Work With Your ADD

Although I'm currently out on maternity leave, I've taken the time to prepare some newsletters for you while I'm away! I thought this would be a great time to review The 5 Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD that I detail in my book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD, and in my new Odd One Out Home Study Coaching Program.

 

ADD Management Skill #2: Work With Your ADD

The biggest mistake that I see adults with ADD make is that they try to do things just like everyone else. But when you’re wired differently than the vast majority of the people around you, trying to be like everyone else just doesn’t work.

The people around you - your friends, your coworkers, and certainly many members of your family - go through their lives and do things a certain way. They have certain systems they follow to make their lives easier. They may have their desk organized a certain way, and they may go food shopping twice a week, or wash the dishes right after dinner every night.

And these systems are definitely a good thing - when the person who’s following them creates them based on what will make their life easier. But you can’t be successful trying to emulate other people’s systems. You have to create your own systems, taking into account your own personality and your own strengths and challenges. And you most certainly have to take into account your own ADD! Unfortunately, this is where a lot of adults with ADD get tripped up.

As a person with ADD, you may need to have your desk organized completely differently, in a way that makes sense only to you. And you may have to delegate the food shopping trips, or wash the dishes in the morning, instead of the evening. It’s all individual, and what matters is what makes life easiest for YOU!

The problem is that, in our society, we’re often taught that different equals bad. In your early life, you were probably made aware of your differences when the people around you pointed them out.

• Your parents may have called you lazy because you had no interest in cleaning your room. (I know I got that one!)
• Your teachers may have told you that you didn’t apply yourself because you daydreamed in class.
• Your friends may have commented that you never paid attention to the rules of the game.

But these behaviors in and of themselves aren’t bad, they’re just different than those of most other kids. And over time, you start to internalize all these differences as criticisms of who you are and how you naturally do things.

Then, in adulthood, things suddenly become worse because YOU become the one who points out those differences yourself. You see others around you going about their lives in ways that are foreign to you, and you convince yourself that they know something you don’t. You convince yourself that you don’t measure up. And you judge yourself, probably VERY HARSHLY, for not being like everyone else.

As long as you continue to judge yourself for your differences, you’re working against your ADD. You have to embrace who you are as a whole person, challenges and differences included, if you want to find the systems and solutions that are going to make your life easier. When you can do that, you can work WITH your ADD, not against it.

How do you work with your ADD? Please share your thoughts with other readers in the comments below!

 

How to Master the 5 Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD

Are you STILL struggling with chronic overwhelm, self-doubt, poor time management, and other ADD-related challenges?

Let me show you exactly how to master The 5 Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD so that you can embrace your inner maverick and move forward in life!

If you’re like many of the adults with ADD that I hear from, then you’ve read my book, Odd One Out: The Maverick’s Guide to Adult ADD, and it really hit home with you.

You’d love to work with me one-on-one to dig into the concepts and strategies covered in the book but, unfortunately, private coaching isn’t an option for you right now.

Now there’s another option. I created a home study program that will coach you to:

• Embrace your inner maverick
• Break the cycle of chronic stress, overwhelm, and burnout
• Learn how to accept and work with your own ADD
• Focus on your strengths and think more positively
• Take control of your space, time, and tasks
• Give yourself permission to live out loud!

The Odd One Out Home Study Coaching Program allows me to be your personal ADD coach from afar, and it’s the next best thing to working with me privately. It features 3 audio CDs, an 85+ page workbook, and a goal setting action guide. I walk you through each chapter in the book and show you exactly what it takes to build and apply each of the 5 Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD.

Life with adult ADD really doesn’t have to be so hard. You’re not stuck living a life of stress and disappointment. I’ve coached hundreds of adults to embrace their inner maverick and live happy and successful lives. You can absolutely take control over your ADD and turn things around! And I can help you do it with the Odd One Out Home Study Coaching Program.

Retail Price: $197 + S&H $147 with FREE Shipping in the US and Canada Save $59.95!

This introductory price is available to the first 50 people who order the home study program. (Over half available at this price have already been sold.) Offer expires March 1, 2011, or when the first 50 orders are placed. Comes with a 90-day, 100% money-back guarantee!

Learn more here.

Comments

[Carmen]

My dad would get me to help him with things around the house or the yard and when I would take a long time getting something done or unable to do something, he would tell me "Don't be stubborn. If you can't do it one way, you have to try another way to get it done."

An example of how I work with my ADD - Some people study sitting at their desk. I can't do that. I'll walk around the house after I've read a sentence or I'll go do something else. So I've started studying while I'm working out at the gym. And I find that I get more studying done while I'm running on an elliptical or running on the treadmill than I would if I were sitting at my desk.

[Trischa]

Today's subject really hit home. I have tried everything to keep an organized home office and desk area. I am beginning to realize that I work best off of the floor. If I can keep all binders, etc. within reach on the lower shelves, it gives me the freedom to pull out whatever I need (and usually a bit more), the space to spread it out in a "haphazard" manner, and actually get things accomplished. Putting it away is not as big of a challenge, either.

[Frustrated with ADHD]

Im finding that when I DO try to 'conform', I get ridiculed, so either way, THEY JUST DONT GET IT. And I just dont get why THEY dont get it either, and we go back and forth like ping pong balls and eye for an eye. Its very frustrating and maddening; here I am trying to accept it, yet the 'other side' thinks Im not trying to 'come over to the other side'...I say it cant be done, and then Im accused of not trying hard enough...it really hurts...

[brenda]

thank you for your wonderful article..it is
so comforting to hear other a.d.d.'s ways
they do things...i have transformed some of
my beliefs about being a.d.d. and an artist,
creative visionary person..i realize this is
a big one for me as my family believes in
obey authority, conform etc...my strengths
are in my creativity and intuition...it has
been difficult to know this without others
who understand..helps to hear all of you...
my new affirmation: i value my creative way
of doing things...