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Hi, friend! I'll keep this short and sweet, because ADHD!
Whether you're newly diagnosed or have known for a century, Overachievers Anonymous: ADHD Edition is the podcast for you. Join me and my guests as we explore the latest research, share personal stories, and provide actionable advice to help you live your best life with ADHD.
Welcome to Overachievers Anonymous, A DHD edition. I'm Jamie Cutino, a board certified occupational therapist, two times TEDx speaker and a DHD coach. Now let's talk about A DHD.
Hello, gorgeous humans. How the heck are you doing today? I'm so excited that you tuned in. I never take it lightly that you spend your free time with me. Whether that is on your commute to work or while you're doing the dishes or whenever you listen to podcasts, it means a lot to me that you chose this show to tune.
Okay, let's get into today's episode. If you are somebody who is currently working a full-time job, feeling like your job is the issue, and that all of your problems would go away like a magic wand, if you had a new job, this is the episode for you, how you're gonna feel during it. Well, I'm not gonna tell you how you're gonna feel, but.
There's gonna be some of you who listen to this thinking, Jamie, but you don't know my job. It's absolute trash. My boss is an overpaid fucking tool. No, really, it's the job. It's not me, it's the job. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I hear you. I'm listening to you and there are some things that you are going to have to work on to make any job feel like it is accessible to you as an A DHD human.
So we're gonna talk about the things that are actually burning you out at work, what you think it's going to fix, what it's not actually going to fix, and the things that you have to do in order for any job to feel sustainable.
And I'm not saying that any job will feel sustainable after doing these things. There are going to be outliers, but there are so many of you that are throwing your power into somebody else's hands, then claiming that it is the job now that will steal your money when eventually you either rage quit or get fired.
It will steal your sense of stability. It'll steal your sense of self. It will steal all of your confidence because you're gonna believe that you really can't do this thing. But guess what? Your friend is here. Your coach is here to help you unfuck those thoughts and have some tangible advice of what to do.
Okay, so let's talk about it a little bit.
Let's talk about how you're feeling first, right? So you go to work, you're already feeling demoralized because guess what? You don't know how to support your executive functioning, which is your ability to start tasks, finish tasks, switch tasks, you know, things that you have to do in a high achieving job, which I know that you have because you're listening to this podcast.
You may be in a leadership position, you may be in the helping profession, whatever it is. This job likely requires a lot of capacity from you, and there's probably a lot to do on a daily basis. Now, what happens when you don't know how to support your executive functioning well? Tasks don't get done.
Tasks don't get done. If you don't know how to prioritize your day, to know even where to get started, your time at work can look a lot like your time at home when you're waiting on a 3:00 PM um, appointment, which. I have strategies for that. We can talk about that another time. But until you know how to support your executive functioning, you're not gonna be able to get things done at work, which means that tasks are going to pile up, which is going to cause you to be stressed, which is going to make it even harder to get started on task, which is gonna cause a lot of dread.
Wondering when you're going to get a random email from your boss saying that you have an impromptu meeting and you're going to get fired, can you tell that I have been in this situation before? I have had these same fears that you have. I have had these same experiences that you have, and I can tell you with confidence that a new job is not the answer.
Prior to knowing how to support your executive functioning, because how work looks when you know how to support your executive functioning. Let's be really realistic on a day-to-day basis, especially when you're coming out of burnout. Your capacity is going to fluctuate a lot from day to day, but if you know how to support your executive functioning, you know how to prioritize the tasks that absolutely freaking have to happen on that day.
So there are going to be times where you do more than other days, but the difference is that you're able to do the at least bare minimum, ASAP tasks that need to get done on a daily basis when you don't know how to support your executive functioning and you don't know how to prioritize and get started on things.
Tasks, literally just keep piling up, and the only way that they get done is when you have to rely on nothing but a sense of urgency to get you to the finish line. I know that many of you are in this situation where you don't know how to support your executive functioning, so therefore what you have to rely on is an actual impending deadline that is coming.
