Careers & ADHD: What I’ve learned working with clients with ADHD

ADHD is still widely misunderstood, especially in the context of work. Most of the public narrative focuses on distractions, procrastination, or poor time management as if the entire experience of ADHD can be boiled down to a simple productivity issue.

But in my work with clients who have ADHD, I’ve seen something very different. I’ve seen people who are intelligent, capable, creative, and driven. However, they're stuck in career systems that were never built with their brains in mind. And I’ve seen how much shame, doubt, and inner conflict can grow when someone repeatedly feels like they’re “underperforming” in environments that don’t reflect how they operate best.

This post isn’t about defining ADHD. It’s about sharing the patterns I’ve seen, and what tends to help when you’re navigating your career with a neurodivergent brain. I hope it helps.

Pattern 1: Motivation is not the problem it's more likely to be friction

Most of my clients with ADHD are deeply motivated in that they care. They want to do well but traditional work structures often put them in a near-constant battle with their own attention, memory, or energy.

What looks like laziness or disorganisation is usually friction: unclear expectations, sensory overload, poor task-switching environments, or the pressure to operate in a linear, rigid way that drains them.

The fix isn’t always external structure. In fact, too much structure often backfires. What tends to work is helping clients reduce unnecessary friction and build systems that match how their attention naturally flows not just how it’s “supposed” to. This can be very hard to do in structured corporate and hierarchical environments. 

Pattern 2: There’s often a backlog of internalised failure

By the time someone with ADHD gets to coaching, they’ve usually internalised years of feedback like: “You’re not trying hard enough,” “You just need to focus,” or “You should be further ahead by now.” They might feel like they've failed or there is something wrong with them. 

This leaves a residue of shame and hypervigilance. Many clients oscillate between overcommitting (to prove themselves) and burnout (when they inevitably crash). Or they delay career moves entirely, not because they lack ambition, but because they’re afraid of repeating the same cycle in a new role.

Coaching here isn’t about goal-setting it’s about helping clients separate fact from narrative. What’s truly a skill gap, and what’s just inherited shame? This clarity alone can shift how people move forward.

A useful question to ask yourself:

“Is it that I don’t know what to do — or is it that fear is convincing me to stay safe?”

If it’s fear, what is it telling you will happen? And who taught you that?

Pattern 3: Purpose and stimulation matter more than status

Many of my clients with ADHD struggle in traditional corporate environments. They’re bored. Disengaged. Or stuck doing work that their boss tells them to do but might not consider the bigger picture. 

ADHD brains need stimulation and novelty but also for their work to make sense within a wider context. Often it's a sense of connection to something that matters. When that’s missing, performance suffers not because of laziness, but because the system is flatlining their attention.

Career strategy for ADHD clients has to go beyond job titles and industries. It’s about identifying the conditions where they come alive, fast-moving teams, creativity, autonomy, mission-driven work, and finding or shaping roles around that.

Pattern 4: Decisions are harder when the mind won’t settle

Because ADHD often comes with executive function challenges, big career decisions can feel overwhelming. Not because the client lacks insight, but because the brain doesn’t always create the conditions for stillness, clarity, or follow-through.

Clients often jump between options, question themselves constantly, or procrastinate not because they don’t care, but because choosing feels like loss, pressure, and identity risk all at once.

What helps here is not pushing for certainty, but scaffolding the decision-making process. Coaching offers the space to externalise thoughts, pace the process, and reduce the pressure to “get it right the first time.”

Final thoughts

Working with ADHD clients has taught me that success isn’t about fixing deficits or "fixing" anything. My clients are great as they are. Rather, it’s about understanding design of time, energy, environment, and career paths that are actually aligned with how someone functions. It's also about spotting where the internalised judgement creeps in and helping them identify their needs and what works for them.  

When that alignment is there, things shift. Energy returns. Focus improves. Confidence builds. Not because someone “got better at adulting,” but because they stopped trying to live and work in ways that were never going to work for them.

If you’re navigating ADHD in your career, diagnosed or not, coaching can offer more than tools. It can offer a recalibration of what success looks like for you. And more importantly, permission to build a career that finally works on your terms.