Time for a change.

[Anonymous]

Work sucks, its a four letter word for a reason. My first job was when I was 14-15 and I have switched at least every two years since then. Some were even my choice. I get so board I can’t function. I feel like one of those kid’s puzzle toys from way back. The one that is a ball with various cut outs for big yellow geometrically shaped pieces to fit in. My brain is that ball and the yellow pieces represent various stimuli/activities/work available to me, but I can’t make the pieces fit into the brain so I can actually do something with them. Since learning about ADD in Adults and seeing how that fit my cluttered, unorganized, enthusiastic, frustrated life I’m paying attention to those yellow blocks and trying to understand why they don’t fit my brain the way people think they should and I’ve decided to accept the fact that I need different pieces for my puzzle of a brain. Over the past 20 years I’ve worked in retail, home renovations and for the most part in IT.

Retail has some appeal, however unless you are the boss it is a shitty way to support a family because retail hours are in conflict with family time, evenings and weekends. Not true for all jobs, but not my cup of tea. Retail depending on the business can be very engaging and rewarding, but it can also be tedious and repetitive and filled with periods of nothing…

Construction/Renovations was a very active way to earn a living. Seldom boring, lots of ‘stuff to figure out’, you are not the only one responsible for the project so getting help to complete details is possible, need to be in good shape, can be a feast/famine industry, no benefits, my shoulders and back lasted about 4 years.

IT is not what it used to be. Such an expansive field, with so many possible ways to develop your skills and leverage your areas of interest, but depending on where you work this potential is very difficult and even counter productive to pursue. What is best for the company does not always match with budgets for IT or the major cost center (loss center) for companies is considered to be IT. We do not directly generate revenue but represent a gross loss each week. Wow feel the love. This leaves the average IT person with far more than one person could manage even the most skilled multitaskers would choke on the average ToDo list we need to balance and manage. Organization and documentation, call logging, email, meeting, ordering, budgets, users that can’t print, connect, read!!!!

So its time to change. One constant in my life has been an insane love of dogs. All dogs, big, small, young, old, easy going, aggressive, smart or dumb I understand them and they seem to understand me. I want to assess every dog I see, what kind is that, how old, is it healthy, does it interact with the owner, what’s the energy like…. Cesar Milan in one of his shows says to the owners “I’m going out the the back yard to see the dog.” Owner, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll bite you?”, Cesar, “No. I’m like a parachuter, I’ll just jump out no fear, no anxiety and just do it.” That’s how I feel when working with dogs. Nothing else matters, focus on the animal, challenge the owner to learn and observe. Last year I took a step in this direction and started a dog walking business. Things were very slow and a contract opportunity came along so I shut down dog walking and took the contract. I think it was the worst thing I ever did. I’m a self employed contractor that has no idea about taxes, so I am WAY behind on that stuff and have no idea what to do about it but realize that I need to do something if I want to for example open a business in the near future.

Deep breath. My head it going 360 different way at once and I can’t see the forest for the trees right now. I am in need of a change but will settle for a light at the end of the tunnel right now. But as most ADDer’s can mostly agree, we typically don’t have the foundation necessary to take the plunge and the risks because we see the failures not the potential. This is a section of ADD’s highway of life I don’t know how to travel. Ironic. The answer is right there but I can’t figure out how to remove the thing that is in the way and its keeping me from doing just about anything else these days.

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

I’ve learned that when I’m stuck or can’t see what to do, it’s because I have a blind spot.

And it’s never about what I think it’s about.

For example, at Christmas I was feeling burned out. We’d worked so hard, and I was just unable to get motivated to do more around the website and all the other things that are unfolding. Even though they are incredibly important and are making a difference.

What I realized was going on underneath all of my, “I need a change.” and “I’ve done enough.” was something else.

Not wanting to be responsible.

Avoiding responsibility.

Avoiding failure.

Avoiding looking bad. (After all, what right does a comedian have to talk about an issue like this?)

Consider that whatever has you stopped, whatever the reasons are, there’s something underneath it.

Something very, very human.

Something every human being faces. And only a few figure out and overcome.

We want to be right,w e don’t want to look bad, we don’t want to get blamed, we don’t want to be tied down or have to buckle under.

We confuse ‘Freedom” and “Irresponsibility.”

Freedom is about having choice.

Irresponsibility is about avoiding something.

And I had confused ‘being responsible’ with ‘being blamed’. There’s a big difference. When my kids were born I accepted the responsibility of making sure they never went hungry and always had what they needed to grow up and be healthy. In that case, responsibility was me being in charge. I was the one who had a say in this. I was responsible because my hands were on the control levers, in a way.

When I saw what was going on, I was able to let it go and realize how much I loved doing this, how exciting and moving it is, and the tremendous possibilities that are opening up.

My energy level zoomed up, and everything has been moving at lightning speed since then.

But as I say, when I’m stuck, and I have a bunch of reasons… they’re never the real reasons.

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[Anonymous]

Thank you for the post Rick. Not sure what to make of it yet.

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[Anonymous]

Hey CMC…..

I would definately like to dialogue with you as I feel like I am looking in a mirror.. Would you care to share…

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[Anonymous]

Rick………

4 read throughs…….. I kind of get i think….. procastination, excuses as opossed to solutions and one foot in front of the other in a forward direction……….. Am i close?

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[Anonymous]

@NJADD No problem!

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[Anonymous]

@Rick Thanks again for the post. It got me back to thinking and learning.

Confidence in yourself is a big key to being successful, mine is low.

Being completely responsible is a very scary thing because eventually my attention will go somewhere else and I will lose interest. If I’m self employed or working for someone else this results in catastrophic failure or at least history seems to support that.

I don’t know how to change that pattern and it keeps me from moving forward.

My blind spot is the next step.

What I can see and not avoid seeing is my family and the need to be there and be responsible.

Responsibility to me means doing what is best for the family, not what’s best for me. I’d have been divorced years ago if it wasn’t for my wife, any other woman would have packed up long before that. She is a saint for putting up with me.

“Something every human being faces. And only a few figure out and overcome.

We want to be right, we don’t want to look bad, we don’t want to get blamed, we don’t want to be tied down or have to buckle under.”

We all want to be right don’t we?

Nobody wants to look bad.

And nobody wants to wear the blame.

I like being tied down in the right situation…. and to ‘buckle under’ is marriage at its best.

“And I had confused ‘being responsible’ with ‘being blamed’.”

Blame comes with responsibility and failure. So IMHO, being fearful of responsibility because it has resulted in blame and other aversive corrective measures parallels why ADHD’ers have problems in the first place. Our brain doesn’t pay or reward us correctly for doing the right thing. From what I have been able to piece together about ADHD, Dopamine and related medications is that dopamine is to our motivation what a <b>clicker</b> is to Operant Conditioning. When we do something pleasurable the brain should release enough dopamine to ensure that we do this again, but doesn’t. So how do you separate responsibility and blame, while building confidence and creating new pathways for better results down the road when blame is always there alongside responsibility ready to remind us that we are wrong and have failed when all we really need is the confidence and the support to get us through to the end without blame. The ‘normal’ brain does this on its own.

Maybe this is where a Coach would be handy, someone to work through the old pathway with you and help get you on a new one?

We get really good at saying No. Can I help you? No.

We often feel that others need to change not us.

We are also not a very reliable source for measuring how we are doing.

It’s an uphill battle but every push helps.

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