In 2022 I was tired. Really really tired. Being tired wasn’t new for me; what was new was that I was getting home from work at 6:30 and crashing. Do not make supper, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Go straight to bed. The strategies and structures I had developed to get things done efficiently had stopped working, and I was not functioning. Something had to change.

And it did. I got diagnosed with ADHD, and I got put on stimulant medication. After working with my doctor to find the right formula and adjust dosages, I was able to stay up and be more-or-less useful until bedtime. It seemed like a miracle. Honesty, it still does.

One thing that puzzled me, though, is how I managed to get to the age of 43 and do as well as I had up to that point. I had become a high-functioning professional without medication; the only reason I was diagnosed is that I had reached a point in my career where there were too many things to juggle, and I was exhausting myself trying not to let any balls drop. So why had I been so successful before I hit that point of overwhelm? The search for the answer led me down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

As I read articles and listened to podcasts and talked to other people with ADHD, I learned that there were any number of external strategies I could put into place to make my life easier - to play to my strengths and manage around my weaknesses. As I was reading lists of techniques and approaches, I began to realize that I did almost all of them already. Because my parents did almost all of them. I had learned to succeed because I had undiagnosed neurodiverse parents who had spent a lifetime developing ways to make their brains work for them - without really knowing why they needed to. And it rubbed off on me.

Success Structures

What success comes down to, for the most part, is setting up the right external tools. Willpower only works until you run out of energy, and ADHD brains go through energy quicker than most. What we need as neurodiverse folks are external success structures. And, if you have an ADHD brain, you probably need to revisit those structures regularly to make sure you both remember what they are and check to make sure they are still working for you.

There are so many success structures out there, and if you have a neurodiverse brain, you probably use a lot of them already. For example, you may use your digital calendar extensively to remind you of daily tasks or one-off activities. You may set reminders for yourself and use the digital wellbeing settings on your phone to keep you from playing phone games until the wee hours of the morning. You may have a set list of things you do on the weekend to set you up for work success in the coming week, things like laundry and lunch prep.

A Positive Mindset

And yet most of us still struggle to keep up. There are always new things to work on and different things to try, and it can get overwhelming, but I’ve also found that new approaches can bring hope. Here are some helpful things to remember as you sift through the muddle of recommendations and life hacks coming at you from all directions.

  1. Your brain is not broken. It’s just wired differently, and different wiring requires different ways of working.

  2. If one technique just isn’t working for your brain, it’s okay to find something that does; it doesn’t matter if other people do it differently. As Eric Tivers of ADHD Rewired would say, you can do hard things, but you don’t have to do them in the hardest way possible

  3. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. If you’ve got a success structure that works for your brain, you don’t need to try the newest greatest thing. If you’re functional, you win.

With the right success structures, you can reduce your stress and you can succeed. And believe me, those structures are out there. We can find them together.

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