of the stress on your working memory. The home environment is much different from the workplace where others are around and are readily available for interaction. So, working at home means you often don’t have an accountability partner. 
Knowing what works for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is just as important as knowing what does not work. Some of the tactics you use might not be helping. In fact, they might even exacerbate your symptoms. For example, pressure to perform based on other people’s ideas of how you should perform almost always leads to failure because it doesn’t work and it’s detrimental. For those with ADHD, doing things that do not fit their natural way of doing things can often paralyze them at most and at least inhibit their performance. 
Organizing things is a real challenge, especially for those with ADHD. They think they’ll just jump in and start organizing until they get into a mess and then things seem to explode.
Time and again, I have written about attention, and time and again, I have tried to illustrate that whatever seems to be obvious to you is a function of what you are paying attention to. So, if you want to pay attention to the right thing, then you need to pay attention to how things work by focusing on the process, not the result. To demonstrate that I really do practice what I preach, I will share with you an experience of how I put these principles into play a few days ago in my own life. 
Since the early 19th century ushered in the Industrial Revolution, we as a society have evolved from a one-size-fits-all way of doing things to a more highly customizable system of producing consumer goods. Now, humankind itself is finally starting to develop a better understanding of, and appreciation for, the diverse makeup of its people. More and more advocates are focusing on differences in ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. When it comes to neurodiversity, however, for the most part, many are still silent.