DESCRIPTION:
Determining whether your job or career is a good fit entails answering to 5 questions, including whether you’re in the right environment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Assessments will not tell you whether you’re in the right job or career.
- You’ll need to ask yourself a series of questions to determine whether your job or career is the right one for you.
- You likely will need to upgrade your skills, tools and strategies to be more effective at you job.
- After upgrading your skills, tools, and strategies you may determine your current job is not a good fit.
Resource:
Book: Finding a Career That Works for You: A Step-by-Step Guide to Choosing a Career by Willma Fellman
TRANSCRIPT:
(00:00):
So you’re wondering, are there jobs that are better suited for adults with ADHD than others? Let’s find out.
(00:06):
You’ve tuned into Scattered Focus, Done – Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD, adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins, and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to re-imagining productivity with ADHD. So you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else.
(00:39):
Since you’re listening right now. I’m guessing you probably found this podcast because you’re wondering if you’re in the right job or in the right career. Maybe you googled something like, what are the best jobs for A D H D adults? And you found lots of lists entitled something like 20 Best Jobs for People with A D H D. And, as you read these articles, you might even have found promises of dream jobs for people who are easily bored and creative. You might have even found your job on the list of best jobs and wondered how could that be? Because maybe right now you’re struggling to stay afloat. So then you may have jumped to the conclusion that it must be you and not the job. Before you start going down a rabbit hole, let’s take a step back.
(01:26):
Over the years, countless adults with ADHD have come to me for help because of challenges they were having at work. And part of what we try to untangle is whether their job is a good fit for them given their strengths and challenges. What we discovered in all cases is that they did need to upgrade some combination of skills, strategies, and tools to be more effective at their job. In some cases, we also discovered that they needed to design how they worked differently to be more effective.
And in those instances where they didn’t have total control over how they did their work, they might have needed to ask their boss for some changes. But after we did all this work together for some, the particular job, well usually not the career, ended up not being a good fit. And they needed to find a different environment, aka a different job.
(02:21):
An example was a former client who was an in-house attorney for a large corporation. When she first came to me, she thought that the onus was totally on her to do better. In time though, we discovered that that was not the case. Though she did need to upgrade her skills for sure, and we worked on that together. But she also was able to acknowledge that a large part of the problem was that she just didn’t have enough administrative support and there weren’t enough attorneys to carry the workload. So she did end up looking for another job. While she remained a lawyer, I’ve had clients who decided after our work together that the career was not a good fit. This isn’t the typical case. But, in those instances, they continued their work with a career coach.
(03:13):
Let’s start to look at how you can unravel the question of whether you’re in the right job or career. By now, I’m guessing you’ve taken quite a few assessments, either formally with someone who administers the test or perhaps informally online. One of these might have been the Myers-Briggs test or the MBTI, which is designed to identify your strengths, preferences, and personality type. Well, interesting information for sure, studies have shown that assessments such as the MBTI are not necessarily helpful career planning tools. As they just don’t predict whether people will be successful in different jobs.
In addition, research has also shown that 50% of people who take the test get a different score when they take it again five weeks later. The takeaway I think, when it comes to assessments is that while they may provide some good data points, they just won’t provide you all the information you need to make an informed decision about your career path. That is they just won’t give you the whole picture when considering a career fit according to ADHD career counselor, Wilma Feldman.
(04:25):
Instead, she suggests you consider what she refers to as your layers to explore whether a career or a particular job is a good fit for you or not by asking yourself a series of questions. First, no surprise is, What are you interested in? Do you need to have other experiences to explore your options? Or what about your current job do you find interesting? Even if it’s not going as well as you would like right now?
A second one, what kind of work gives you energy? For example, I have a close friend who’s a standout health coach. When she first started, she tried to start her own business. But found she was drained by doing this. She discovered she would much rather work for an organization. And let them handle the business side of it while she did what she was really good at, which was coaching.
(05:20):
A third question to consider is what are your innate talents? These are the aspects that come easily and naturally to you. It’s obviously much easier to be in a job where you can express more of these than have to deal with what you find challenging. A fourth layer and a question you can ask yourself is what values do you hold that you’re able to express in your current job? For example, if you value time outside of work with family and friends but are devoting too much time to work, you’re going to obviously be out of with your values. Similarly, if you value collaboration and cooperation but are in a competitive environment, you’re not in a job that supports your values.
