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Hello Brains!
So I was talking to Brendan Mahan of ADHD Essentials on his podcast earlier.
And we were talking about how neither of us really gives ourselves credit
for... what we do... right,
and how common that is with ADHD.
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As we go through life, those of us with ADHD tend to be corrected more often
or tend to be judged for not being where we should be
or as mature as we should be
or as good at basic humaning skills...
All the markers of being an adult, things like
showing up on time and being organized and being responsible
and all of these things that are things we should be,
are things that we tend to struggle with.
And, because of that, I think it's really easy for us to be
extremely focused on the things that we're not good at
because they tend to be the things that
society tells us we're supposed to be good at, by now at least.
And, the truth is, the things that society tends to expect of us,
or jobs/employers,
they're measuring by neurotypical standards.
So by neurotypical standards, a good employee is one who shows up on time
and is consistent and reliable and does their job without complaining and
all of these things that we tend to think of as like, "oh, that's a good employee."
But really... is it?
Things like staying focused are prized but so is innovative thinking.
That thinking outside the box and...
and coming up with new ideas and creative solutions.
That tends to be stuff that those of us with ADHD are really good at
but don't necessarily give ourselves credit for.
Because those things are things that...
actually require... being distracted.
We don't give ourselves credit for the things that we're accomplishing
that maybe nobody expects us to accomplish but are nonetheless extremely valuable.
And we can get stuck in a situation where we're so focused on the things we're bad at
that we never take advantage of our strengths.
I remember hearing once that the people who are actually successful
are not the people who get good at... the things that they're bad at.
They're the people who focus on the things that they're good at
who really take advantage of their strengths.
And that's essentially what I did starting this channel.
I stopped putting all of my energy into things like
keeping my car clean or making sure my house was in order
before somebody came to visit, and started just accepting
that I struggle with that stuff and putting my energy into things
where, in retrospect, I did have strengths, I didn't know that at the time
but I do have strengths in terms of curiosity and
being able to put things together in interesting new ways.
I have a strength of being able to simplify complex information,
and I didn't use to think that was a strength.
I used to think of that as I'm just not good at, I don't know, elaborate poetry.
I'm not really good at long, flowery sentences.
Everything I tried to write came out really simple and basic. But that's a skill!
And it's one that would never have recognized if I had just
continued to try to focus on making myself be good at... file folders.
So for judging ourselves by neurotypical standards
and assigning our value based on that,
of course we're gonna feel "less than".
Because, it's really easy to look at somebody who is neurotypical
and responsible and reliable and... you know, all of these things,
and say, "well I'm not that, and that's what society values, so... I'm not valuable."
I think for those of us that...
perpetually get the message that we aren't valuable...
that we look for a value.
And I think that's true whether we're talking about our brain or,
or somebody we love.
We have to look for that value because it's not where society expects it to be.
We have different brains, we're functioning on different operating systems.
And so I think it's important that we sometimes go looking for what we're good at
because we're constantly reminded that we are not good at the things that
we're "supposed to be" good at.
So here's the thing: some of the things that people with ADHD are good at
are not things that people would consider basic.
They're kinda more advanced skills really.
A lot of employers want somebody who has the ability to innovate,
somebody who thinks outside the box.
Those are considered valuable skills. Not everybody is creative,
and those of us with ADHD tend to be. We're really good at something called
"divergent thinking", coming up with a lot of different ideas.
We're not as good at
At least compared to the massive volume of ideas that we have.
But I think because nobody is telling us that that
like, "okay, you're being an adult when you're really good at innovative thinking."
It's really easy to compare ourselves to things that this...
that society does consider a benchmark.
It's really easy to say, "well, I will be an adult when
I can stay on top of paying my bills and my credit is good and
I can hold down a job for more than two years without getting bored,"
like, that's the mark of being an adult. But maybe it's not for us.
I think we need to give ourselves more credit... for our strengths.
I think we need to give ourselves more credit for the things we're good at,
and give ourselves more credit for the things that we accomplished,
despite the level to which we struggle with things.
And I think this is especially important when you have the kind of brain that
wants to attempt 50 different things, all at the same time... every day.
It's easy to get frustrated with ourselves at all the things that we failed to accomplish,
but we forget, we also are trying to do a lot more,
that lack of convergent thinking, that lack of like,
the ability to narrow things down means we do try to do a lot at once
and maybe our little timeline, we're not aware of what our capacity actually is,
and so, yeah, we also fail a lot.
We're trying a lot of new things, we're going after a lot of things,
and when that happens, you're gonna miss the mark on a lot,
you're gonna fail a lot, and that's ok. It doesn't mean you didn't succeed.
It can help, I think, sometimes to look back and just...
point out to yourself your accomplishments like,
Yeah, today I had to change my shirt before we shot because I... spilled on it.
