Projected Protection: the ADHD habit costing your business hours

I was working with a client recently who's brilliant at what she does. She’s in a demanding field, and she was drowning under the weight of her own paperwork, the reports and records that are essential in her industry.

When we dug under the surface, it was clear that what was happening was a classic sparky-brained over delivery conundrum. She was consistently over-working documents that most likely didn’t need the extra detail. I asked her a simple question, “what does this report actually need to do”?. Once we we looked at things from that angle, the answer was straightforward - it need only clearly and accurately communicate a handful of facts. Nothing more.

But that wasn't what she'd been providing.

She'd been producing a far more polished and detailed document than the recipient would ever need (or appreciate as they’re busy too!) and it was eating up hours she didn't have to give.

That’s why I shared one of my core philosophies with her - that our background experiences mean the B+ work we produce is very likely someone else's A+. She didn't believe me at first, and most of my clients don’t when I first make the suggestion… I don't think many of us would, or at least not straight away. And that’s why, even though I've written before about choosing B+ over perfect before, I’ll keep on talking about it!

One of the costs of a late ADHD diagnosis

Often it's us women who receive our ADHD diagnosis latest, the ones who gritted our teeth and built our entire careers or businesses on being highly capable and reliable (whilst feeling anything but), and hell bent on never dropping the ball, who overdeliver the most.

Long before we had a name for what was actually going on in our brains, we created our own systems to help us manage things, without realising that's what we were doing. The lost details (and things!), the inconsistent follow-through, the fear of being called out, we most often covered it by working harder.

And it wasn’t just all the extra hours and iterations that were costly (though there were plenty of those). It was the constant low-grade anxiety, the need to always be at least slightly over-prepared for the things that might go wrong. We didn't know we were managing a brain that worked differently to expectations. We just knew, instinctively, that we couldn't afford to be caught out, so we made sure we were less likely to be.

Exhausting. Especially because even post diagnosis that anxiety doesn't switch off. The overdelivering habit has become ingrained and kicks in even when it’s entirely unnecessary.

Where ADHD brains learn to overdeliver

If you're a sparky-brained woman, particularly one who came to that understanding later in life, there's a good chance school is where this started. You were probably one of the ones who tried hard, who cared about doing well, sometimes visibly so. Achievement was something you could control, and the praise that came with it, sustaining, especially if fitting in felt hard and genuinely mystifying.

That experience tends to teach a sparky brain is that doing well is what keeps criticism away. And because praise tends to slide off us like Teflon while criticism sticks like Velcro, the confidence that positive feedback usually delivers likely didn’t materialise for you. You could do brilliantly and still feel never quite enough.

Nobody sat us down and explained that our outputs and achievements are not our worth. So we carried the do more, prove more, be more, beliefs and behaviours straight into our businesses, and our inner Overachiever and inner Perfectionist run the show, aided and abetted by hyperfocus, whenever we give them the chance.

Where I see this show up

Just a few examples…

• In sales calls where you've given away so much value and so many ideas that the person on the other end has everything they need and feels no real tension or gap any more, and so investing in working with you becomes a “definitely one day, because you are wonderful, but not right now thanks”.

• In client work, where the scope expands because you feel compelled to do more, worried they might feel short-changed, even though they never suggested such a thing.

• In your own marketing - website copy revised for the umpteenth time, the LinkedIn headline or about section that's still not quite right, the social post that took 50 minutes when it could have taken fifteen because you were thinking about it like a keynote when it’s really just a post it note…

I've done all of these and many more…

Why your brain builds the catastrophe

When I kept gently questioning my client, “why does it need this much detail, what would actually happen if it didn't, who has told you this is the expectation”, the answer, each time, was… nobody. No one had asked. No one had insisted.

Our imagination is vivid, it's fast, and it can create a fully formed catastrophe in seconds flat, threatening us with the spectres of disappointed clients, cranky emails, and the moment when it will all fall apart. And if you add rejection sensitivity into that mix, and you don't just imagine the bad outcomes, you feel them in advance, and will do anything to avoid them.

So we keep adding more. Not because the work needs it, but because some part of us is trying to prevent a catastrophe that was never actually coming.

I've started calling this Projected Protection - our efforts spent guarding against a threat that's, almost always, entirely imagined. It feels like diligence, the responsible, expected thing to do from the inside. It doesn't feel like fear, even though that's actually what it is.

What helps

This is tricky to catch in yourself. It’s really hard to see the spot you’re standing on. But when you do notice it, or if you suspect this is a habit of yours too, a few questions can help create a bit of space.

• What does this (action/event/report etc) actually need to achieve?
  Hold that up against what you've actually been producing, and look honestly at the gap.

• Who is really asking for this level of effort?
  Is there an actual person with an actual stated expectation, or is the bar one you've set sky high yourself?

• What outcome am I protecting against?
  And how likely is it, really, to happen, not how vivid it feels, but how actually likely?

You are always enough, sparky brain and all!

That omnipresent hum of not-ever-enoughness isn't the truth about you. It's an old story, a misbelief, that was drafted a long time ago by a nervous system trying to feel safe.

That younger you learned that more effort was the way to stay safe. And it kind of worked - it earned you approval. But it also lied to you, because it told you as soon as you relax a little, your work won’t be enough and neither will you.

Absolute rubbish! Take a breathe, lean into your undeniable enoughness, and put the pen down. Your B+ work is already great.

Changing this belief, and the behaviour that emanates from it, is Self-leadership work, and it's as essential as good strategy when it comes to growing your business. This is the blend I provide in my work, and I'd love to have a conversation with you about how I can help. You can book a time that works for you here.