The ADHD Guide to Career Success

Harness your Strengths, Manage your Challenges

Kathleen G Nadeau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317527640
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Aufmerksamkeitsdefizitsyndrom (ADS-ADHS)

Just as the classroom poses the greatest challenges for children and teens with ADHD, the workplace is the arena where Adult ADHD poses the greatest threat. And while adults with ADHD are likely to face professional challenges, it is possible to cultivate a work environment that enables them to thrive and uses the strengths of this unique condition to their advantage. Featuring a large open format with summaries at the beginning of each chapter and designed with the ADHD reader in mind, this newly revised and updated edition offers an easy-to-follow progression of useful information interwoven with practical strategies for career success.

1
Harness Your Strengths, Manage Your Challenges: An Overview

In this Chapter

Don’t usually read books? Never fear–this book is written in an ADHD–friendly, easy-to-read style. This chapter introduces you to the main ideas of the book: that you need to identify and harness your strengths and learn to manage your ADHD challenges, identifying the best job setting for your unique needs. I’ll teach you how to do this in the chapters that follow.

If you are starting to read this book, chances are you are an adult with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or the parent of a young adult with ADHD who is trying to learn as much as possible about how to choose or change to a career path in which you (or your loved one) can succeed. The first thing to understand is that there are huge differences among individuals with ADHD—so there is no one-size-fits-all answer to finding a successful career path. You are more than your ADHD—you are a complex individual with interests, abilities, education, experience, and temperament that have to be taken into account as well to find a career path that allows you to function at your best.

First, I’d Like to Introduce You to How to Use This Book

If you’re like many adults with ADHD, you may have difficulty staying focused on a book long enough to finish it. Don’t worry. This book is designed to be ADHD friendly. Don’t feel obliged to read straight through it from beginning to end. The best approach is to thumb through the book (chapter topics listed in the margins make it easier to find what you’re looking for). Then read the brief description located at the beginning of a chapter that catches your eye. By reading the summary, you can quickly decide whether to continue or to move on to a topic more relevant to you and your circumstances.

The Format

Other ADHD–friendly features of this book are that information is presented in “digestible bites” suitable for people who have difficulty with extended concentration. Even people without concentration problems will appreciate the book’s convenient format.

• • A descriptive synopsis at the beginning of each chapter
• • A clear writing style
• • Personal stories that can illustrate and help you relate to topics covered in the book
• • Catchphrases designed to help you recall key ideas
• • Chapter topics printed in the right-hand margins of each page, allowing you to thumb through the book to easily find what you’re looking for
• • Clear labels for the sections and subsections of each chapter that together create a chapter outline, emphasizing key points
• • Open layout with more white space to reduce eyestrain
• • Visual stimulation through good graphic design

“ADHD Friendly” = “User Friendly”

Catchphrases (Aphorisms)

Benjamin Franklin was a master of aphorisms and used many in Poor Richard’s Almanack:¹

Most of us are familiar with some of his sayings, such as:

A stitch in time saves nine.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

There are some ADHD experts who even suggest that Benjamin Franklin was an adult with ADHD who developed effective tools for memory and organization as ways to compensate for his ADHD symptoms!² As you can see, many of his best-known sayings relate directly to difficulties experienced by most adults with ADHD.

Following Ben Franklin’s example, you will find ADHD–friendly advice throughout this book presented in brief, easy-to-remember fashion, such as:

A short list is better than a long memory!

or

Do it now or write it down!

These phrases are ADHD–friendly memory tools to help you remember the essence of what I explore at greater length.

As children with ADHD leave their school years behind, work becomes the arena of challenge and opportunity. This book is written in an effort to provide much-needed assistance to young adults as they make career choices and to mid-career adults who may find themselves struggling in jobs or careers that prove to be a poor match for them. I’ll also offer lots of tips for people who want to perform better at work. Sometimes the problem is not a poor job match but rather the need to develop habits and systems to be more productive and effective. The information you’ll find in this book is derived from my experience over the course of several decades in working with adults with ADHD who have job-related concerns.

Many of the things we do at work require the skills taught during our school years. At work, most of us must read, write, make calculations, organize and carry out projects, meet deadlines, learn new information, and pay attention during meetings and lectures. The difference is that there are many choices once school years are over. These choices make it easier to find work that does not require you to function primarily in areas of weakness. One goal of this book is to help you to understand your ideal work environment and then help you to find or create a work environment that meets your needs. Of course, no work environment is a perfect match, but the better you understand your needs, the better you can accurately assess how well you will function in jobs you are considering.

The ideal job for you is not only determined by your challenges. Even more important are your gifts, talents, and interests that will make certain careers much more satisfying and successful than others. In the chapters to come, I will help you learn to advocate for your needs at work, teach you techniques to better manage your ADHD symptoms at work, and help you understand the workplace environment in which you will function best. What you learn from this book will increase your odds of making ADHD–smart workplace choices.

Over the years, adults with ADHD have taught me a great deal that I will pass along to you. The process of understanding their patterns, struggles, and successes has been one of mutual discovery for my clients and me. Many have developed ingenious and effective means of coping with their challenges. Their self-observations, their perspective on career success and failure, and the techniques they have developed to cope with frustrating ADHD symptoms have been incorporated in this book. While this book was written primarily for adults with ADHD, it can also be useful for relatives, employers, coworkers, and career counselors as well.

Harnessing Your Strengths—Some ADHD Traits Can Lead to Career Success

Most of what you will read about ADHD views it as a “disability” or “condition” that requires “treatment.” In contrast to this disability model, I have come to think of ADHD as a type of brain—one that struggles with certain types of tasks but also one that brings with it characteristics that can be tremendously positive in the right context. The very traits that may have caused you difficulty during your school years may become the traits that can lead to your career success. Hyperactivity can translate into the drive and high energy so typical of successful entrepreneurs. Risk taking that can lead to broken bones in childhood can morph into a willingness to take risks that is necessary for the entrepreneur or creative adult. Curiosity that may have resulted in distractibility during school years can lead an ADHD adult to see unlikely connections and new discoveries.

How Common Is ADHD?

The behaviors related to ADHD are among the most common reasons children are referred for psychological treatment. Statistics vary, but a CDC report in 2011³ states that approximately 11% of the school-age population had been diagnosed with ADHD. Other reports suggest that approximately 60% of children with ADHD continue to have significant symptoms of ADHD in adulthood. In 2006,⁴ a study found that between 4 and 5% of adults have ADHD. Certainly, a much greater percentage of adults struggle significantly with some aspects of ADHD. While there are those who believe the majority of children with ADHD outgrow their symptoms, ADHD is a lifelong condition to some extenxt for the majority of those who are affected.

ADHD is a genuine neurobiological disorder, one that, if untreated, can cause enormous difficulty and suffering in the lives of those who have it. ADHD is a condition that deserves careful diagnosis by a trained professional, a diagnosis that should only be made if symptoms have a long-term, significant effect on the functioning of an individual. That said, most of what you’ll read about ADHD in the media only focuses on the challenges of ADHD, giving the public a very negative view of the condition. Those of us who work in the field deplore media coverage that trivializes, misrepresents, or sensationalizes ADHD.

The Struggle to Receive Acceptance and Understanding

In the work-obsessed American culture, the recent publicity about ADHD seems to have sparked a debate that places two strongly he...