Your Attention Please

Our family life and Attention Deficit Disorder

I have exciting news. A reporter for The Globe and Mail interviewed me recently, and even sent a photographer to our home. The article is about the inspiration for my career change from successful pharmaceutical sales representative to ADHD Coach.

Many of you know I live with Attention Deficit Disorder in my own family. My husband and the younger of my two daughters were both diagnosed with ADHD about 14 years ago, and the dramatic improvement in my husband’s life after working with an ADHD Coach inspired my career change. I wanted to have that kind of positive impact on people’s lives.

This story appeared just as our American neighbors celebrate ADHD Awareness Week. Life with ADHD can be challenging. Resources are often costly and difficult to find. Affordable diagnostic services are rare, as are physicians aware and compassionate enough to understand the impact ADHD can have on sufferers and their families, and unfortunately, without appropriate help, ADHD adults often face serious problems at work and in their personal lives.

I’ve included a PDF file with a copy of the article as it appeared in The Globe and Mail on September 15, 2009. Pictured with me are my two ADHDers, husband Duane and daughter Kyrie. I’m very proud of Duane and Kyrie for having the courage to “come out” with their ADHD in such a public way.

Both Duane and Kyrie are committed to building ADHD awareness, especially of the difficulties ADHD adults face. They both hope sharing our story will inspire ADHDers and their families, and give them hope for the future. It can be difficult for ADHDers to track down the help they need, but don’t give up, because with the right help, as our family found, ADHD adults and their families can thrive.

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My husband, Duane, and I are packing our luggage to head home from a four-week vacation in Italy.  As we packed, I remembered our last European vacation together 25 years ago.  We had fun on that trip, but we had several heated arguments during a 10-day trip.  This current trip stands in sharp contrast, as we both enjoyed ourselves without arguing.

How did we do it? When there is only one person you can have a meaningful conversation with (Duane and I are both bilingual - French and English - but neither of us speaks Italian) you have an incentive to avoid pettiness.  And maybe a 25-year marriage has taught us how to live in harmony.  But over the last four weeks, I’ve discovered a few “secrets” I can share with you that may help you make your vacation a blissful time together.

1.    We both remained open to allowing the other person do what they wanted to do.

Duane is an artist and a life-long devotee of Michelangelo and other great artists of the Italian Renaissance.  He’s dreamed of this trip since childhood, and of course, wanted to experience all the art he’d only read about. I can confirm that there is a lot of art in Italy! I think Duane wanted to (and did) see it all!  Though I’m more of a history buff, I went along with him even if I didn’t think I’d be interested because I knew it was important to him.

On the other hand, I wanted to go to Venice. As a child, I watched a show about a boy and his pony in Venice that made me yearn to see it first hand. Duane wasn’t keen on Venice, but knowing how important it was to me, he even encouraged me to add an extra day to our side-trip to Venice so I could really explore the sites.

We each benefitted by allowing the other to do things that were important to them.  I learned to appreciate Renaissance art and artists, which I had always thought to be dark and morose, and Duane gained a lot of inspiration from Venice, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

2.    Consider the consequences of verbalizing petty annoyances (and ignore them.)

Many times, when Duane did or said things that annoyed me or when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I chose to ignore these feelings.  I knew they were not worth the fight and reminded myself that I must also be annoying him and he wasn’t mentioning it either.

Spend a lot of time together and you’ll get on each other’s nerves. You can choose to ignore it; you can even choose to be in a better mood. Yes, you can “choose” your mood.  You do have a choice in how you respond to your moods and your partner’s moods, and the choice you make can make or break your vacation.

3.    Enjoy what your partner brings to the mix.

Duane, like many ADHDers, often acts like a big kid, always finding or creating fun in any situation.  He also has a great sense of direction, where I have none - if I’d come to Rome on my own I might still be lost in some museum or other!  I enjoyed his playfulness and being able to find my way with him, while he relied on my communication and project management skills to organize our stay at the various places we visited and to “translate” in my very bad and shaky Italian what we wanted.

This was a trip of a lifetime for us, a trip we’d dreamed of for many years and budgeted and saved up for more than two years. Being able to spend it in harmony provided us with memories we will share and enjoy for years to come.

Ciao!

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ADHD money management is a paradox. The first thing financial experts say is never let anyone else have control of your money. The next thing they say is that you need to follow a strict budget, avoid impulsive spending and save for the future.

As an adult with ADHD, you know that is a recipe for disaster. After all, they are asking you to:

• pay attention to the details of a budget,
• consistently micro-manage your finances to get out of debt,
• eliminate impulsivity in your spending,
• planfor the future,
• organize all your bills and receipts,
• and so on…

It flies in the face of the very challenges ADHD adults face. Just think about how most ADHD adults see money management.