Really, really fast. So therefore you are borrowing from your capacity for days and weeks into the future to be able to get done what you are getting done that day. So. You are getting enough done to not lose your job, but guess what? You're sacrificing. You're sacrificing your mental health. You're probably going to be feeling very anxious on a daily basis.
You are sacrificing a sense of, ah, I get to just go home and decompress. Because guess what? When you are constantly worried about how incredibly far behind you are, or the impending deadlines that you're not able to get done even a minute prior to the deadline. It will steal all of your free time even because you're going to be constantly thinking about those things that you haven't been able to get done.
It means that your time at home is not actually restful, and guess what? You need that restful time at home to decompress, to be able to problem solve, because knowing how to support your executive functioning also means knowing. To rest. How to rest in a way that helps you to feel like you have your cup filled back up so that you go, can go back and be that badass that I know that you are.
The problem here isn't the job, at least not entirely. You are giving away a lot of power by feeling that way, and I understand why you feel that way, because I have felt that way too. Once upon a time, I literally thought that I would not be able to handle a nine to five job, hence starting a business and then realizing that the business cured.
Fucking none of that because I still had to know how to support my executive functioning because even though I turned into my own boss, it was still hard to get things done until I knew how to support my executive functioning. And do these things that I am telling you now.
Your life isn't meant to be running on constant adrenaline, running on constant urgency. Yes, having a DHD means that having a sense of urgency can make things easier to accomplish, but supporting your executive functioning. Means you can use that sense of urgency by putting deadlines on yourself to where you know that it has to get done.
By this time. You can put a sense of urgency on yourself by telling a friend that you're going to accomplish this task by this time, by putting it on your calendar so that you have data to know, was I able to get this task accomplished at this time? And if not, what do I need to change? Before thinking I need to just up and quit this job.
Look at all the different parts of your work space. Even do you have everything within arm's reach that you need from your desk? If you're someone that's working at a desk. Is your office, either your home office or your office at work, is it clean in a way that you feel like you can actually focus on what's in front of you?
I am not an overly organized person, but something as simple as having these like three shelves that are next to my desk so that I can just throw shit into them. They're almost like these three, like. Baskets that are on top of each other that I ordered on Amazon. It was the best $20 I think I've ever spent.
Now just being able to throw my shit there to where it has my fidgets next to me. It has the yarn that I used a fidget with. It has my makeup there, it has all these shit that was just. On the floor in my office, it's tucked away to where I can just come in here and focus on my work. Something as simple as tidying up your office, taking just two seconds, two minutes to tidy it can help to get started on the task the next day.
There are so many things, I'm not even skimming the surface of what you can do to support your executive functioning. But if your, if you do not know how to support your executive functioning in a way to where you can walk into work, know how to prioritize your day, do the absolute most important tasks.
And then fill in the others. When you have more capacity, every single job is going to feel like the job is the problem when the problem is that you do not know how to accommodate yourself. You do not know how to work within your own executive functioning in your own limitations. As someone that has A-D-H-D-I am not someone that's going to say A DHD is a superpower.
It is a disability or. Requires a lot of accommodations, but those accommodations are incredibly learnable skills. This is why I feel so fucking passionately about what I do. I'm helping people to literally be able to work their full-time jobs so that they don't have to worry about money and security, and how am I going to.
Be able to live my life. I want you to be able to have energy when you come home from work to do more than just watch a comfort show on tv. Yes, we all know that I'm obsessed with reality TV and it wasn't until knowing how to accommodate myself and get things done in a timely way to allow myself to have the time and capacity to do the things that I've always wanted to do, even as a child, like learning how to sing creativity coaching.
Writing a book, writing poems. These are things that I have the capacity to do because I know how to help my executive functioning, to be able to function in my business, to keep it going, and also to be able to function in a job. A couple months ago, I picked up a part-time position as an occupational therapist, and I was really curious to put all of what I'm telling you to work.
