Creativity and ADHD

Why I'm becoming an ADHD coach

Over the last few years I have come to understand more and more how ADHD and my life are related. More than that, my creative life choices, the literature I read, the music I listen to, the friends that I have - all assembled by the driving force of attention deficit.

How can this be?

It slowly dawned on me that many of my friends exhibited the same mix of creativity and chaos. These people were artists and writers and entrepreneurs other things, but whatever walk of life they had ended up in, creativity of some sort played a part in it. When I talked to them about their life and the possible impact of ADHD on it we had the most fascinating conversations where my hunches about what the connecting tissue might be was regularly reinforced.

I decided to write a book examining the connection between all forms of creativity and attention deficit. This led me to do a lot more research and a lot more reading on the subject, but I couldn’t get those conversations with friends out of my head. They had seemed valuable to both of us. Generally it seemed that we were having the conversation about a life with ADHD for the first time. I decided I needed to have more conversations like that, both for my book research and, well, because it seemed like a powerful space. I looked into becoming an ADHD coach and decided that it might be the route for me.

One thing that I’ve learnt over these years is to be self-aware, to notice the manifestations of ADHD and to work with them rather than giving in to every impulse. So I tend to take things a bit slowly now, waiting to see if an interest sustains or whether I lose interest (forget all about it would be a better description).

I maintained my interest in becoming an ADHD coach over those years and decided to take the plunge. So I’m now in my second week of my coach training. Although I’ve spent a lot of time at various universities over the years, this is a new one for me. I tend to undertake education projects where I get to control and choose the content. I don’t often allow myself to be ‘taught’ things. Now I’m all in for learning a new skill. Then I’m going to apply it (I’m also moving to France, which complicates matters).

My coaching company will be called Neurotivity (from neurodivergence and creativity, obvs). It will roll out in a month or so, the start of a new journey. I have a lot of ideas (hey, ADHD!) for my space, which will be artists, writers and entrepreneurs.

Please support me on my journey.

And the book? It’s called In Praise of Inconsistency and you might have to wait a while for it.