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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, Outsmart ADHD 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.
Hello, beautiful humans. How the heck are you doing today? I am so excited about this topic because I have heard from so many people that nine to five jobs are just not for me. I've heard a lot of bitching about bosses, which, let's be honest, there are a lot of shitty bosses out there, but there's a lot of people out there, a lot of a DHD humans thinking that they hate their bosses.
And yeah, that might be true to a certain extent, but not for the reasons that you think, and this episode is all about that. So let's get into it. There are so many humans that say, I just have to start a business because this job is trash. This boss is trash. My coworkers are trash. And what happens is they go through, here's the lifecycle of an A DH, ADHD or in a job when they have not known how to accommodate themselves and have good boundaries.
Okay, are we ready for it? They go into a job and they're really excited about the new job, and because the excitement is high, the energy is high, their capacity is greater, especially because they're doing novel things, new things. And what do we love doing? Hyper-focusing on new things, solving new problems.
That's exciting. There's a reason why we will be excited about a new hobby, buy all the things for it, get all the dopamine from it, and then be like, actually, fuck that. I don't even wanna learn how to crochet anyway, unless you're mean. You do it as like your favorite stim. But anyway, after the honeymoon period, they start to hate their jobs.
Their capacity is lower. There's all these new, all these things on their plate that are way outside the job description. Because they volunteered for it, because it seemed fun at the time. They become everyone's go-to person, end up hating their job, hating their life, having no energy, having no capacity, rage, quitting, and then repeating the process, thinking that a new boss is the solution.
And I hate to burst your bubble because it would be so much simpler and so much easier if your boss was the problem. I wish they were the problem. They might be a problem, but they are not the problem. In 99% of cases.
So instead of job hopping, let's talk about what the real problems are. I know it's gonna hurt your feelings a little bit. Okay? It hurt my own feelings when I realized these things about myself. You are not alone in this. I have been here. I have reflected on jobs where I thought the boss was the problem.
I had this narrative for a very long time. I also had the narrative that nine to five jobs are not made for A DHD humans. Hell, maybe there's even podcast episodes where I talk about it.
But as I've learned more about my A DHD brain, and as I've done a lot of coaching, a lot of therapy, I've learned a lot of things. I have found what the real problems are. Problem number one, your boundaries are out of alignment with your fluctuating energy.
A DHD, human.
Have you noticed that there are some days that you feel like you could conquer the whole world and o other days where it feels like it's hard to get outta bed and put on clothes, especially if you're burnt out in any way or in the healing burnout journey. Many of you are also spoons or have autoimmune issues.
Many of you are also autistic. These things are gonna cause energy fluctuations and saying yes to doing all of those extra things when you feel really good. End up leaving you feeling pissed off when you have agreed to a bunch of extra shit and you just do not have the energy and the capacity and the bandwidth to do those things.
This is a rookie mistake that I see so many H-D-A-D-H-D humans do. I don't know if there's anyone that I've ever worked with that hasn't fallen in this category quite honestly.
You become the yes person, the go-to person for everything.
You become the expert in everything, even if it's outside of your department or your job description because you felt good and you thought, I can take this on. And of course, A DHD humans who have been led to believe that they're not intelligent for most of their educational lives, it's really easy when you get into a career field that you're really good at.
And find out that you're really good at solving problems. It's really easy to fall into that trap of I'm gonna do more things, get more fulfillment, have a greater sense of self, better self-esteem, and therefore, feed that feedback loop of I do more, I feel good about myself. This is an internal problem.
This is not an external problem.
Okay, so that's the first big issue. Your boundaries are out of alignment with your fluctuating energy. You do not say no. Let's get into the second one because it goes into the second one. All right. Problem number two. You don't feel like you have a voice in the workplace, so you say yes to everything.
Almost like a child would, and I am not saying this in an in and infantalizing way. I am saying this in a way as I'm gonna take a wild guess that a lot of you growing up
have parents that didn't really listen to your needs. Chatter,
the second issue is.
You don't feel like you have a voice in the workplace, so you say yes to everything almost as a child would, and I'm not saying this in in and in infantalizing way.
All right. Problem number two. You don't feel like you have a voice in the workplace, so you say yes to everything, almost like a child would, and I'm not saying this in an infantilizing way, I'm saying this in a way as you, if you're like me, you may have grown up with parents that didn't always take your knees into account who.
When they said jump, you said how high. Who didn't really work to accommodate how your A DHD brain works? Who made you feel like you did everything wrong, even though you had an maybe an undiagnosed or un accommodated disability,
you may have had teachers that made you feel like you're never compliant, that you were a bad kid.
When you weren't a bad kid, you were a kid that was having a bad time.
So to attempt to heal that part of yourself, you got really good at things, one of them being your job. And when someone asks you to do something, you say, yes. All the time, because underneath all of that, there is a fear and a panic of what would happen if I were to say no.
