ADHD, Perception and Overwhelming Data – It’s Not Your Brain

Alchemy For Life

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What is ADHD actually?

The term ADHD gets thrown around a lot. People use it for everything to describe an actual condition in which someone cannot concentrate, to being easily distracted, to having bouts of hyperfocus.

Do you tell people you have ADHD? Do you use it to explain why you got distracted? Do you yell “Squirrel” and then laugh?

Perception & Reasoning

We have data coming at us in every form that we have a sense—sights, sounds, smells. Even taste and touch. Then add emotion to that as well, and we have to sort through all of that to make sense of it. Our Second Voice and memories play a part in this as well. You encounter something that triggers a memory and now you are dealing with the new data as well as the old data of the memory that just popped up.

Its the sorting and making sense that can cause fatigue and a sense of being overwhelmed—and can even cause us to shut down.

Why do they get to do it?

If you try to push back on this data—on the things and people providing this data, it’s likely you will be called “sensitive” or “over-sensitive.” You will be told to just suck it up and deal with it. After all, nobody else is complaining that the music is too loud, or that the cleaning solution smell is making them sick. Everyone else has to deal with the requests from people who want services like yours and just sort through it, right?

Well, no. Have you ever noticed that people who are highly specialized (and usually highly paid) don’t put up with that? Shark Tank (and its counterparts like Dragon’s Den) is notorious for the millionaires that want a quick pitch and they will speak up—arguably rather rudely—if you are speaking too slowly, or not relaying the correct information. They have no time for incorrect data or data being presented incorrectly.

If you see a doctor—especially a specialist—they will coral and sometimes coerce you into telling them the issue quickly. They too will cut you off and will not spend too long listening. After all they are important, and highly skilled, and next!

If you are in the service industry (meaning what you sell is a service—anything from painting to coaching to real estate to insurance to forms of consulting—then you probably spend an enormous amount of effort trying to get your prospects and clients to communicate to you in a way that makes it easy for your brain to sort through the data. You may even have a formula or a sheet.

For Alchemy for Life™ coaching I created the Balance Sheet which allows people to fill it out and separate their activities into five facets, which I then take to map things out. Without the sheet it would be a very long question and answer session corralling and herding the person and their thoughts into something cohesive.

Everyone eventually ends up with this kind of funnel, and I’m not even talking about the venerable ‘sales funnel.’

Perception & Reasoning

Your perception is your ability to detect and find this data. Your reasoning is your ability to make sense of this. What we are talking about so far is your perception. How you manage this input of data can determine whether you become overwhelmed or no, whether you become distracted or not, and whether you are able to provide the proper information to your brain.

So don’t beat yourself up for having this extra data. Adjust accordingly and those that honor that will get it.

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