Harnessing Your ADHD Strengths for Focus and Concentration

A Guide for Adults with ADHD

Adults with ADHD often face challenges with focus and concentration. However, by learning, embracing and accepting the unique flow of your whole somatic system, you can overcome decision and action paralysis with peace and ease. Here are a range of strategies to capitalise on your strengths and enhance focus and concentration:

1. Honour the information you receive from your senses. 

You are overly sensitive to stimuli, your environment and other people. You observe and understand much more or much less than you are closely exposed to, depending on a whole host of factors such as your diet, mood, level of sleep deprivation, situational context, type of ADHD and so on. You are also always in choice of where to place your attention and what stimuli to respond to. Learning and fully accepting what is tolerable and what is not in your environment and every day life enables you to align your actions and response in a rational manner, ending masking, burn out and performativity. 

2. Regulate your nervous system 

Learning and using somatic embodiment tools to work with your body rather than against it allows you to regulate your overactive nervous system. Our brains are wired differently and whilst many of our ADHD strengths are uniquely beneficial to us, other neural pathways come with challenges or deficits that can make it difficult to function. By regulating your nervous system and using embodiment practices to expand your window of tolerance and heal your inability to self-soothe, you will rewire the pathways that were damaged or not developed sufficiently due to insecure attachments, chemical processes, lack of neuroplasticity or psychological wounding. Eventually these simple practices can allow for the alchemical transformation of trauma and stored feedback loops that have been masked into repression. 

3. Identify your strengths and align them with your goals. 

Rather than focusing on your weaknesses or deficiencies, make a gratitude list of all the things you enjoy or are particularly skilled at. Sometimes these will overlap - it can be fun to experiment making a venn diagram to see what you highest chance of career success might be.
If you are stuck, make a list of what you are grateful for in your life - from the very fact that you are breathing and your heart beats which speaks to your literal belonging and existence in this time, to the people who care about you, the food you eat, the tap you turn on for water. This will get your brain moving and thinking and foster a culture of abundance and plenty in your cells, allowing you to identify the strengths you undoubtedly possess.  

Once you know your strengths, set ADHD that are aligned with those areas. For example, if you're a gifted writer, consider setting a goal to write a book or article - one paragraph at a time for a week. The crucial step to consider here is to remove guilt and perfectionism from the equation - by keeping our attention on the daily goal which is normal, mundane and small. When your goals are aligned with your strengths without the huge pressure to achieve it now in a perfect manner, you're more likely to stay motivated and focused.

4. Create a focused environment.

Use your strengths to create a setting that encourages concentration. Sensitivity for sensory information could mean that you have a completely clear room where, if you are trying to hyperfocus, you remove everything that could distract from your eyeline. It could mean using headphones that block out all noise and using them every time you work whether you need them or not, to create a ritual. It could mean adding sensory information in to make you feel safe and familiar, such as incense or essential oils. Understand that setting the environment is part of doing the work, part of the focus, part of the process. Reward yourself for setting the environment even if nothing more productive comes of it. Recognize all the effort and work and celebrate the intention rather than the result - which, weirdly, ends up taking care of itself. 

5. Allow yourself to get the energy out. 

As an adult with ADHD, you have been battling against being told what to do and suppressing your natural impulses for a long time. Whether this was conscious or difficult or utterly unconscious, your body has been keeping the score. Take time in your day or week to truly move - not in a structured and choreographed manner but freely, without performance, without criticism or judgement. Allow yourself to be messy and ‘come as you are’ - no make up or dressing up required. Allow yourself to be free of clothing and sensory issues if you wish. Allow yourself to look at yourself in the mirror, to be in an open field, to be in a tiny corner you feel safe in. Whatever you need to do or where you need to be to allow the energy out for a second or a minute, give yourself that time and do not feel guilty or weird about it. Yawning has a whole host of benefits and serves a function which is why the desire is stimulated in the first place - and often unavoidable. Allowing yourself free movement and vocalisation is exactly the same. 

6. Build structure using creativity to succeed

Develop routines and schedules that allow you to harness your natural talents. For example, if you're most productive in the morning, schedule your most important tasks for that time of day. Crucially, allow this to change in line with your energy levels or unexpected considerations. Similarly, when breaking down and organising tasks into smaller steps, create something creative in a format that is most aesthetically or functionally pleasing, whichever is most important to the task and to you.  

7. Incentivise yourself with your strengths.

Motivate yourself by using your innate abilities as incentives. For example, if you're competitive, set goals that encourage you to beat your personal best. Or, if you're reward-motivated, promise yourself a small treat for completing a task.

8. Establish reminders.

Create cues that help you refocus your attention and maximize your strengths. This could be a simple phrase or gesture that you repeat before embarking on an important task. For example, you could say to yourself, "I am focused and productive." Or, you could give yourself a thumbs-up to remind yourself of your strengths.

It's important to remember that ADHD manifests differently in everyone. This means that your individual strengths and weaknesses will vary. Strategies that work for one person may not work for another. It's important to experiment and find the methods that work best for you.

Additionally, outsourcing your reminder and accountability needs to a coaching container, coach or using body doubling professionally or with friends, can help you to successfully establish and implement the consistency you are trying to achieve rather than shouldering the hardest part of the start alone. 

Here are some additional tips for leveraging your strengths to achieve focus and enter the zone:

• 1. Identify your peak performance times. When are you most alert and productive? Schedule your most important tasks for those times of day.

• 2. Take breaks. It's important to take breaks throughout the day, even if it's just for a few minutes. Get up and move around, or do something that you enjoy. This will help you to stay focused and refreshed when you return to your work and avoid full paralysis or burn out. 

• 3. Eliminate external distractions and honour internal ones. Often the process of removing our inner thoughts and cues from distracting us has the opposite effect. Let thoughts and emotions flow through you like leaves on a stream. If the leaves clog and are overwhelming the water, go somewhere or do something that shifts your state enough to clear them out. 

• 4. Reward yourself. When you complete a task or reach a goal, take a moment to revel in the complex emotions of the ending - the achievement, relief, numbness - whatever is present. However you feel, reward yourself with something that you enjoy. This will create healthy and nourishing, pleasure based feedback loops and helps kickstart your lost dopamine seeking neurotransmitters to create a somatic association between your accomplishments and pleasure. 

Remember, you are not alone. Millions of adults have ADHD.

With the right strategies and support, you can learn to leverage your strengths and achieve your goals. to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself - it always does.