I've worked with a lot of people who felt like if they said no to something that was outside of their job description, that they would be instantly fired. Think about it, where does that fear come from? If I say no to protect myself or I say no to something that isn't okay with me. If someone's trying to get me to do something that I don't want to do or I don't know how to do, if I say no, something really bad is gonna happen nine times outta 10.
I'm honestly gonna say 10 times outta 10. That reverts back to something in childhood, whether it be from your guardians or teachers or adults who made you feel like you were a piece of shit if you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do. And that power dynamic between you and your boss inflicts those same feelings.
So therefore you say yes, not because you dunno how to set a boundary. It's because you dunno how to set a boundary. But one of the core reasons is because you feel like you're not allowed to set a boundary. Something bad will happen, something terrible, something life threatening. And let's be honest, not being able to have a paycheck is life threatening in a lot of senses.
Because then you spiral into how am I gonna pay for my house or my car, or groceries, or these kids or my partner, or these dogs or other animals that you have. So it feels like you can't say no.
Okay. Let's go into the next issue of reasons why you think that you hate your boss. Reason number three, you don't know how to accommodate yourself so that your, so your executive functioning is trash and you can't do the annoying parts of your job. Let's be honest, whether you run a business or work a nine to five.
Or work anywhere in general, you're not doing just the fun parts of a job. If you are doing that, congratulations because you are the 0.01% of people. If that even exists, that has a job where you only do all of the fun things unless you are some billionaire who is hiring out literally everything, including managing people and leadership, unless you are just owning a company and not running a motherfucking thing of it, I don't know how you can be in a position where you are only doing the fun parts of a job. Even if you hire out things as a business owner, you're doing some not fun things.
So executive functioning, let's talk about that really quick. Executive functioning is a skill. And it's a skill dictated by your frontal lobe, which when you have a DHD is underdeveloped. Executive functioning is your ability to plan, prioritize, organize, start a task, finish a task, switch tasks. It's the reason why you sit in your car for 25 minutes before you're coming to the house, not because you're lazy, and maybe not even completely because you're trying to avoid your kid that's screaming in the house.
But because it's really hard to transition from one area to the next, and that is just one small example of executive functioning. Executive functioning is. Your frontal lobe is underdeveloped as an A DHD human. So therefore, you already have struggles with your executive functioning. And if you don't know how to accommodate yourself for that, it's gonna make all of the boring but incredibly necessary parts of your job feel impossible and painful to do.
And what happens when that happens? You fall behind despite being a very brilliant human. And despite doing a bunch of things that are not in your job description that might be enjoyable, sometimes you fall back on the things that you need to do. I have an example of this from my life. Once upon a time I was an admissions counselor at a university and.
It wasn't long after I got hired that I was booking more interviews with students than most of the other admissions counselors, even though I had only been there for a couple months. I, the only person who was booking more interviews was the associate director who had been there for 10 years. It turns out that people like you when you're just honest, I would tell students, Hey, listen, it's really expensive here.
Maybe you wanna go to a community college and get your credits there and then transfer here. I just can't do sleazy sales stuff anyway. I was crushing in this job. I had been there for four months, but guess what? I didn't have the onboarding done. Those modules that most jobs make you do when you start a job?
I didn't have 'em done.
My boss brought this to my attention, and if I'm gonna be real honest, I'm thinking you're being kind of a bitch and kind of a dumb ass because these interviews are gonna bring people into the school and gonna make you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you're worried about me finishing these stupid fucking modules.
The reality was maybe there were things in those modules I needed to learn. Maybe there wasn't. But the point is like the first task of my job was doing those modules. And because I did not prioritize, didn't know how to prioritize the annoying, boring things like doing modules, and I thought it was way more fun figuring out text scripts that got people to respond to my messages and talk in a way that got them to.
Wanna come to a meeting with me. I completely forgot about the boring part.
And after that, I rage quit that job because I was so pissed off and I thought, I'm never gonna be able to work with this manager. It wasn't a her problem, it was a knee problem. I did not know how to.
Prioritize boring tasks, and I did not know how to accommodate myself in a way that I was able to get those boring tasks done. If I were to go back in time, I would have accommodations for myself that no one would've even seen. I would've had notebook on by my desk that. Was a reminder to do those modules because literally out of sight, out of mind, I would've prioritized doing those modules probably at the beginning of my day when I have more energy versus later in the day when I've already done so much people.
I would've maybe played music while listening to those modules, or body doubled with a coworker who was also having trouble getting her modules done, who also had a DHD. All of these things are things that I did not know at that time. But you will feel like crap if you're not able to get those boring tasks done, mostly because your boss is gonna figure it out, point it out, and then you are gonna feel like crap because you didn't even realize how important it was or how you're gonna get that done.
And it's so much easier. And it seems obvious that they are the problem because you're doing the important things, maybe the money making tasks or the important tasks. But unfortunately there are gonna be boring things in your job description that you have to do, and the problem isn't your boss asking for them to be done.
The problem is that you don't know how to
accommodate your executive functioning deficits.
