Unlocking Your Full Potential: Strategies for Adulting with ADHD

Article written by: Julie Reichenberger, MA, LPC, ACS, NCC

Navigating adulthood has some challenges as part of life. When you have ADHD as an adult, seemingly simple challenges can actually be quite difficult.

As we grow up, we are told to act like an adult, be an adult. But when you don’t learn how to navigate the adult world with ADHD, those words can be meaningless by definition and heavy by weighted expectations.

While many people associate ADHD with childhood, it is important to recognize that it can persist into adulthood. Adults with ADHD often face unique challenges that can impact their ability to navigate the demands of everyday life.

ADHD is characterized by symptoms such as difficulty paying attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.

In adults, these symptoms can manifest in various ways, including trouble staying organized, difficulty managing time, and challenges with focus and concentration.

Managing ADHD as an adult requires an understanding of how the disorder impacts your life and developing strategies to mitigate its effects.

By recognizing your strengths and challenges, you can tailor your approach to adulting and unlock your full potential.

How ADHD may show up for you

• Having a hard time getting started
• Hyperfocusing on something that is really interesting to you; maybe getting lost in time
• Becoming irritable when someone interrupts your hyperfocus
• Having difficulty stoping something you are hyperfocused on
• Difficulty paying attention when others are talking
• Difficulty maintaining focus on tasks that aren’t interesting
• Hearing and seeing everything in the room at once
• Interrupting others
• Losing track of time
• Not knowing what to do when you have too much time
• Listening to the same song on repeat
• Wearing the same clothes often
• Having solutions to problems without clear idea of how you got there (from the outside)
• Not showing your work in math
• Having lots of energy
• Feeling chronically tired
• Having difficulty filling out forms (missing questions, bouncing around the form)
• Creatively solving problems
• Missing social cues
• Being hyperaware of social cues, behaviors of others
• Missing appointments
• Difficulty making deadlines
• Forgetting to pay bills and accruing late charges

While there are many challenges that come with having ADHD, there are also many strengths. Learning how your challenges impact your life is an important and sometimes humbling place to start.

Often, we start from a place of criticism and I’d like to challenge you to start from a place of curiosity for understanding and a compassion for your self.

After all, you have uniquely gotten to where you are today based on creating systems that may (or may not) work so well for you.

The parts of you that struggles with organizing, prioritizing, time management, focus and concentration has done what it knows.

And you have the ability to work better for yourself if you take the time to learn more about you and your ADHD.

Understanding Your ADHD as an Adult

Take a look at the list above. Do any of them resonate with you?

This list is not exhaustive, and there are likely more or different ways you may experience difficulty with time management, organization, starting and stopping tasks, focus and concentration, impulsivity, and managing emotions.

Not everyone with ADHD struggles with all of these areas of functioning either.

As you become more clear with your experiences, you begin to have more understanding of what you struggle with, and what you do really well.

Take time to reflect on what makes some things more challenging for you and what makes some things easier. Often, we can get pulled into traps of trying to do things the way others do them.

Whether someone else has ADHD or not, what works for them may or may not work for you.

We can get stuck in the unhelpful idea that if it works for someone else it should work for you. And that’s just not the case. And that is okay.

Make sure you are also identifying what you do really well. If you are a creative problem solver, use this gift to figure out creative ways of supporting you.

If you are an excellent organizer, figure out systems that can work to support other areas you may struggle in.

Ways Support Your Adult Self with ADHD

Be Clear on Your Values

Why are values important in supporting your ADHD? Identifying your values, what is important to you, can help you stay connected with your why.

Why are you trying out a new approach? If it’s because the outcome making a change will align with something important to you, you are more likely to be invested in trying and trying again.

If you value being seen as reliable, then figuring out ways to be more reliable will feel good to you and can help with motivation to follow through with systems you create to help you.

Read More: “How To Make Lasting Changes With ADHD/ADD”

If you’re like me and listening and understanding others is important to you, and you find yourself (I do) interrupting people as they talk, perhaps it’s time to figure out ways to manage the impulse you have to interrupt.