Typical ADHD Money Management

Budgets are so boring! Most people don’t use them, let alone ADHD-ers. Getting out of debt is the slow drip of water torture, unless you’re planning on winning the lottery! (Not an effective plan, by the way.) Eliminating impulsivity in something that’s as much fun as spending money? Forget it! Oh, and plan for the future? When there is only “now” and “not now,” you’re not going to put money you could spend NOW for sometime that is NOT NOW! Sound familiar?

Harv Ecker, the well-known author of “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind,” and a popular speaker on the subject of personal finances tells people that if you count on getting rich enough to have someone else take care of your money, you won’t make it. He explains that you won’t get rich if you don’t learn to manage your money, and you won’t stay rich if you let someone else take control of your money.

For adults with ADHD money management is so difficult that many (I’d even guess most) ADHDers never learn how to do it effectively. Studies show that on average ADHDers earn $10,000 less per year than non-ADHD-ers, and if you have trouble earning it, you’ll also having trouble keeping it. It doesn’t have to be that way though.

There are many ADHD-ers at the top of their game who excel in their careers, earning far above the average person with a comparable background. They’ve learned to work with their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. Your challenge is to become one of them, and it is possible, but it won’t happen by itself.

Learning ADHD Money Management

Where can you learn ADHD strategies for money management? Personal financial management is rarely taught in schools, so unless you’ve sought out extra education, you’re following the only financial model you’ve seen. You manage your money just like your parents. If your parents are excellent financial managers, if they are wealthy and are living the life style you dream of living in the future, good for you. However, if your parents aren’t living the life you want, it’s time to change your approach.

You can learn personal money management through books, seminars and classes. Unfortunately, even when they teach personal money management, nothing is said about ADHD money management, and without specific ADHD strategies, you might never get out of debt let alone build your savings. In traditional approaches, the first step to getting a handle on your finances is to “prepare a budget,” and as you know, those words will make almost any ADHD adult shudder in fear.

Keys to ADHD Money Management

While you can’t learn all about ADHD money management in one article (see here to learn more), to get your financial affairs in order, apply these three ADHD strategies. The three keys to ADHD money management are:

1. Pay yourself first. You must save for the future. At some point, your income may be interrupted. You may need or want to stop working, and if you have no source of income, you’ll need to survive on what you’ve saved for a rainy day. Your first priority must be to save up for that umbrella! If anyone counsels you to pay all your bills and put the rest into savings, run away! You already know there’s never any left to go into savings.
2. Make everything automatic. While you don’t want to delegate responsibility for your personal finances, you can make the decisions about your ADHD money management strategies and then set up systems to operate according to your wishes. When you drive a car, you decide to speed up and step on the gas. The car responds to your bidding, but it doesn’t demand that you get out and push it yourself. When you automate your payments, with Internet banking and other systems, you set the strategy so you’re not giving up control, but the system compensates for your ADHD challenges. You’ll save on late fees and interest charges by never forgetting a payment, and you’ll protect your credit rating too.
3. Use what’s left over for whatever you want. If you’re saving for the future and paying all your bills, any money that’s left is yours to play with! It’s now safe to be impulsive if you want. Even if you spend every penny left over, your financial success strategy is still executing perfectly. You can spend it all, or save for a big purchase like a dream vacation.

There are also excellent ADHD strategies you can put in place for special money management issues such as getting out of debt or buying a home. If money management is presenting a special challenge for you, you may want to consider ADHD coaching to ensure you’re working with someone who can help you set up systems that will meet your special ADHD needs. ADHD Money Management Coaching programs can help you put the right systems in place while you maintain control over your financial future.

Life’s Better with ADHD Money Management

While traditional approaches to managing personal finances may give you a headache, once you get an ADHD money management strategy established and the systems set up to make sure it’s executed as planned, things get really interesting. You see, once you stop concentrating on mundane tasks like paying bills, you can turn your attention to earning money. ADHD-ers actually have a good chance of outperforming the general population in terms of personal prosperity. Once you focus your energies on getting the most out of your strengths. Typically, an ADHD-er who chooses a career that plays to his or her strengths will excel far beyond the average person.

If you’d like to receive more details about ADHD money management and how you can improve your life by putting the right ADHD strategies into play, than can fit in this article, just enroll in this fr*ee ecourse at http://www.add-adhd-coaching.com/ADHD-money-tips.html. You’ll receive your first email immediately and you can get started on improving your financial future today.

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Are you having difficulty reaching goals? Around this time of year, New Year’s Resolutions usually fall by the wayside. The average New Year’s Resolution only lasts 17 days, so what makes reaching goals so hard? It doesn’t make a difference if it’s a New Year’s Resolution or the goals we set the rest of the year. They’re all hard work, often too hard!

Experts debate over the precise wording of goals, as if that would make it easier to quit smoking, lose weight or spend more time with your kids. No, the secret to reaching goals has nothing to do with the wording of your goals, or even which goals you choose.

