Working With Your Brain, Not Against It
There is a very specific brand of frustration that comes with knowing exactly what you need to do… and still not being able to do it!
It’s not because you don’t care. Not because you don’t understand it. Not even because you’re particularly busy. You can be sitting right in front of the task, fully aware that it would take about twenty minutes if you just cracked on with it, and yet your brain is skipping around a field, picking daisies. Not a care in the world!
For most of my life, I didn’t have any language for this. I was late diagnosed, which means I spent 51 years assuming that this was just how I was. Inconsistent, easily distracted, a bit unreliable when it came to getting shit done. I had zero idea my brain was neurodivergent, which is laughable really now I know that it clearly is.(Narrator: the signs were always there!)
I just thought it was ‘special’ and not in a good way. And that conclusion didn’t come out of nowhere either. It was born for a million moments where I was quietly made to feel like I was buffering ‘normal’.
I still remember an English teacher telling me “80% of this essay is brilliant, and the rest is pure fairy land,”. Now I’m proud of that part of me that wanders off on fabulous tangents, mid sentence. It’s a hugely important part of who I am. But back then I was filed under “lovely, but a bit strange”. And it left me pondering whether it was a world problem, or my brain. I had no idea that my magnificent brain just needed the right conditions.
So I did what most of us do. I tried to fix it.
For years, I assumed this was a discipline problem. That if I could just be a bit more consistent, a bit more focused, a bit less prone to wandering off mid-task, everything would finally get in line. Then when it came to work I bought into the idea that the ‘winners’ were the ones who showed up the same way every day and just got on with things, regardless of how they felt. It never crossed my mind that I might be aspiring to a rulebook my brain missed the memo for.
Most business advice is not for us
The majority of business advice isn’t neutral. It’s built for a very specific type of brain. And that brain is not mine. Which kinda sucks really.
It’s built for people who can decide to do something and then… just do it. No internal negotiation. No sudden urge to make a cup of tea, scroll something deeply irrelevant, and then question all of your life choices halfway through opening a document. No weird moment where your brain nopes, and disappears off to learn something fascinating but entirely unhelpful. (I once lost a solid hour researching what to do if you’re stuck in a lift. Do I need that information? No. Do I now avoid lifts? Absolutely yes!.)
And the thing is, this generic advice is given like it’s universal. Which means that when your brain bumps into it, it feels like a ‘you’ problem. You’re inconsistent, you need more self discipline. You haven’t found the right system. You’re just not good enough. (Spoiler alert: you absolutely are.)
But what if it’s not that you haven’t found the right system — it’s that you’ve been trying to force yourself into ones that were never built for your brain in the first place? Read that again. Because once you understand that, things start to make a lot more sense. Not in a dramatic “everything is fixed” kind of way, but in an ‘aha’ lightbulb above your head kind of way. Because it explains a lot.
Force it…I dare Yyou (really don’t)
When something doesn’t work, the natural instinct is to push harder. To sit there longer, try to force focus. Override whatever resistance is showing up. And to be fair, that can work for a while. You can absolutely drag yourself through a task with enough internal pressure and a slightly aggressive pep talk. But it comes at a cost.
Because every time you factory reset your brain in the hope it will operate against its natural patterns, you’re overriding signals that are there for a reason. That starts an energy fire that leaves you with tiredness and some lingering shame that something relatively simple has wiped you out for the rest of the day.
This is where the boom-and-bust cycle can creep in, and this was my strategy for far too long. You have a few days where everything flows, you get loads done, you feel vaguely invincible… and then suddenly replying to an email feels like you’re in an internal small talk convo. From the outside, it looks inconsistent. From the inside, it feels like your brain has just done an emergency stop with no warning.
These patterns aren’t random
One of the most useful shifts, and also one of the most annoying to accept, is that your patterns aren’t random. They’re information.
The times you can focus for hours without noticing. The moments where starting feels completely impossible until something suddenly clicks. The tasks that you avoid with Olympic-level skill, even though you know they matter. That’s not chaos. That’s data.
Executive dysfunction often shows up as that gap between intention and action, where you know exactly what needs to happen and yet… tumbleweeds. Not because you’re incapable, but because the conditions for action aren’t in place. Once you start looking at what those conditions actually are, things get a bit clearer.
You begin to notice when your brain is more receptive, what kind of tasks pull you in, and what are your resistance triggers. It doesn’t magically solve everything, but it does mean you’re no longer trying to operate blind.
