Since I’m ADHD myself, I’ve been able to discover a set of tools to replace the neurotypical tools you’ve not been succeeding with.
I can help you get moving, and work on the business plans you have.
You’re neurodiverse. Welcome!
Presumably, you’re here because you’re experiencing challenges that being ADHD brings to starting, growing or running a business?
I get it. It can be a real struggle.
Moving toward neurodiverse strategies
The major issue for us is that we’ve grown up in a neurotypical world. They find it simple to do boring tasks, but for you it’s incredibly challenging. You can end up feeling like you’re lazy.
You’re not!
You just lack the bit of the brain which can keep itself motivated when doing tasks that are low in stimulation and excitement.
ADHD is a business superpower
There’s nothing wrong with you, and in fact ADHD is a superpower when it comes to business.
Let’s get to work!
What do you want to get done today, but you know you won’t?
What should take you minutes can take hours, days, weeks, or may never be completed.
You might have an overwhelming list of business ideas as long as your arm.
Your resistance to some tasks seems overwhelming, and it’s frustrating because deep down you want to do it.
You act immediately to what’s on your mind, making it difficult for your team to follow your direction and causing your business to be haphazard.
Every so often you’ll get a new business idea and you might switch thinking this next one will be the one.
And .. you’re starting to get anxious.
You likely have flashes of inspiration and clarity when you can see your business working like clockwork. However, when you try to move toward this, it fades away.
People describe this as “time management”, but that’s not how it is with ADHD people; you can manage your time in theory, but starting work and being consistent are hard.
Over commitment, interrupting people, impulsive spending, quick decisions and switching from project to project are commonplace.
Making decisions and prioritising is a genuine issue for ADHD people. So, we’ll often have too many open and unfinished projects.
Sticking to any one task until it’s finished is a struggle for many ADHD people. As a result, you can end up with a huge amount on your plate, with none of it getting done.
Working memory is poor within the ADHD brain. So, if you have too much on your plate and aren’t being organised, you might become agitated.
Which do you find most challenging?
I’ve run my own online business for over 20 years
It’s been a struggle at times. The early days were the hardest.
I used to find it incredibly hard to get up in the morning and my lack of structure and accountability meant I would go off at “interesting tangents” at times.
But I made it through that phase, and once there were others in the company, it was easier to handle some of my ADHD challenges.
I see the struggles my ADHD clients face
Every week I talk through the challenges that being ADHD brings to us all.
But you might not know we’re all quite different too.
Some will have energy that keeps them going until they drop, whereas others flit around from task to task.
I work with everyone on understanding their challenges, and finding successful strategies.
While an ADHD coach will help you organise and manage your everyday life better, I’m primarily concerned with the success of your business.
While we’ll no doubt talk about your life too, the majority of our sessions will be centred on the unique challenges that ADHD cause you in the workplace.
As you begin to understand your ADHD and make friends with it, you’ll become more comfortable running your business.
You’ll experience less confusion, overwhelm, stress, impulsivity and find you want to switch between projects less often.
In sessions, we’ll look at your productivity and time management, find ways to make smarter decisions you follow through on, and make key business skills like hiring and delegation ADHD achievable!
Working for others isn’t easy when you have ADHD. It’s a huge struggle to be consistent doing boring and unstimulating tasks I learned this early on.
I realised at this moment I was different
I remember when I was at University, I took on some summer jobs, just to get some cash to save up for a computer I wanted.
I was called in to do some temp work – to copy data from one place to another.
I was excited as this would pay me well since it was a Saturday and Sunday!
I just couldn’t cope with the task any more
After a day and a half I was done. I’d never felt so drained in my life and I couldn’t manage to carry on. They asked if I wanted to stay and do some more the following week, but I just couldn’t.
I wondered how they were managing to stay so focused, given that they did this kind of work every day! It amazed me.
Money is a poor motivator..
The reality is, money often isn’t the major motivator for us, and if a task is too boring, it’ll be impossible to get us to do it, even if there’s a good reward at the end.
Threat is an amazing motivator!
You’ll often find ADHD people will leave tasks until the last minute. This gives us the kick of motivation we need to take action.
I couldn’t tell you the amount of times I’ve tidied up just before a friends visited me.
But let’s find more sustainable motivation!
But there are other ways to get stuff done, without engineering some kind of catastrophe around every corner! (what an exhausting life that would be!)
It’s common for ADHD people to be incredibly unkind to themselves.
This often stems from having a “wall of failures” in your history.
Each time you try to succeed at being consistent, you become harder and harder on yourself.
But it’s counter-productive. All unkindness does is lead you to increased stress and unhappiness.
In my coaching, you’ll find nothing but compassion.
What do you say to yourself when you’re being unkind?
I designed this system of using MindMaps specifically for ADHD people, although it works equally well for neurotypical people.
I can’t wait to show it to you!
It’ll make planning projects and being accountable simpler!
It’s easy to focus on the negative in life, but when we start to focus on strengths instead, we discover a huge world of opportunity
It’s not particularly easy being ADHD, but let me help you see it more positively:
What you find easy, neurotypical individuals would give anything for!
Instead of focusing on what you can’t do easily, what if we were to use what you can do more effectively?
For example, you’re likely to be very creative, exhibit huge energy levels and passion, have strong resilience, an ability to think intuitively, be able to hyper focus when you find a task interesting, and be empathic to others.
During coaching, I’ll help you discover what you’re amazing at, and together we’ll find ways to make the most of those skills and qualities.
Instead of focusing purely on techniques to improve your personal work output, let’s divert some energy into using your strengths to find new ways to get work done.
You’re probably going to interrupt me. I might interrupt you.
Let’s accept that we are how we are and create a totally safe place where you can be yourself.
Often, in sessions, people will say that they’ve never really had somewhere it was OK to say that they couldn’t do something as simple as take the dishes out of the dishwasher.
We do full honesty
But honesty is what you need in order for us to find what works best for you.
It might seem like “it’s stupid” that you act or react this way, but that’s fine with me because you’re ADHD, not stupid.
In fact, you’re likely highly intelligent with exceptional problem solving abilities, and a mind that can dream up amazing solutions.
Your lack of effective executive function causes you difficulties.
When someone emails you and then in the middle of that someone rings you and in the middle of that someone texts you, you’ll think “my working memory can’t remember to deal with all of this!”, and you’ll might become overwhelmed.
When you’re not managing to complete a task which you believe is essential for your business, you might experience anxiety.
These emotions can cause your work rate to reduce further, and you’ll try unsuccessfully to push yourself harder and harder.
We’ll work on ways to handle the emotions you experience.
In short, we’ll find peace for you.
Available online throughout the UK and internationally
Available online throughout the UK and internationally
Phil Drinkwater is a successful business owner. Now a business coach, he supports amazing clients with practical guidance and coaching support, focusing on startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
He has successfully completed coach training with The Coach House, a course accredited by the Association for Coaching in the UK.
PHIL@PHILDRINKWATER.COACH
83 DUCIE STREET, MANCHESTER, M1 2JQ