Commitment vs. Striving

First, you must decide, once and for all, if you are committed, or if you are striving. Striving, of course, is hard work. If you are fully committed, however, you no longer need to strive. Striving requires that you push yourself. Commitment doesn’t require nearly the effort once you’ve made the decision. Most smokers will tell you that “trying to quit” doesn’t work. The day you commit, however, reaching goals becomes much easier. The day you become a non-smoker, success becomes inevitable. 

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Before saying anything, you need to answer a few questions for yourself:

1. What are my strengths?
   We all have them so dig deep
2. How is it helping me?
   One client told me that she had a lot of energy and her out-of-the box thinking heloped her solve problems more easily. Another who was a salesman found that clients liked to work with him because he always seemed to be “on the ball”. Another who was a social worker felt that she was better able to empathize with her clients
3. How is my ADHD hindering me at work?
   Difficulty with concentrating, with organizing, excessive perfectionism…
4. What is the specific problem I want help with?
   Can’t concentrate because of noise or traffic, difficulty getting organized so often looking for things, difficulty with constant distractions of email and phone, can’t seem to organize time well, etc.
5. What solutions do I want to propose?
   Will this solution help or should you consider a different career? What is the cost to the employer? Where can it be found?
6. How can your employer help?
   Do you need your employer to help defray the cost of coaching, provide you with an accommodation, change something in the way he or she works with you?
7. What’s in it for my employer? Why would your employer help you? What does your company stand to gain from reducing or eliminating your problem?

In most cases of course when your employer provides help, he or she ends up with a more productive employee; however, what is the benefit? Will you be able to get more done? Will you improve your sales? Will the quality of your work improve? It can also be an opportunity to solve a problem, or improve the way the company does things. For example, one client who got help with his productivity, was able to help other colleagues, non-ADHDers, also improve theirs.

 It will really help to know your strengths to give you confidence when you see your employer. Be prepared to offer information on the solution you are proposing so that you don’t have to run after him or her a second time.

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When they first contact me, many of my clients ask me where they can go to get the cure for ADHD. While medication can definitely help many adults with ADHD, they don’t eradicate it. They simply allow you to pay better attention so that you can learn to manage your ADHD. Managing it can feel like a chore but it’s worth it. I’ve already talked about others who have been successful with it.

What I have found over my years as ADHD Coach is that you need to work 6 building blocks to managing adult ADHD. They are the following:

1. Learn about and embrace your ADHD
While ADHD has likely been a very negative force in your life, knowing more about it will help you to develop the lifestyle that will help you manage your ADHD. You might even discover that there’s an upside to ADHD.

2. Learn and adopt effective productivity management
One of the biggest complaints my clients have around their productivity. As an adult with ADHD you need to learn not only time management the ADHD way, but also self-management, organizing, creating systems and overcoming procrastination, and more.

3. Develop emotional intelligence
If your history is like many of my clients’, you’ve had to and possibly still deal with some pretty negative forces in your life. A lifetime of failures, disappointments, and frustrations may lead to low self-esteem and a negative attitude. As an ADHDer you may also struggle with controling your emotions.

4. Create opportunities to self-actualize
Believe it or not, you have strengths, talents, a whole lot of untapped potential. Discovering and recognizing them are the first steps. You then need to create opportunities to live them, do more of them, and have a fulfilling life. You also need to take control of your financial health to help open opportunities for yourself.

5. Develop nourishing relationships
You teach people how to treat you. Developing nourishing and supportive relationships is your responsibility. Help your loved ones understand you and ask for their help to ensure they don’t sabotage your self-management. Learn good communication skills and reap the benefits in every part of your life.

6. Manage your life projects effectively
Life is made up of numerous projects. Clearing clutter, painting a room, looking for work, starting a business, even making supper, are all examples of projects. Managing projects effectively will help you greatly in managing your life.

As you can see, overcoming ADHD takes time and work. There is no magic pill. But I can tell you that you can have a happy and fulfilling life as an adult with ADHD and that you are worth the investment you make in yourself. Investing in yourself will have a positive outcome.

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A new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) lose approximately 22 work days a year! Imagine! That’s more than a month of productive time less than other people get to do their work, build their businesses, achieve their goals.

Of course, the study only focused on 8-hour work days. ADHDers lose productivity on their off hours as well, missing out on time for themselves and time to spend with their families. Entrepreneurs who typically work longer hours (because they have more to do AND because they love it) are probably losing far more of their time and energy into the productivity black hole.

