10 Things I have learnt about navigating ADHD as an early career professional
1. People tend to not understand ADHD in the workplace so take the time to educate yourself
You often hope that when you state you have ADHD that this word will help people suddenly acknowledge and affirm exactly what you struggle with, what you need and what support you require. However, disclosure with no personal anecdote tends to lead people to making their own stereotypical assumptions or attempting to relate to your experience in unhelpful ways.
By educating yourself on your ADHD you will learn to not rely on others responses to understanding you to take steps towards your ADHD being supported sufficiently at work. Furthermore, you will be able to use your newfound insight to take misunderstandings as opportunities and learnings to educate and effectively work with your managers and colleagues.
2. Know your rights in the workplace
As an early professional you tend to feed this intense energy to prove yourself and a strong sense of imposter syndrome at being responsible for things above your current feelings of capability and experience. Knowing your rights in the workplace especially around disability and discrimination can help you feel a safety net of protection to disclose safely and request certain adjustments so that you can feel supported in actualising your work capabilities. Looking out to see if your company has a disability confident accreditation as this tends to be a good sign that you can feel comfortable to safely disclose.
3. Understand and utilise your ADHD strengths
As a person with ADHD, we tend to be very aware of the ways we are challenged at work and may have faced a greater amount of criticisms within a working environment growing up. However, people with ADHD tend to have a large inventory of strengths including being very creative, innovative, great in a crisis and hyper-focused around the things we care about. Our ability to think and operate differently is what gives us our biggest strengths and the areas we should lean upon regularly to affirm our value early on within our careers.
4. Take the time to understand how to manage your ADHD weaknesses
ADHD definitely comes with very real challenges that are impossible to separate from operating in a working environment. Time management, prioritisation and attention to detail may be natural nemeses for the ADHD brain but are very much key requirements to working productively. Learning how to navigate and manage these greater challenges in unique ways to your brain such as mind-mapping, assistive technology and notification apps will be essential to you working to your best potential.
5. Get comfortable with coming to your manager with your new found ADHD education and solutions
People are normally very afraid to disclose their ADHD with their managers or the ways in which they need support when feeling overwhelmed. What tends to mitigate this risk, is coming to the manager with a clear idea on your learning style and what steps of feasible support you may require when disclosing. This leads managers feeling less confused about how best to manage an area unknown to them and empowers you and them to feel confident in your abilities to manage your cognitive differences if given the right support.
If your manager is still unresponsive in these circumstances, this will be a key red flag where you should look to find another manager or job as soon as possible as you are unlikely grow under these management conditions.
6. Find a community of support to learn and lean on both inside and outside of work
To positively navigate ADHD early on within the workplace, it is important to feel a sense of safety and comfortability in disclosing or getting support for your ADHD. Finding the right people who are either like-minded or will take the time to understand and appreciate your experiences will massively change the way you positively manage your ADHD at work. Often within work-spaces there will be networks created for minority groups in order to facilitate a community with people who have shared experiences and differences. However, there are also tons of external organisations and neurodivergent communities out there for you to tap into outside of work that can also help positively shape your experience.
7. If you identify being in a toxic work-place environment, take your new lessons of awareness and create a solid exit plan.
For those with ADHD, it is really important for you to recognise the environments which stagnant and disable you. Having ADHD means we tend to be more sensitive to our external environments and find it much harder to easily adapt into environments and roles that don’t align with our natural working styles and strengths . Rather than seeing our inability to fit into every working environment as a defunct on our part, recognise that this is a blessing which tends to force you to spend less time in environments that don’t serve you and have quicker clarity on where and how you work best.
8. Find a mentor/coach early on who recognises your potential and takes the time to empower you with strategies to better understand yourself and your value.
When you are early in your career it is difficult to know how to add value quickly within the workplace and be seen by more senior colleagues. Having mentors who you can look up and relate to within the fields you are aspiring to be in can help you grow exponentially as an early professional. I have been lucky to find some great mentors and coaches who have massively enhanced my growth and awareness in the workplace and helped me bring my work ambitions much closer to a reality.
9. Identify the areas of work that energise you and try and find work that allows you to do more of it.
For us with ADHD, it is much harder for us to remain focused on the tasks that we find mundane than the average person. Rather than beating yourself up about this, recognise this as simply guidance in showing you what areas you would rather spend time in and find a work role that allows you to do this.
10. Recognise that negative work experiences teach you valuable lessons as much as positive experiences.
Feeling inadequate at not being able to operate in the same exact way as your neurotypical peers or believing people easily misunderstand you and your capabilities is a natural part of the ADHD experience. Recognising and working with your differences and seeing these experiences as simply opportunities for you to better understand how your ADHD brain works will allow you to be propelled forward from each perceived negative experience .