(06:09):
The last layer you’ll want to consider is skills. What skills do you currently have that support you in your job, and what skills are you lacking that contribute to the challenges you are facing? Back to the example I gave you of my friend who’s a health coach. Well, she’s an extraordinary coach. As I said before. She wasn’t skilled in building a business, and moreover, she had no interest in becoming more skilled at this. If you are lacking skills, you may be able to learn them if you want.
(06:43):
I’m sure there are other layers you can think of. But you can start by asking yourself, are you interested in what you’re doing? Do the specific activities involved in the job give you satisfaction? Do the activities energize you or drain you? Are you able to use your innate talents in your job? Are your values in alignment with the work that you do? And last, do you have the skills you need to do your job well?
(07:11):
As I said in the beginning, most people who come to me because of challenges in their job discover that they do like their career, but need to make changes so that their job is a better fit for them. To see what kind of changes you may make, let’s look at some situations that I’ve drawn from various people I’ve seen over the years.
(07:30):
I’ll start with Tia. Tia owned an architecture firm. And was having challenges doing her own work because as soon as she got into the office, her employees needed her help and she had back-to-back meetings. In our conversation, she discovered that she needed to trust her employees more to work independently. So that she could also have time to do her own work. To do this, she decided to work at home for a couple of hours each morning before going into the office. And then only after doing her own work would she go into the office. And have a short standup meeting with all her employees so that everyone had updates. This slight change meant less stress and overwhelm because she knew she was on top of her own work.
(08:15):
Ben, another example, was director of a state agency. His group was just not getting the work done that they were charged with doing. So he ended up taking on more and more. This was just not sustainable as he didn’t have the bandwidth to do more work. The main area Ben needed to work on was upgrading his skills around delegating. This included having clarity with each of his reports about their area of responsibility, making sure also that they were able to do all the related task and then coaching them one-on-one in areas where they were lacking the necessary skills. While no doubt delegating took more time and effort in the short run. In the long run, as he became better at this, his group was able to get their work done without Ben taking on too much.
(09:10):
The last example I want to share with you is of Sam. Sam owned a business with his spouse and each day he worked at a frenetic pace. With constant interruptions he always felt like he was behind. Part of the solution was developing a better process, a workflow for his work. The other was a simple solution of having a sign on his desk. It was an open floor plan. where he couldn’t be interrupted unless of course it was an emergency. So he had time to do his own work.
The other solution was getting on the same page with his spouse by having regular weekly meetings to discuss current clients and where they were with each. As well as discussing any problems that have come up. Rather than just doing things on the fly, which had been the case. He also worked on an evening routine. So he went to bed on time, got up on time to exercise, which helped him start his day off well.
(10:10):
So far in the examples I’ve mentioned, I’ve shared just a very few of the changes people were able to make so that their work environment worked better for them. But what if you mostly enjoy the content of your work. But you can’t make the changes to certain aspects of your work environment so that it really works for you? Too often in these cases, I’ve seen clients overlook the possibility that, well, yes, they may need to upgrade some of their skills. Their work environment is just not a good fit. Rather, they assume it’s their fault solely that things aren’t going well. And that they just need to continue working harder to make changes.
But what should you do if your workplace is characterized by, for example, lack of accommodations to allow you to do your best work. Or rather than being seen as opportunities to learn and grow mistakes are often seen as a strike against you?
(11:11):
Or is it a place where the boss is always right and can’t be questioned? Maybe you’re always on call and expect to answer emails immediately. Or is it a competitive environment where people are constantly fighting for their own turf? And the last one, is there not a value that your life outside of work is just as important? If some of these characterizations sound familiar, in addition to upgrading your skills and learning how to work with your ADHD better, it really might be a time for you to consider getting a new job. And I know this isn’t easy. But that’s for another podcast.
(11:55):
Are you in the right job or career and whether there are best jobs for ADHD adults? You’ll have to understand your layers, strengths, preferences, challenges, including those related to your ADHD. As well as whether your work environment is a good fit for you to be able to decide this. There just isn’t a test that will tell you what you want and need in a job.
(12:16):
That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me and stayed until the very end. If you’re interested in learning more about my work with adults with ADHD, check out my website, marlacummins.com. Of course, if you’ve learned a thing or two from today’s podcast, which I hope you have, please pass along the link to anyone else in your circles you think might benefit. And until next time, this has been scattered focused, done. And I’m Marla Cummins, wishing you all the very best on your journey to re-imagining productivity with a ADHD.