Antonia Bowring ABstrategies LLC, MBA. Top Ranked Executive Coach, Author and Speaker. Purchase her book "Coach Yourself" via her website.
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I am a long-time executive coach, and several of my clients have adult diagnoses of ADHD. I am passionate about working with them because I, too, was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. And that diagnosis was one of the greatest gifts I received as an adult. I work with leaders so that they, too, can maximize the gifts of ADHD and recognize where they need more scaffolding to mitigate their ADHD challenges.
Being diagnosed as an adult is different than finding out you have ADHD as a child.
Children who learn about their ADHD early hopefully receive prompt support and coping tools to help them both at school, at home and socially. This early help gives them a better understanding of themselves, tools to facilitate their learning and journey through the education system and the skills to better handle challenges throughout life. On the other hand, in my experience, adults—before getting an ADHD diagnosis—often suffer from shame and a lack of confidence because they believe there is something “wrong with them.”
In my coaching work and training on ADHD and my experience living with it, I have absorbed a few core learnings that inform how I work with my clients diagnosed with ADHD as adults.
Getting an adult diagnosis of ADHD is both a profound and practical journey. We need to rewrite our self-narratives to embrace ADHD, and yes, often, there is healing to do.
We have built up a lifetime of negative stories about ourselves and blaming ourselves for how we behaved. “What is wrong with me?" "I just blurt things out.” “I knew I had to meet that deadline, but I am so disorganized, I just couldn’t do it.”
A diagnosis often allows an adult to let go of the shame that they were carrying around before understanding they have different brain wiring. It takes personal work to look back and reassess your life and career, and change the narrative about how you behaved and the impact ADHD had on your life. This is often a first step with my clients: We invest in rewriting their histories. They find it both cathartic and empowering.
At the same time, we have also built up a lifetime of strategies and tools to help us overcome our ADHD challenges before we get our diagnosis. Some of these strategies work well, and others need to be revisited once we realize through a formal diagnosis of ADHD what we are dealing with. After a diagnosis, I recommend that my clients do a deep dive into podcasts, websites and key articles about ADHD. Immersing yourself in the research and exploring the vast number of supportive communities can help you gain more confidence and realize that you are not alone on this journey.
And yet, we still have to find strategies to enable us to regulate our emotions, focus better, be productive and meet deadlines. Adults diagnosed with ADHD realize quickly that there is no one set of solutions or strategies. What works for one leader doesn’t necessarily work for another. Know thyself has very specific relevance for an adult with ADHD. I encourage clients to remember that they will try lots of different tools and strategies. Some will become habits, some won’t last and some just won’t work at all. And that is fine. Our brains like novelty and variety. So, we should anticipate that our scaffolding to cope with our ADHD will shift and change over time.
Guiding leaders with ADHD, my coaching philosophy is anchored in one vital truth: An ADHD diagnosis isn't about reaching a final destination but embracing a continuous journey of growth. We sidestep the pursuit of perfection, focusing instead on celebrating every stride made toward the possible, leveraging ADHD's unique gifts to sculpt a path of distinctive leadership.
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