What ADHD means for the profession?
What ADHD means for the profession and how to have success in the profession with ADHD?
What ADHD means for the profession
Why does this question actually arise, which profession is suitable for people with ADHD? Why do ADHD people worry so much about it?
Why should people with ADHD have certain jobs that fit and others that do not?
ADHD brings with it various difficulties and challenges that affect the job and the work:
- concentration problems
- careless mistake
- Difficulties with work organization
- Problems setting priorities and identifying the important
- Impulsive and hasty action that leads to an immediate response to any distraction and to interrupt work all the time
- Difficulties remembering contents, data, processes
- Disorder and confusion in the workplace
- Impulsive and ill-considered statements to colleagues or superiors
- Getting bogged down, jumping back and forth, doing too much at the same time and losing the thread
- Due to unstructured working time lost time
- Missing task and project deadlines
- Postponing, procrastination
- Mood swings that cost a lot of energy and affect concentration
- limited frustration tolerance, patience and conflict capacity
- Misunderstandings in communication
- Problems working on recurring routine tasks
- A high urge for autonomy and self-determination
- high need for variety
- And even more
The fish will not climb trees
For these reasons, people with ADHD are thinking about which occupation suits them at all. In which job you can best concentrate, organize and be successful.
And for adults with ADHD, who have been working longer, the question often arises: which job can I take longer without having to change my job again? To lose problems.
The question of jobs for people with ADHD and ADD, whether there are typical occupations for these people, which occupations are suitable for people with ADHD is therefore often asked. Of course, there is also the question of whether or not there are occupations that one should not take with ADHD.
However, this question is not very simple to answer, because even people with ADHD are very different in all their similarities, but also in their interests and talents.
And it is precisely their own interests and talents that play an important role in the question of success at work.
Perhaps even more so than in people without ADHD, because having ADHD often means being more dependent on one's own motivation in terms of work and performance than other people
The case is. This has something to do with the messenger substance dopamine and our frontal brain. But more on that in another place.
At this point only so much is said in any case:
A fish is best kept in the water. If a fish climbs trees on the land, it will never work. Even with the best training and coaching and medication not. And therefore, a good fit between an ADHD person and their living environment8 which the job belongs to) is very important.
So, first of all, it's important to find out who you really are, where your own interests, strengths, and talents are.
Unfortunately, it hangs just as well.
Which person with ADHD already knows what he can do and what he likes?
That alone can be a huge challenge to find out. How to come to grips with this, in addition to more elsewhere that would go beyond the scope. But some typical strengths and positive features of ADHD occurs.
But we are also already at the first of the 3 important components when it comes to the question of a suitable job or a suitable job for people with ADHD.
These 3 components are especially important in ADHD for job success
Professional activities
As already written, for success in the job, of course, it is important that you do something that makes you happy (what you "love") and what is up to you. So as a fish to swim in the water and not in the forest to climb trees.
Actually, that's clear.
BUT: the problem with people with ADHD and career choices, education and study are that they often get into jobs that do not suit them.
There are several reasons for this:
They do not even know where their interests and talents actually lie.
They were not encouraged to discover what they are interested in and what they can do. Rather, childhood, adolescence and adulthood are about learning, "functioning". In the everyday life of ADHD families, it is often very important to come through everyday life and the school time fairly unharmed.
There are so many "construction sites" to worry about, there is often no time and energy to find and nurture the interests and strengths of the child. (I do not mean that reproachfully, but rather regretfully because I know from my coaching work how it is in everyday family life)
They are learning a profession because their parents suggested and recommended it.
This is, of course, legitimate to make suggestions to the adolescent young people about career choices. However, unfortunately, I often experience it, that parents attach great importance to "safe and promising" professions (also understandable from the parent's point of view).
However, the talents and strengths of ADHD people are often in creative, social or action-packed areas.
In fact, there are some industries where people with ADHD are increasingly finding themselves:
Journalism, acting, music, art, social and therapeutic professions, competitive sports, ambulance, police, fire brigade, and others.
But let's face it, are these jobs that parents often have in mind for their children or young adults? I do not think so.
They learn a job because the father/mother had this job too, or the brother or friends.
This too is often observed. In this case, bad self-perception and the lack of self-esteem in ADHD often play a role.
If you tend to be very attentive to others who are important to you, then you can emulate them even though they would not fit you.
To find your own way here, you would need a good sense of self and self-confidence to go your own way. Unfortunately, many ADHD people are not exactly blessed with it.
They just take what they can get, because they are not taken in many places.
Many courses are only available with a certain grade point average or NC. For many training places, you need clean application documents. These are conditions that people with
ADHD often cannot meet.
Not because they are not smart or ambitious, but simply because school learning and job application compilation is something that is often at odds with ADHD people. Often the educational qualifications and applications are correspondingly bad.
So it may be difficult to apply for an apprenticeship in which you might be really good, because (after all schooling) he would finally meet your own interests.
Working conditions
The working conditions that should be considered when choosing a career in ADHD include, e.g. the following:
Working time: flextime, shift work, (regular working time is better structuring)
Degree of freedom of movement: sitting desk activity, a standing workstation is available, there is travel activity, and it is physical work,
Design of the workplace: is the
Pre-structured workplace, he must be self-structured, it is a single workstation or a team workstation, everything is available and ready to hand, what is needed, the removal of work materials is quickly and easily possible, ...
Level of distraction: what sounds are heard, the phone rings, pop emails, colleagues are nearby, you can close the door,
Payment: makes you feel rewarded for your own efforts (very important for maintaining motivation and thus essential for performance)
Meaningfulness: agrees to the work with one's own values and what is important to oneself (egg helpfulness, honesty, esteem, etc., also very important for motivation and thus performance)
Freedom of choice: what can be decided by yourself, what percentage of the activity must be carried out according to instructions,
Working atmosphere
The third component that is important for success in the job is the working atmosphere.
ADHD people are usually very emotional and relationship-oriented people. Often, they can only work if they feel comfortable in the team and with the boss. They cannot (well) work if they do not feel comfortable in the working atmosphere.
If there are tensions, arguments, criticism, maybe even bullying, then almost automatically the performance will subside. In a team where appreciation, honesty and
Acceptance is missing, a person with ADHD cannot work well. And not work long. And sometimes he even gets sick there.
It is due to the ADHD constitution that concentration, organization, and quality of work are very dependent on motivation and well-being. And when motivation and well-being are impaired, disturbed or even undermined, then it is often only a matter of time until the employee goes with ADHD, makes more mistakes or gets sick.
Because this third component is so important, it may be that an ADHD journalist manages to get along very well in one editorial department and do a very good job, and on another editorial board gets off to a good start.
On the other hand, it can also be observed that ADHD people can also get along well in occupations that would never actually be linked to ADHD, e. G. Tax consultant. But if this activity suits your own interests, the working conditions and the working atmosphere are right, then a tax advisor position can work well.
What can you do now?
Take a look at 3 components and ask yourself the following questions:
1- Activity:
In principle, do I do something that suits me and what I like to do at the core?
> If not, what can I do specifically to change that?
2- Working conditions:
Do I feel comfortable with the working conditions?
> If not, what can I specifically do to change this?
3- Operating environment:
Do I feel comfortable in the team?
> If not, what can I do to make me feel better?
This is not the end of the road to professional success, but at least the basis created for you in principle in a place where you have the chance to be successful professionally.
What concrete strategies you can then apply there in the workplace in order to better structure, concentrate and steer yourself more effectively through the working day, we will work on that later.
