You’re doing it wrong

Hiya,

Today I was on WhatsApp with two friends, one only 8 mins away, the other currently in London. Somehow, we ended up messaging about how strong our feelings about where we live are.

North v South, Melbourne v Sydney, not vague preferences but actual convictions based on our lived experiences and how it made us feel.

In Perth, I lived south of the river, near gum trees and the swan river, watching swans and pelicans as I did walks around my suburb, even though my Mum and my sister were well north.

In Melbourne I'm a true north girl. I love the urban bustle, the creativity and the coffee shops and after 3 years here couldn't see myself living anywhere else.

In London, in my 20’s, it was SE5, south again. Camberwell with the 36 buses from the Oval tube station. It was close to bookshops and the local chippy for a 17p cone of chips and vinegar.

There's a thing neurodivergent brains do, treating sameness as regulation.Not stubbornness, not fussiness. The nervous system finding safety in the predictable.

The known seat, the known street, the known sound, the known people. It doesn’t’ mean you don’t like new things, but you feel safer with familiarity.

Because underneath the place, the people, the sounds is a ritual.

Perth, early Sunday mornings, before the heat got going, Simon and I would head to Port Beach with our towels (sand sensory ick) and our coffee in our keep cups.

Watching the tankers come in and out of Fremantle. Waves, seagulls,too many sharks for me to actually get in.

I ran my own business back then too, and the week didn't leave much room for anyone,so that hour on the sand was one of the connections the week actually gave us.

My grandfather, a fisherman and a butcher, and lived by the sea, used to sit me down on the beach and get me counting waves. Told me the 7th one was always the biggest.

I would sit there and count and not know that I was being taught a fabulous way to regulate, although I think it was to keep me in one place and quiet while he rolled his tobacco.

Sunday mornings were food shopping, same-Ish order, same stalls, same walk home past Camberwell Green.

And now, Clifton Hill, it's still Sunday, with Simon and the dog, a local cafe, Two Bob, same seat under the tree out front. Porridge for me. Eggs benedict or the Reuben for Simon, he genuinely debates it every single week like it's a new question.

No waves this time. Only the tick tick tick of the pedestrian crossing across the road. Different soundtrack. Same job.

Here's my two cents worth based on who I am and what I do.

Some of us are wired like me. I need the sameness. The same seat, the same order, the same hour, and something in the body settles. My ADHD shows up in creativity and colour and movement.

Others are wired like my husband, who feels boxed in the second something turns into a fixture. Too much of the same thing and he's climbing the walls and looking for an escape.

There's no right, or normal way for your brain to be. They're different jobs the nervous system is trying to do, that's all.

If you're the sameness type, the thing you keep doing every Sunday without quite knowing why is naturally regulating you.

And if you’re another kind of sparkly brain, the one who needs room to move, that's not flakiness either. That's a brain that needs attention often, movement, new thoughts and that’s how it settles.

I still don't actually know if the 7th wave is the biggest.

I do know Simon still can't decide between the Eggs Benedict and the Reuben, and it won’t be long before he spot something completely different and want that.

This is my Sunday routine. Some of you want the same seat, the same order, every single week. Some of you would rather set your hair on fire than repeat the same Sunday twice.

And yet, we think we need to run our businesses the same way as everyone else. Following normative patterns of 9-5 Monday to Friday, instead of working with our own energy patterns, our own styles.

I’m sitting here writing this at 7.12 pm on a Tuesday with the best Grill’d chicken and brie burger with beetroot. I take the afternoons off from 3pm most days because I need to reset my energy.

I listen to how my body and brain wants to work and this is what makes it possible to keep going.

Running a business is not for the meek, or the constantly exhausted or emotionally depleted. You must find ways that work for you for it to be sustainable, profitable and fun (well at least sometimes)

Want to know more about how to build your own sustainable and profitable business?

Mel x

P.S. If anyone can tell me, scientifically, whether the 7th wave really is the biggest, don't. Some things deserve to stay a grandfather's need for space and quiet and nothing more.

P.P.S If you've got a Sunday ritual of your own, hit reply and tell me what it is. I would love to know and maybe Simon can add it to his list of new things to try.

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ADHD Village- PO Box 475, Clifton Hill, 3068, Australia