Your Attention Please

A national survey of 1000 adults with ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder) was conducted recently in the US. What they found did not surprise me since they are the very issues my clients and I often coach around. Here’s what they found:

 I can tell you from personal experience both at home and in my business that this is a common problem. ADHD adults sincerely want to pull their own weight at home but they often forget their commitments because of chronically poor memory, they can’t get started as they struggle with procrastination and their easy distractibility means they rarely finish projects.

 50% of those employed worried that it could affect promotion possibilities.

ADHD adults make, on average, $5000 to $10,000 less revenue than their colleagues working at the same job because they struggle to get to work on time and to deliver quality work on time. They lose more than 20 days of productivity per year at work just due to distractibility and poor time estimating. Distractibility made 60% of ADHD adults unable to wrap up projects. Their poor quality output usually attracts negative attention so they are often passed over for promotions.

75% said ADHD greatly affected their ability to stay on task

Today’s work environment is not conducive to focusing on one priority or task at a time. Many distractions, such as email alerts and ringing phones, vie constantly grab your attention. In addition, ADHDers are interest-based performers, that is, they are able to stay on task when things interest them and they are able to work to their strengths, but they struggle to activate their brains activated in the face of boring tasks.

ADHD also affects their ability to work in teams

In today’s corporation, your ability to work in teams one of your most important skills. For many, team meetings or team activities take up a large portion of the work day, which makes it especially difficult to perform well for the 70% of ADHDers who said they had trouble concentrating on what others are saying, and for the 60% who reported it was difficult to sit still during meetings.

Unfortunately, reports of these types of research findings are rarely accompanied by offered solutions. Yes, these figures are alarming, but what can be done about it? Some companies are considering pre-emptive testing to ensure that they don’t hire ADHD adults. These corporations are likely to miss out on some excellent employees at a time when a company’s talent pool is its most important asset. After all, there is some good news.

These ADHD productivity issues are all manageable with appropriate training designed especially to help adults overcome the challenges of ADHD, training like The Maximum Productivity Makeover for ADHD Adults. With the right training and support, adults with ADHD will become valuable employees, contributing directly to the bottom line with their creativity, unconventional out-of-the-box thinking, and their high level of energy and passion.
 

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In an age where technology has made multi-tasking the norm, and where many people are overwhelmed by a life that comes at them from every direction, how does an adult with ADHD find the peace and comfort that only comes with the ability to focus?

Unlike neurotypicals, adults with ADHD struggle to keep their minds calm rather than bouncing randomly from thought to thought. While the external world delivers a whirlwind of distractions at the drop of a cell phone or remote, it’s an ADHDer’s internal fount of energy, echoing and multiplying that cacophony of distractions that is most difficult to reckon with.

What does this mean? Adults with ADHD often struggle to manage their energy, such that even the simplest task can become challenging. How to quiet the maelstrom and find some peace? While finding one’s passion is good advice for anyone, it’s even better advice for the adult ADHDer.

If you are an ADHDer, developing strategies to still your mind can be useful to help you unwind and relax, but to find focus, it may be more helpful to head in the other direction. What stimulates you in a positive sense? What makes your heart race, your voice speed up when you speak of it? Think of the warm, captivating feeling you have when you’re talking about something you like.

Professional athletes call this, “the zone.” Others with a more spiritual bent call it “a place of forgetting,” a place where you literally forget yourself because you’re so wrapped up in your passion. For the adult ADHDer, finding this place means finding the source of what fuels them. It’s your filling station, the place where you find the right kind of stimulation that will help you achieve the focus you need.

Combine this fuel with a clear vision of your life’s dream and you just might have a way to turn down the volume on the rest of your life. Do you want a house in the country, a job that involves visiting exotic locales? Paint that mental picture and dive in! Yes, there’s more to it; you’ll need help and surrounding yourself with supportive people is key, but it’s a great start.

Any successful person will tell you that finding your passion can be a lot like falling in love. For the adult ADHDer, the love affair is that much sweeter: there’s nothing like quieting that inner noise and succeeding at life on your own terms.

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