Poor productivity and lost hours is one of the biggest complaints my ADHD clients come to me about. They often feel that time just slips through their fingers despite their best intentions, often leading to feelings that they aren’t living up to their full potential. Of course, it’s pretty hard to live up to your potential when you only have 11 months to do a full year’s work! The good news is that for adults with ADHD, with help to implement ADHD-friendly tools and strategies, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Once my clients learn to work with their ADHD instead of against it, they are amazed at the dramatic difference it makes in their lives, both at home and at work. It also often astounds me just what adults who have learned to work with their ADHD are capable of achieving. My clients frequently report productivity leaps using these special strategies and tools that let them deliver 8 hours worth of productivity in 5 hours.

Of course, as this WHO study proves, results like these are impossible to achieve without ADHD-friendly strategies. My clients learn to:

·        match tasks to their energy flows,

·        create systems to reduce or eliminate lost productivity,

·        eliminate procrastination

·        better prioritize so they work smarter instead of harder,

·        reduce or eliminate distractions,

·        master self-control and self-management, and to

·        take advantage of productivity tools and systems that protect your productivity like Fort Knox.

If you, like many of my clients, face ADHD or “entrepreneurial ADD” every day, and you’d like to learn more about how these ADHD-friendly productivity enhancing strategies can change your life, please enroll in this easy to follow email course (ecourse) at http://www.productivitymythsbusted.com

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When my prospects, who are adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD), call me they usually know about one or two symptoms that affect them. They think that ADHD is about being inattentive, impulsive or hyperactive. While I learned a lot from my ADHD coach training, the lights went on when I read the following definition:

“ADHD is a genetic, neurological difficulty of engagement with life activities on demand in which an individual’s performance, mood, and energy level are solely determined by that individual’s momentary sense of interest, challenge, novelty, and sometimes, urgency.”

Understanding this can help relieve a lot of the blame and shame. ADHD is a genetic neurological difficulty, which means it can’t be “cured” and is not a moral failing.

The difficulty of engagement with life activities on demand explains why at times you can’t concentrate while at other times you’re able to pay such attention that you can’t “disengage yourself”. You may not be able to concentrate on paperwork but when it comes to doing something that you have a lot of interest in, you’re able to “hyperfocus”, that is focus on this interest in such a way that you do at the exclusion of everything else.

Finally, the last section: your “performance, mood, and energy level are solely determined by [your]momentary sense of interest, challenge, novelty, and sometimes, urgency” gives you clues as to how you can manage your ADHD. When a task is boring, you can create interest or challenge or novelty to make it more likely for you to accomplish it. For example, you could improve your chances of completing a boring task by listening to music or changing where you complete it.

Unfortunately most ADHD adults use urgency by waiting until the last minute to complete these tasks. This may have worked in individual programs when you were 16 or 17 but when you work with teams (most work environments work with teams) and as you get older, using urgency is not a healthy way to work.

Tell me what have you done to make a boring task more interesting? With your amazing create out-of-the box thinking, I’m sure the suggestions can be very interesting

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When adults suspect that adult ADHD has been holding them back some will get diagnosed if they can find the resources, financial and clinical, to do so. Many ask me what the diagnosis can accomplish. There are many other problems that resemble ADHD symptoms and require a different way to manage them. I caution those who call me to make sure that they seek help from someone who is trained in assessing ADHD. Once it’s official some will feel relief and realize that they’re not crazy or “bad”. Eventually a certain number decide to turn to ADHD medications with the hope that this will cure them. While medications do make a difference by improving your ability to pay attention, and thus reducing the barriers to learning, it doesn’t solve your adult ADHD problem.

I believe that all adults with ADHD can achieve their full potential by empowering themselves with effective self-management and supportive systems and habits. Do achieve this you need to learn life skills that allow you to identify and develop your strengths and overcome your weaknesses well enough to function. For the next few posts I will be providing you with the steps to help you better manage your adult ADHD.

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 Dr. Annick Vincent, psychiatrist and ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder) expert in adults, presented on the portrait of ADHD from childhood to adult life during the LDAQ’s conference. I attended her 2 conferences on April 4th, one was for health professional and the other to the public.

An interesting statistic she mentioned was that 3 to 4% of adults have ADHD (some experts think the figure is closer to 10%). What was the most surprising what the fewer than 10% of adults with ADHD are diagnosed and treated! Imagine! 90% of ADHD adults are not diagnosted nor treated.

ADHD adults suffer many problems at work, in their interpersonal relationships, in their home lives, and their finances. They’re more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, cigarette and drug addictions, car accidents, bankrupcies, etc. Without knowing why they have so many problems, they tend to think that it’s their fault and that despite strong efforts, donc seem to be able to overcome them. Treatment with medications help 70% of ADHD adults; however, these adults alos need to learn about ADHD and create, often with the help of an ADHD Coach, strategies that will allow them to improve their life. At times, psychotherapy is necessary. Dr. Vincent also mentioned that it is one of the easiest disorders to treat.

What do you think? Why are so few adults with ADHD treated? What could be done to improve on this?

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