ADHD and Making Better Business Decisions

Lots of my clients are neurodiverse and one of the common themes in my coaching and mentoring with business owners is making decisions. When you're a maximiser and want to gather lots of information before deciding, coupled with being impulsive and wanting everything immediately, it's important in business to understand how to make quicker and better decisions so you don't stay stuck in decision paralysis and stop making progress.

As someone who has ADHD myself, I share this with love and empathy as I know it can be difficult to make decisions when you want to make sure it's the best possible option for you, but in business we need to be strategic with understanding what we are acting on and deciding upon now isn't just for short term gain but also for the longer term reward and goals that we have set.

Understanding this for myself after realising I have ADHD 2 years ago has been a total game changer and had a huge impact on me personally and on my business success.

Like you, I have a bazillion ideas and my brain moves super quick, but I can very easily lose track of ideas and take on way too much and then not actually ACT on any of them (thinking I'm superwoman doesn't help, which to be honest I am when I'm in hyperfocus and productive but it's not sustainable for my energy!)

Whilst you can do more than a neurotypical person could even dream of when you're in hyperfocus, you're also battling with constant distractions which happen far too easily and can lead you down a deep rabbit hole of procrastination, that's hard to pull yourself out from!

In short, distraction and the difficulty in focussing on what is most important now for future gain, can really impact how much someone with ADHD can get done.

For years I thought I was just "different" but I now know that my brain is wired differently and understanding this, for me, and for many of my clients, is so helpful and allows change to be made in terms of communicating my needs, feeling less shame and more acceptance around finding some things harder than others and being able to show myself more compassion and kindness when I need it.

Now that I'm not conscious of what I need from myself and others in terms of support, I often share these strategies with my neurodiverse clients, and also shared some of my key learnings and best practices with you in the ADHD series of the Supercharge Your Business Podcast.

Please remember that Neurodiversity shows up so differently for different people so there is no one-size-fits-all approach or strategy that will work for every neurodivergent human being, but I do hope that in sharing some of what I have learned, it helps at least one person to feel more seen and understood.

You can listen to episode 64 of the Supercharge Your Business podcast here where I talk all about ADHD, Decision Paralysis and Keeping up the Momentum.

The delve into the importance of individual differences, shining an important light on the significance of overwhelm, perfectionism and giving yourself easy wins (and more dopamine), so you can enhance your wellbeing and fulfilment to create more personal and professional growth.

The Impact of Decision Paralysis on Business

As business owners, freelancers or consultants there are so many hats to wear and plates to spin in your business to ensure you delivering great client results and also working on your business development, marketing and sales. When you have so many roles to fill, whilst this can be exciting and feel novel to your ADHD brain as there is a lot of variety, change and difference, it can fee difficult to remember everything on your to-do list and prioritise tasks in the right order.

Being Strategic with your Decision Making

When you're following the dopamine, it can mean you show up every day and just do what "feels good". There are lots of reasons this isn't the best approach when it comes to business growth, but for many of my clients before we work together, this looks like have lots of ideas but never seeing any of them through (and therefore, not making the sales, generating enough profit and working way too many hours for not enough money) When you have a busy mind, learning how to pay attention to what is most important and stay focussed on that even if it feels boring is vital: which yes, will sometimes mean you need to say no to the things you do want to do!

The Consequences of Overthinking

Let's approach this one with data... (I love data, many of my clients hate it!)

If you were to add up the amount of time you spend overthinking every decision, or procrastinating and putting things off. How much is that really costing you?

First, let's look at how much time that actually looks like per day or per week... 30-60 minutes a day procrastinating or worrying about things that you can't control? Probably more?

If it was 1 hour a day, over the course of a year thats 15,600 minutes - a whopping 260 hours!!!

If you charge ￡50 an hour for your services, that's ￡13,000 a year that you're missing out on because you're wasting time overthinking and delaying, not to mention the mental exhaustion that comes from carrying the mental load.

The majority of my clients are charging anywhere between ￡100 - ￡600 an hour for their services so depending on how much you charge right now, this could be costing you ￡26,000 - ￡156k a year. (yes, really!)

The Role of Perfectionism in Decision Paralysis

Perfectionism is one of the biggest killers of forward momentum. I see this with a lot of my clients before we start working together. They have the most incredible ideas and then take so long to get them out into the world (or don't get them out into the world at all!) because they're perfecting every detail first, that someone else gets there first.

I support you to learn how to take messy action so you can reach your business and personal goals much quicker, easier and more effectively so you can take advantage of the opportunities that are right in front of you and feel more energised by your business and in your life.

Episode 64 of the podcast which you can listen to here is an important reminder of the need for tailored approaches to maximise your ability to consistently grow and push yourself outside of your comfort zone without burning out, which coaching can help you to unpick, understand and create your own pathway for.

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