What I can tell you is that there is a stark difference between three years ago when I started as an occupational therapist working in the exact same setting as where I do now.
Because of my ability to prioritize, to organize, to be able to do what I need to do to see all of my patients on a daily basis. In my business, I know how to get myself to do the staying podcast, to write the emails, to do the posts on social media. There's a lot that I have. There's a lot of deadlines I have to put onto myself.
So I feel it from both the business and and from a nine to fivers and. But what I can tell you is true in both of those situations is that you need to one know how to support your executive functioning. That is the basis of being able to either run a business or work a high performing nine to five.
Truly any nine to five or those. Things. The next thing I wanna talk about is boundaries, because until you know how to set boundaries with yourself, with your boss, with your colleagues,
you are always going to feel behind. You are always going to be saying yes to people who you do not have the ability to say yes to.
Well, you don't have the ability to say yes to them and your mental health and your capacity. You can say yes to them as long as you're willing to sacrifice those other things. Now, many of us were raised in a way that we were taught to dismiss our own needs, our own feelings, our own thoughts, dreams, realities.
Many of you, and I can include myself in this, were taught that being a martyr is virtuous. That being powerful is bad Somehow, that having this innate desire to do big things without other people getting in our way is selfish, and I'm telling you that it is not. Because the truth of the matter is until you have these boundaries with yourself as well, and I'll get into that in a minute, with yourself and with other people, you are not going to be able to do the things that light you up in life, and you certainly won't be able to engage in a nine to five job for years and be able to consistently pay your rent or your mortgage if you don't know how to do this.
Similar to how not knowing how to support your executive functioning is going to leave you absolutely burnt out. Not having, not being able to set healthy boundaries and stick to them or know how to do, uh, set them and stick to them is also going to burn you out. Now, the cool thing is that you have options here
because. Healthy boundaries and knowing how to accommodate your executive function are learnable skills. I cannot emphasize this enough for myself. It took a lot of soul searching and going through occupational therapy school, having a coach myself, because even as coaches, we need coaches to be able to see the blind spots in and in ourselves.
Which is why I am not saying this for my own pocketbook. I am telling you, as someone who has lived through it, sometimes it takes having somebody to be there and walk with you to do the deep work that it takes to accommodate yourself. Because until you do that deep work, if say you're listening to this podcast and you're.
Not doing the deep work. You're trying to, okay, let me just see like the tangible thing on the, on the very top that I can do. If you're only doing that surface level work, what's going to happen is that internalized ableism is going to come in and say, you don't need that help. You don't need to do things differently.
You can say, yes, you can do this. The programming that you grew up with is going to tell you the same thing. You don't need to set boundaries, just learn how to do it all. You're a superhero if you just do it all. That is the virtuous thing is to be everybody's everything all of the time. Until you do that deep work, these things are going to keep coming up, which is why it is so important to get the help that you need to be able to deconstruct a lot of this, to know how to accommodate yourself.
Because when you know how to set healthy boundaries, when you have a strong sense of self and when you know how to support your executive functioning. The world is your fucking oyster. Now, if you're someone who is listening to this and really resonates, I would love to talk to you over a consult about one-on-one coaching.
I love doing this work. I love empowering people in this way, especially those high achieving A DHD humans. There's a reason I do this work, and it's definitely not just for the money. I can make really good money as an occupational therapist. I love what I do in my A DHD coaching business and I would love to help you.
So if you feel called to this, go to the link in the show notes and you'll be able to schedule a free consultation with me where we can talk about how we are going to unfuck your life, help you to learn and implement healthy boundaries and executive functioning support so that you are. Unstoppable.
Until next time, my friends. Bye now.
I'm an occupational therapist. Turned a DHD coach for overachieving. Perfectionistic. Brilliant, but burnt out. A DHD humans. Are you curious about my one-on-one coaching schedule a free consult link is in the show notes, or go to out smart A DH d.co. I'll see you next time.