And the last one,
this ties up everything that we've been talking about. The big issue that I see is that you feel like a failure because your capacity is limited and you don't know where to start with your boundaries and invisible accommodations found and invisible accommodations are what is going to turn you from hating your nine to five to.
The minimum of being able to tolerate it. You might actually find that you enjoy your nine to five when you're able to accommodate yourself. When you're able to create a schedule based off of your energy and your energetic budget, when you're able to say no and you've done the deep work to be able to feel okay, setting boundaries.
I have people asking often, how do I set a boundary? And it's through a social media post and they're commenting on it. 'cause I'm talking about boundaries. But the thing is, boundaries are simple. They are not easy. I can tell you to tell someone no. Or how to.
Communicate in a way that advocates for yourself, but you are not gonna be able to do that work until you have done the deep work that makes you feel okay doing those things and the deep work of deconstructing that internalized ableism of, I should be able to do this because you have to deconstruct some of that to.
Accept that you are a disabled person and you do need to accommodate yourself in a way that a neurotypical brain does not. That is the deep work that needs to be done.
So I always like to leave you with something that you can do because not everybody is gonna be able to. Invest in a coach, or maybe not everyone's ready for X, Y, Z reasons, but here's some questions I want you to ask yourself. If you're really feeling like your boss is the problem, let's get really honest.
All right. Question number one. Am I agreeing to this because I feel I have no choice and sit with that. And do I feel panicked at the idea of saying no? If you feel panicked at the idea of saying no, there is something deeper going on, likely linking back to a lifetime of not being accommodated. Again, teachers, parents, guardians, all that stuff.
Question number two, do I work outside of my capacity? If so, why? Are you finding yourself doing way more than you are capable of, or have the capacity not capable? Have the capacity to at work, go home and feel like you need to drop dead and fantasize about being in a 10 day coma because you just did way too much at work?
If so, why?
Question number three, do I take on burdens to keep other people from feeling them? This is something that's been really big for me that I had done a lot of work through and I continue to do a lot of work through. I was conditioned in my childhood to take on burdens for other people. Almost like that martyr that is glorified.
Are you doing that? Question number four, do I designate myself as the bridge when there is a communication issue or when I'm being asked to do something outside of my job description? Again, this is the boundary issue. Do you do that? It's time to be very honest with yourself. So the deep boundaries work is what changes this.
The deep work of combating that internalized ableism, knowing how to accommodate your executive functioning. Again, boundaries are simple, not easy. Deconstructing internalized ableism is very deep work and I found for myself that required support of somebody else. You don't really know that you have internalized ableism until you work with someone who understands what it is and who has done that deep work themselves.
Invisible accommodations like having a notebook next to your desk or task pairing, something that is boring and something that you like to do listening to music while you're working on a report or creating your schedule based off of your energy are all learnable skills. So the bad news is no, your boss isn't the problem.
But the good news is your boundaries and not knowing how to support your executive functioning with invisible accommodations that know you don't need to go to HR for are learnable skills. You are not doomed in the workplace you are. Do not have to run a business just to be able to accommodate yourself and know having a business itself is not going to fix these issues because let me tell you, as someone who went from working for someone else to working for myself, these are things that I had to work through as well because your issues with your boss do not change when you become your own boss.
Now if you are ready to stop hating your nine to five job, if you are ready to do that deep inner work really get to the crux of what is burning you the fuck out. What is making you hate your life? I am that person to guide you through that journey. In the show notes, you're gonna see a link. That lets you sign up for a free 30 minute consultation with me where we will talk about all the things going on in your life, and if I am the best person to help you, and guess what?
Just like when I was an admissions counselor at a university, I will tell you if I am not the best person for you and refer you out, I have done this before and I will do it again. But if this episode resonated with you, chances are I am the best person to help you through this. The rest of your life does not have to suck just because you were not given these tools and these skills.
Growing up with an A DHD brain, you deserve to feel happiness, to feel fulfillment, and to feel like you can hold down a job without white knuckling every single moment, and I cannot wait to help you through that journey. In the show notes, you're also going to see a link for a free webinar and it's called Before You Rage, quit Your Job.
Try this. It's really great, and if you resonate with this episode, you are going to love that webinar. It is very quick. It's 20 minutes and if you two times it'll be done at about 10.
Lastly, if you could do me a giant favor and rate the podcast rate and review the podcast, especially if you're on Apple Podcasts, I would really appreciate it.
Special thanks to those who gave us five star review on the podcast. Shout out to Lorraine May. You may be my favorite person right now. Shout out to ING two. This review was not a zinger, and thank you for that and. Suka Schmidt, my best friend growing up had the last name Schmidt, and she was one of the coolest humans on the planet and I bet that you are too.
Thank you so much for your five star review, and if you could do me a favor. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a five star review because I will thank every single person who takes a moment to give a five star review. On Apple Podcasts, when you do a review, it pushes out the podcast to other people who may not otherwise have found the podcast, and it's super duper helpful and it's a kind thing for other people.
And honestly, it's a kind thing for myself to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will talk to you next time, friends. Bye now.