It can start with catching yourself, and you can evolve to learning ways to listen and engage from a more calm state in your nervous system.

Calm doesn’t mean quieted or muted. Calm means your are engaged, present and listening to hear.

You can be calm while also feeling excitement and interest in the other.

Learning to slow down can be very helpful in making decisions and engaging with our selves and others according to our values.

Be in Relationship With your Future and Past Selves

When you are debating whether to start something or try something new, think about how your future self might feel after you have done this.

Take a moment to feel how you might feel.

When you set up systems and try new things with your future self in mind, you begin to develop a relationship of trust-building with yourself. You become your biggest fan.

When you do accomplish something that you set out to do, or come upon a reminder from your past self, take a moment to thank your past self for looking out for you now.

As simple as this may sound, it can be really effective in creating excitement about trying new systems and taking care of yourself in the way only you know best.

Find People and Resources to Support You and Your ADHD

Navigating ADHD can feel really hard. And, it doesn’t have to be awful. In fact, learning how you work well can be quite exciting.

Knowing you are not alone in your challenges, can be quite validating.

Seeking support from and mental health therapist who specializes in ADHD or an ADHD coach can be quite helpful.

Finding friends or colleagues who can help you with accountability, can also be quite helpful.

You can enlist the help of an accountabilibuddy; someone you can buddy up with to hold each other accountable.

There are online and in-person supports for accountability as well. In Denver, The Process is a community created by Paul Shirley, to help build systems of accountability to help people start and continue working toward their goals.

Unsupported ADHD can lead to anxiety, depression and chronic fatigue.

Many people with ADHD have unhelpful stories about themselves based on the challenges they have experienced throughout life.

Whether unsupported, or supported in an unhelpful, and possibly harmful way, the impact is lasting.

Feelings of being too much and not enough. Feelings of being dumb, stupid or lazy. Feelings of confusion, being misunderstood, being undervalued.

The feelings list go on and they turn into beliefs we have about ourselves that may not be true.

Finding a therapist or coach who understands ADHD, can help mitigate more harmful messages about you and your ADHD.

An ADHD therapist can help you work through these harmful beliefs, anxiety and even depression that often shows up with ADHD.

Develop Healthy Habits and Self-Care to Support You

Taking care of your physical and mental well-being is crucial for managing ADHD as an adult.

Make sure to get enough quality sleep. Sleep is helpful in regulating emotions, reducing fatigue and resting your brain.

Read More: “What is Mindfulness and How to Be Mindful”

Regular movement and exercise is beneficial as well, for those with ADHD.

Regular movement and exercise can help with regulating your nervous system, it stimulates the brain and body connection, it helps move energy through your body and helps with focus and mood.

Practice mindfulness and slowing down. This may feel counter-intuitive, however, when we are going through the motions and moving quickly, we miss things.

Our nervous system gets worked up and it’s more difficult to regulate emotions, or take a pause in a conversation when others are talking.

Practicing mindfulness lends itself to increased awareness of your self, your body, and others.

It helps you to take in the whole picture and come from a place of intention rather than one of reaction.

Living with ADHD as an adult presents unique challenges and also comes with unique solutions. You are not defined by your ADHD.

The more awareness and understanding you have of your ADHD, the less control it has on you.

Having an ADHD brain can be seen as a gift with all of it’s challenges.

When you take time to acknowledge your gifts and strengths, living with ADHD can be a healthy, thriving experience.

If you are struggling to understand your ADHD as an adult, and want more support, our therapists at Denver Metro Counseling can help.

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Julie is the owner of Denver Metro Counseling and has been working with teens and adults since 2006.

Denver Therapist and Owner of Denver Metro Counseling, Julie Reichenberger

She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado, Illinois and Virginia, an Approved Clinical Supervisor, a National Certified Counselor, EMDR Certified, an EMDRIA Approved Consultant and a Certified Psychedelic Therapist. 

Julie also provides Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and works collaboratively with prescribers to help clients through this integrative process.

Julie specializes in working with trauma, suicide risk, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and supporting other therapist through personal and professional growth. 

Follow Julie on Instagram @julie_thetherapist or Facebook @julie_thetherapist