Kindness is king. And that means kindness towards yourself too…

This year has been a really interesting year. You've no doubt heard of the curse ‘may you live in interesting times’; well, this year has seen interesting times for me personally and professionally. My interesting times have led to incredible challenges, but also personal growth and amazing new connections.

As a wrap up to the year, here's 4 things I've learned about myself in 2023:

The mistakes you make will provide the biggest learns.

I said it in the previous blog, that my thinking around DEI has changed, that it's no longer about winning hearts and minds, changing people's worldviews or bringing people over to my way of thinking (again, the arrogance!). It took losing a little control of the room with an off the cuff comment I’d made, where my own bias was questioned, for me to realise that a truly inclusive space must include room for different beliefs, opinions and ideologies, that it's about respect and creating a culture of authenticity and respectful collaboration, not about uniformity of thought around DEI topics.

Working for myself is easier and harder than I thought it would be.

I thought the aspects I would struggle the most with would be managing my finances, making sure I was compliant, tax returns, payrolling myself - y’know those aspects of running a business that you don't see when you're part of a bigger machine. Yet these were actually the things that were easier to get to grips with - once you've figured them out, they’re then relatively set in stone.

No, for me the hardest aspects of running my own business have been the loneliness, the lack of accountability, and the lack of motivation to get out of bed on those days when there wasn't something to deliver. I've had to add structure to my own water-cooler moments just like I did for the teams I managed during COVID: I've taken to booking in coffees, catch-ups, lunches and dinners with friends, ex colleagues and connections, not for the networking purposes, but for my own mental wellbeing. I’ve recognised that without that ongoing connection, I can easily get lost.

That lack of accountability piece has also been really hard to deal with. And it's only something I've truly begin to understand as I've recognised my own neurodivergence. More on that below, but ultimately not having a boss to please, to answer to, has meant my procrastination has skyrocketed. It was returning to the structures that I previously used to manage my team and our function’s objectives that got me through that. Planning, breaking BHAGs down into time-lined projects, projects into manageable goals, getting routine tasks scheduled in my calendar, all of that was something I thought I’d used to manage other people, and role-modelled myself, without realising it enabled me to mask and manage my own ADHD.

 I’m neurospicy!

Ok elephant in the blog post – my Hubbie and my Sister pointed out their suspicions I might be neurodivergent in January. My Hubbie had been laying a trail of breadcrumbs the past few years, thinking I might pick up the clues, but I guess I’d been masking for so long that I just thought my idiosyncrasies were typical. They’re not. It took one of my oldest friends ‘LOL I did wonder if you’d ever figure that out’, as well as my wonderful new symbiotic Mentor/Mentee Thea ‘Oh, I’m sorry I just assumed you were within twenty minutes of meeting you!’ to point out the obvious – I’m neurodivergent.

My latest hyperfixation has seen me spend six months down the AuDHD (Autism & ADHD) rabbit hole. Reading, watching and digesting EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. And I’ve done tests. Lots of them. Turns out I almost certainly have ADHD and there’s a high probability I’m Autistic too. When I spoke to my doctor and told them my symptoms they were like ‘Oh yeah, we need to get you tested.’ So now I’m on a two-year waiting list for that.

While I await a diagnosis, I’m recognising the coping mechanisms I’ve always used for what they are (If you know me and this comes as a surprise to you, it’s likely to be because I was/am SOOOOOO good at masking!) and putting in new ones. Shout out to Joel (the Hubbie) who has been and continues to be AMAZING in this regard. I’ll probably write more about this at some point. Watch this space.

Connections are everything for me. Except when they’re really not. And that’s ok.

The people thing is an interesting challenge for me. I want and need to be close to people (ADHD people pleaser), but I also struggle to maintain plans for socialising, often needing downtime and alone time (Autistic trait). When the two things come into conflict, I can get particularly anxious and weirded out.

There’ll be times when I CANNOT get something started – the procrastination hits hard. I do this thing where I’ll plan when I’ll start something, calculating how long it will take to complete and when is the absolute latest I can start it. I will then spend all day not doing the task, in a low-level state of anxiety, worrying if I’ve calculated the time needed properly, and will re-calculate and re-calculate over and over until I finally reach the time to start it. Which won’t be until the very latest that I can start it. Because only then will I get enough of an adrenalin/serotonin boost to actually be able to do the task.

Both of these things can feel like a LOT. So, I’ve decided to be kinder to myself about them both (and the other things I do that are related to my neurospicyness). I’m trying to let things just happen a bit more and stop with some of the masking where it’s not needed. If tasks are being completed to deadline, then it doesn’t matter if I’m leaving them until last minute. If I really can’t face leaving the house and it’s not a major event I’m missing, then I make my apologies and don’t beat myself up about it.

I’ve decided to be as kind to myself, as I am to other people when it comes to making room for what they’re going through.

So, maybe that’s my holiday message if I have one: Be as kind to others as you are to yourself. And as kind to yourself as you are to others.