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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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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I attended the LDAQ conference last week that took place in Montreal and also participated as a speaker on ADHD for this event. There were few sessions on adult ADHD as the conference was more geared to teachers and school personnel.

One thing that I really enjoyed was that there was no dispute about whether ADHD exists. By contrast, you can’t surf the Web or open a newspaper without someone disputing ADHD or sensationalizing and calling into question what they call “doping” of kids with ADHD. One thing that was highlighted was that to date no other treatment alone has as much positive impact on ADHD than medications for improving ADHDer’s lives.

Dr. Annick Vincent, a Quebec city psychiatrist who has devoted a large part of her practice to ADHD in adults likens the use of medications to wearing a pair of glasses when you’re nearsighted. While it won’t show you how to read, it will improve your chances of being able to learn to. She also mentioned that along with medications, learning new strategies through coaching for managing your life goes a long way to improving a person’s life.

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One of my clients told me about an interesting video game she found out about that helps manage your moods every day. While it is not specifically for ADHD, ADHD adults can definitely benefit from it. Many of my clients have difficulty with managing their mood. They can get down on themselves and have to deal with so much more crap than most people.

It was developed by a social psychologist and tested at McGill University on telemarketers to see if it improved their outlook on life and their sales by improving what they paid attention to. And it did, not only that, but just by playing the video game 5 mintes a day, it also improved their self-esteem and their sales.

Basically the video game shows you different types of faces, you have to click on the ones who smile. Eventually, you get to the point where they are the only ones you see, that is, you filter out the grumpy or threatening faces and pay more attention to smiling faces.

Here are the conclusion:  “…whereas people with lower self-esteem tended to show a pronounced attentional bias toward threat, this tendency was essentially removed if they first played the find-the-smile game. This suggests that attentional habits can indeed be trained by practicing the ability to orient toward positive and away from negative social feedback.”

They offer free trials and you can purchase with unlimited use at $19.95 Canadian.

I tried it and found that I was smiling more at the end of the session, but then again, I tend to be a pretty happy person. Managing your mood whether you’re an ADHD adult or not, is a choice. I can tell you that deciding to stay positive and happy leads to success.

I’d love for those of you who try it out to let me know how it went. Click here to try it

Don’t worry, be happy.

Linda

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“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain” (author unknown)

I heard this quote on a show about autism and realized how powerful it was. So many people facing adversity have unrealized dreams (writing a book, starting a business, getting healthy, etc…. what’s your dream?) They’re waiting for things to be perfect before they start on THE big project.

As an ADHD adult, you know things will never be perfect. Heck, if you’re human, things will never be perfect. You’ll wait your little heart out if you’re looking for perfection. It’s not going to happen, and in the meantime, you’re missing an opportunity because you’re putting the cart before the horse.

That “big project” you’re planning (after the storm has passed of course) may be just the motivator you need to improve your life. That big project or exciting goal will often give you enough energy to resolve the very issues that are holding you back.

Are you waiting until you get organized, learn to manage your time, improve your finances or overcome your tendency to procrastinate? You’ll wait a long time. But if you go ahead and start, if you get excited about what you’re doing, you’ll have the fuel you need to resolve those issues and more.

Don’t wait. Dig out your umbrella, put on your rain coat and set out on your adventure. You may be surprised to find that while it is stormy where you are, the storm will pass, and it’ll pass faster if you’re moving forward.

Once you start your project, you’ll be far more motivated to get your “s**t together” and learn to better manage your money, your time, your relationships, yourself… The road won’t always be smooth, and you may stumble from time to time, but when you set your sights on an exciting objective, you’ll have the energy to get back up and get over, or through, any obstacle.

Are you waiting for the storm to pass? Come dancing!

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I’m so excited about this and really have to tell someone. First, I’ve put up a blog and have been contributing to the addcoachingblog, and there’s more… Ready, here it is: I’m writing a book on productivity management for ADHDers. I started in September with an idea and in October with an outline and am happy to say the first draft is almost finished.

A lesson learned…

As I am writing this book, I realise just how difficult it is to create the routine of writing. I’ve tried many formulas but have found that what worked best for me is the same as what I would suggest to a client with ADHD. That is, to attach this routine to another one that I already are consistently doing. Being a believer in the importance of breakfast, I never miss it so I’ve been writing while I’m having breakfast. As a result, I’ve been writing consistently at least one hour a day every day.

What routine do you want to create in your life? Can you anchor it to another one you’re already doing?

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