Being Multi-Passionate (and not being embarrassed about it)

I've had the pleasure of meeting many amazing people through social media.

On Twitter, I've been able to connect with authors I idolise, and my own writing has improved as a result. Knowing people in the publishing industry also helps stop me from going insane... There's always someone a few steps ahead of me in their writing career able to give advice, share experience and point me in the right direction when I realise I have no idea how to navigate such a weird world.

On LinkedIn, I've teamed up with a vast array of people & organisations working in the areas I'm most passionate about -

• Criminal Justice & Prison Reform

&

• ADHD & Neurodiversity

In Facebook groups, I've teamed up with entrepreneurs & freelancers, picking their brains for career advice and sharing my experience to help them improve their content & copywriting.

And Instagram has not only helped me find my ADHD Tribe, but also has provided the community I need now I've started a huge renovation project, creating a space that will one day allow all these people to come together, IRL.

Up until now, I've kept all these communities & projects separate. I don't want to spam the entrepreneurs with home renovation updates, or the criminal justice practitioners with neurodivergent posts.

I was a bit embarrassed about having so many passion projects, never having just one 'thing' that defined my career.

But I've come to realise there's a huge overlap to all of them.

It was only after writing Criminal - How Our Prisons Are Failing Us All, that I was able to reflect and see the connections between the prison population, ADHD and my own experience living in a neurodivergent brain.

Writing about ADHD on my blog has helped me learn so much about my own brain, how to manage my time, my energy & my focus better, so I've been able to finish a second manuscript and am well into writing the third.

I bought a huge, collapsing farmhouse to renovate in Italy, because I want to create a space that supports charities to bring people to the mountains who wouldn't usually be able to have that experience - to hike, kayak, ski and climb.

I started working as a content & copywriter because I wanted to work for myself, when I wanted, doing work I was passionate about. In the process, I've found that plenty of those who have ditched the 9-5 are doing so, in part, because of neurodivergence.

It goes full circle, because I could never have honed my writing skills without writing Criminal, first.

I used to think having so many, diverse projects on the go, was a sign of flakiness. Or, an inability to focus.

But as I move around different online communities, I've realised every one has their own weird & wacky side hustles, passion projects & hobbies.

I've come to learn that I shouldn't be embarrassed about wanting to work on lots of different projects at once, and instead I should stop being shy about telling people about them all.

So, if you've got your own projects on the go, but you never talk about them on LinkedIn (because you think they don't relate to your professional life), or you never post about your career on Insta, I want to hear all about them!

It's amazing how many people from one of your circles overlap in interests with those from another.

Here's mine, and I'd love you to share yours, too.

ADHD Newsletter

Renovation Project Blog

Content & Copywriting Work