You know what I also did that I need to give myself credit for right now?
I was an a podcast earlier but like, I brushed right past that and went to,
"Oh yeah, but I spilled something on my shirt. I suck!"
Why do we do this to ourselves?
We are so used to rehearsing and beating ourselves up
and have this negative self-talk from just... years and years of being corrected
for all the things that we're doing wrong.
Because when we're in school like, you know,
you
and do all these things that are hard for us.
So we kind of get used to
the way our brains work and where our strengths lie
not being what's valuable.
The truth is, society standards for employees, for children, for students, for women
are not ADHD-friendly.
If you have a brain that develops a few years behind your peers,
like an ADHD brain does,
the whole "be mature, act your age, you should be able to do this by now"
doesn't actually apply to us but we do internalize that.
And so I think it's important that we create our own markers for success,
our own markers for what's good enough.
Because it's not gonna be that!
Executive function in neurotypical brains finishes developing at age 25.
And that's why we consider executive function
relevant to, you know, being an adult.
But in ADHD brains, it actually develops a few years later,
it finishes developing by 28, and even after that it's still impaired.
So, it develops more slowly, it finishes maturing later, and it's still impaired.
And so we can't hold ourselves to the same standards.
And we can't say that that is what makes us valuable,
or that is what makes us adults, because the truth is,
we're gonna be adults and still be struggling with that.
We have to find other ways to measure our value,
whether that's how we're thinking about our employees and their contributions,
I don't think consistency is the only measure.
I don't think the same output every day is what makes a valuable employee.
And the way that I run my company is that we build those expectations in.
We expect people to have bad brain days
and we expect people to have brilliant productive ones
and that's... fine. Right?
Showing up exactly on time for most jobs is not actually that important,
and we place this high level of importance on it for some reason
to the point where we devalue ourselves and our efforts and our contributions
because we aren't meeting these very specific neurotypical standards.
Society is going to tell us that we are not good enough
and that we are not doing enough
and that we are not trying hard enough.
We have to tell ourselves, "this is what I did well!
This also matters! This is valuable! And I don't have to meet those standards!"
And that can be hard in a society that is telliing you otherwise,
and it can be hard when you've gotten fired from the third job
for not meeting those standards.
One of the things I'm doing to help me focus on what I'm good at is
exploring my creative side a bit more.
My creative director Palestrina and I painted these pictures together.
It was my first time painting
and it got me really curious to learn more about how to do it.
So, I decided to see if there's a course on painting on Wondrium
... which of course there was!
Wondrium, if you don't know it, is the rebrand of the Great Courses Plus
which I've talked about on this channel before.
And it's basically designed for curious brains.
I threw this course on 1.5x speed and in an hour,
I learned more about painting than I had in any art class.
I thought that everything you put on canvas had to look good
because paint is permanent.
And so it's been easy for me to get discouraged when something I paint
doesn't turn out the way I wanted right away.
But the professor explained that you actually have to build the foundation
before you can add the details that make it look pretty.
So it might look terrible for the first half of the painting and that's okay.
I knew that that was true about writing, my first drafts are always terrible.
But it blew my mind true of art as well.
I love Wondrium because everyting I wanna learn, they have a course on it.
And the professors are really encouraging. And they have a lot of stuff.
From howto's, tutorials, documentaries and more,
Wondrium is where you can find the answer to
pretty much everything you've ever wondered about.
It's a subscription-based streaming service
and they're constantly adding new courses.
Which gives us Brains lots of opportunities to explore our interests
and figure out what we're good at.
Wondrium is offering a free trial right now,
and they're regular supporters of this show.
So, by supporting them, you're also supporting us.
If you'd like to try it out, go to: wondrium.com/howtoadhd
or click on the link in the description below to start your free trial today.
I'm gonna try and... walk my own talk right now and...
list some things that I'm good at.
And this is hard. Because I know. I can tell you the things I'm impaired at,
I can tell you the things that I'm bad at, I've said it a million times,
I've heard it a million times.
But I'm not entirely sure I can tell you exactly what I'm good at
... but I'm gonna try.
I am good at divergent thinking.
I'm good at coming up with a lot of ideas.
I'm good at simplifying complex information.
I'm a good science communicator.
I can understand the research well enough to explain it
and then do a good job explaining it in a way that anyone can understand.
This is hard.
Finding the value in others.
I'm good at working hard to make up for the fact that I'm not good at stuff.
I don't know if you consider that something to be good at but...
I have a good work ethic.
This is not right
that I can tell you all of the things that I'm bad at and I've heard them a million times
but I don't know what I'm good at.
So yeah, that's... that's my challenge to you.
Start rehearsing what you're good at, what your strengths are,
whether they have anything to do with ADHD or not.
Because society is going to remind us what we're not great at
and they're not necessarily gonna tell us... what we are.
That's our job!
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