ADHD and successful in business? Is that possible?

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If you have ADHD and/or a dosage of Autism mixed in, it can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle to do all of the things you need to do to run your business and while it’s fun and better than working for someone else on some weird schedule, you can still find yourself pretty fast on a road to burnout if you’re not careful.

So, today I want to share some of the key changes I made in my business and work to make sure I don’t end up in that place ever again.

Most of the time we end up lost in our head and not listening to our bodies. We want to help people, we get excited, we say yes to things because they felt good in the moment, but we didn’t check in with reality.

So, the first thing I want you to do is to write down all the things that give you energy and then all the things that make you dread getting up and to work in the mornings. What feels light and fun and what feels like a black hole basically.

Here are some of my own light and funs and black holes:

Once you have this list (and make sure it’s nice and long and you have it easily accessible to make sure you can add more things as you work on your business!) then you can look at your current setup and offers to make sure that they’re mostly things that are actually light and fun and you limit black holes.

I for example stopped working with clients on retainer because it bores me and drains me. I schedule the one off projects and work with clients into fixed afternoons and have the rest of the week to myself to work on stuff in bursts because that’s what I like. I don’t work with clients that require calls just for the sake of a call. I don’t do “sales calls” much unless the person knows they want to work together and we’re putting the strategy together on when and how we can get the best results.

I outsource the tasks in the business I run with my partner (Pristine Podcasts, check out our support for business podcasters!). I hired a client manager and a sponsorship manager to make sure our clients are looked after day in day out without ME having to do that. That lets me focus on the strategic support for clients instead of answering emails and scheduling episodes to be edited.

There are ways out there for you to support your clients without constantly burning your candle on both ends. Have some fun with it!

We all have blind spots and while I’m usually in the camp of leverage your strength instead of “fix your weaknesses”, there are things that you just NEED to do because it’s part of running a business.

When you sell someone something and then you lose track of time and you don’t show up on the call it’s bad for business, and it will send you down and RSD and self-loathing spiral.

So I would strongly recommend that you find the patterns in your eff-ups - and put strategies in place to avoid shit blowing up.

Some of my strategies include:

Marketing and Business are ever-changing and the strategies and tactics that worked when I started 7 years ago haven’t worked for a while.

Every Sunday I send out the Sunday Scrappy Snippets - the latest scoop on marketing and online business direct to your inbox.

I always get anxious when I really want to focus on something and I cannot because I have a bunch of calls and client projects I MUST do and my whole day is full.

So I leave plenty of time in the day to hyperfocus on stuff I love. Like this week I’m feeling like writing blog posts and it’s just flowing out of me. This is not what I was planning to do, but I left time in my schedule to move things around so I can write. This isn’t a waste of time, it will help my business at some point and I’m letting myself engage with it until I’m done. And then I probably won’t write again for 2 months and I’m okay with that.

That brings me right to the next point - the idea of consistency. Doing something for 10 mins every day or for 1 hour every day. Screw that. I’m sorry it doesn’t work for me.

I would rather do something for 12 hours ONCE, than doing that thing once a week for 1 hour for 12 weeks because I “have to”.

Honestly over the long-term there is no benefit to writing one blog post a week for 12 weeks or writing 12 blog posts in 12 hours. So I choose option 2. I can get more done in one day hyperfocusing than 1 month of consistent daily implementation and I’ve learnt to be perfectly okay with that!

I know bedtime sucks, you may be struggling to sleep, maybe you have kids that want to ruin your life by keeping you awake, but I’m telling you. You need to sleep.

It will make pretty much all of your symptoms worse if you don’t get enough shut eye. Do it for yourself and your future success.

Say no to projects that seem really exciting but don’t really pay you all that much and give you a whole load of drama.

Say no when people want free advice no matter how exciting it is to be asked for your opinion.

Say no to family and friends that drain your energy.

You need to keep your spoons safe and every single thing that uses a spoon means that there is an important thing not getting done.

You can do anything, but you can’t do everything - that is what I truly believe.

Unless of course you want to get re-traumatised from school because you miss it so much.

They will often tell you the same things you’ve heard in school, they will not understand hyperfocus and how you think and work, they do not understand masking, autistic burnout and how hard a lot of things are for us.

Their advice on “how to run a business” will not work for you because it’s often just based on “here is what NT people do and what you need to do as well otherwise you’ll never make it”.

I used to hate coaching session because I’d provide a google doc with takeaway tasks afterwards etc. and it drives me crazy because once I’m done with our call I’m done.

So I just stopped doing it.

I send out the recording, everyone can run a transcript on it these days and get their own notes. Most people never even opened the Google Doc I sent them. The transformation is in the call NOT in the Google Doc with some notes.

I tell people ahead of time that I won’t be responding to messages all day, that I am not getting on weekly team calls just for the sake of it, I tell people that I need written information and instructions and this is how I work.

And if they don’t like it, I’m okay with it, because it will just cause me drama afterwards and no money is worth the stress. This was a hard lesson to learn, but your people are out there and you can find them.

Join a mastermind with other ND people so that you can share your strategies and learn from people with the same challenges as you, you will get way more support from people that get you and your challenges and won’t shame you for it.

This really is non-negotiable.

When you have trouble staying on task because it’s a big project and you’re procrastinating on it, try body doubling. You can use Focusmate to meet with other people to get stuff done. If you can’t do that because you hate people-ing too much, body double with a YouTube study video or a podcast, sometimes that works and feels like a little reward.

There are many ways for you to build a business that works for you, once you let go of the traditional way in which things “have to get done”. This takes a lot of unlearning, but it’s possible, and if you surround yourself with the right people you will have much more fun in the process!

Enjoy it!