When it’s interesting it works
There’s a particular brand of shame that comes with only being able to focus on things that are interesting. It can feel childish, or unprofessional, or like you should really be able to just get on with things regardless.And yet your brain has its mouth clamped shut and is shaking its head vigorously as someone is trying to spoon rice pudding into it. (Is that just me? yuck!)
For many neurodivergent people, interest isn’t optional. It’s the thing that actually switches the lights on. When something engages you, properly engages you, focus can be almost effortless. Time disappears, ideas connect, and you suddenly look like a highly functional adult who absolutely has their life together.
When it doesn’t, even simple tasks can feel weirdly impossible. Not hard, just… inaccessible. Like they are in a giant claw machine and no amount of pound coins and patience allows you to access one. Which is why trying to ‘business’ whilst ignoring that reality tends to backfire.
Designing work that has some level of ‘shiny new thing’ built into it isn’t indulgent. It’s practical. Because It’s the difference between pushing a giant rock uphill and surfing the focus wave.
When it feels like your idea, your brain chills out
There’s also something annoying that I’ve noticed over the years. Well, there is plenty that is annoying, but I won’t gallop after that squirrel. Tasks change depending on how they feel internally. I can have things collecting dust on my ‘to do’ list for days…weeks even, that feel impossible to start. Then suddenly the planets align, or whatever, and I complete them in 20 minutes.
The task didn’t change. Neither did the deadline. The only thing that shifted was my brain moving it from something it was told to do, to something it came up with itself. Like that boss (we’ve all had one) that dismisses your genius idea in the bored-room (yes that was intentional) only to “I’ve got an incredible idea” weeks later!
Because the moment something feels like a “should,”we’re back to the rice pudding shoveling. Not because the task is unreasonable, but because it feels imposed.
When it feels like a choice, even if nothing else changes, there is less friction. It becomes more doable, and far less dramatic. And once you notice this, it’s really helpful. But also horribly inconvenient, because you can no longer use the “push through the pain” strategy anymore.
It was never about trying harder
What becomes clear over time is that this isn’t about a lack of effort. Most people I know with neurodivergent brains commit to everything like there’s a million pound prize at the end of it. Cleaning the bathroom? I’m spending 4 hours with an old toothbrush making sure every inch of it is showroom sparkly. You with me? But…and it’s a big BUT. That effort, when it comes to business, is being poured into toeing the line with systems that don’t actually fit. And applying more effort to a mismatch doesn’t fix it. It just makes you even tireder, even faster!
A more useful question at that point isn’t “how do I try harder?” — because let’s be honest, you’ve already tried that and look where that got you! (no shame, just fact stating!) It’s “how do I make this easier to start?” Because that’s usually where the whole thing falls apart.
And that might mean changing when you do something, how it’s structured, or what you pair it with. Not in a dramatic, “new life, new me” kind of way, but in small, slightly less punishing adjustments that your brain might actually agree to. It’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about removing enough friction that getting to it doesn’t feel like wrestling a grizzly bear every single time.
You’re not the problem
The biggest shift isn’t tactical. It’s how you see yourself. Because when you move from “I’m unpredictable” or “I’m an out of control nightmare” to “my brain works differently,” something settles. Not in a dramatic, life-is-fixed kind of way, but in a quieter, “oh… that explains a lot” kind of way.
You stop trying to force yourself into ways of working that never quite fit, and start paying attention to what actually does. Less fighting it, more working with it — which, annoyingly, turns out to be far more effective.
You start to notice your patterns, and after a bit of practice, you start to trust them more. Instead of constantly second-guessing yourself or trying to override everything, you begin to work with what’s already there. I’d be lying if I said it suddenly made everything easy, but it does take the edge off that constant feeling that you’re getting it wrong. And without that shame everything feels a lot more doable.
So… what now?
You take this and you use it. Not perfectly, not consistently, and definitely not in a way that suddenly turns you into one of those people who just “gets things done” without thinking about it. Knowledge is power… but it’s not a miracle. Annoying, but true.
The goal is to stop assuming the problem is you. Because it isn’t, so let that shit go. When something feels hard to start, or weirdly impossible for no obvious reason, you pause long enough to ask a better question. Not “what’s wrong with me?” but “what does my brain need here?”
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And after that, you can no longer pretend you don’t know any better. So you build something that actually fits your fabulous brain. Bit by bit. Adjustment by adjustment.
And then comes the life-changing bit: you realise you were never the problem. You were just trying to run on instructions that weren’t written for you.