Creativity, Motivation and the ADHD Brain
I launched my Sandra Coan Certification program in May!
Sandra Coan Certification is a rigorous hands-on, training program that combines the technical side of photography with business and marketing instruction. It teaches photographers The Sandra Coan Method for lighting, posing, and presentation- which covers how to market your services with your work, your words and your website.
In the program I work one-on-one with photographers to teach them everything I’ve learned over my 24 year career about lighting, and how to develop a signature lighting style with both natural and artificial light. I teach them the art of posing and directing in a way the results in a consistent and cohesive portfolio and I go into detail on how best to showcase their work to attract clients and make money from their art.
Aside from the opportunity for one-on- one mentoring with me, we have monthly group coaching, and in our first group call we got into a conversation about the challenges that come from running a business as a creative person.
The problems that people we talking about were things I TOTALLY related to. They were the same problems I have had in my business and some of the things I still struggle with. These include problems with confidence, and imposter syndrome but also getting distracted by all the things I want/or need to do to keep my business growing. I’ve found myself getting so overwhelmed that I actually can’t take any action and then feeling stuck and frustrated.
These problems are made worse by the fact that I have ADHD - and a lot of creatives do!
I was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD as an adult. We were having one of my son’s tested for dyslexia, and through that process, I realized I had a lot of the same problems that he did. Since that time I’ve been working with a life coach who specializes in working with entrepreneurs with ADHD and it’s been extraordinarily helpful, especially working through the problems that we were taling about on the Sandra Coan Certification coaching call.
Now, I’m not a doctor and I’m not a psychologist or a neuroscientist but, I shared some of what I’ve been learning from working with my coach about the kind of brain I, and may creatives have, with my certification members, and I thought I’d shared some of it with you today.
One of the reasons creative people and people with ADHD get stuck or frustrated in business is because most of the business advice that is out there in the world is created for people with neuro-typical brains… and it’s centered around the Be-Do-Have model.
So to elicit change, you need to change your mindset so you can BE the person you need to be in order to DO the things you need to do to HAVE the success you want.
This model is why there is SO much mindset talk in the business world… because the belief is that changing your mindset will change your behavior, making it easier to reach your goals.
The ADHD brain or the creative brain, however, is an emotion based brain. And because it’s an emotion based brain, it’s really hard for us to change our behavior before we have evidence to back it up. The Be, Do, Have model doesn’t really work for us because we get stuck in the BE.
For creatives, the better approach is Do, BE, Have.
This model requires taking action first. DO the thing first. That looks like learning the skill and practicing what you want to learn. Once you DO the thing, the brain has evidence and emotion to point to, which starts changing your mindset. Once you’ve been able to prove to yourself that you are capable of something, through doing, you begin to see that change is possible for you, so you can BE the person you need to be to HAVE the thing you want to reach your goal.
Creative brains grow and change through taking action.
This is why coaching and mentoring is SO beneficial for creatives. It helps you figure out what you need to DO so that you can become the person you need to BE so that you can HAVE the things you want.
Sandra Coan Certification is currently closed, but we will be opening enrollment one more time this year, so if you are interested please join the waitlist and stay tuned for more exciting news about certification!
