Sabah, 27

Sabah came to me as she was in need of someone to help her organise her life and her thoughts, as not being on top of these things was giving her anxiety.

Additionally, she had two goals - one for the short and one for the long term. Her short term goal was to return back to university to finish her Art Therapy studies which she had to abandon due to overall overwhelm. Her long term goal is to build her own business that will enable her to live out another one of her passions, in this case working with flowers.

Having assessed and listened to everything that Sabah had told me, our first session focused on looking at her ADHD strengths. This exercise helped us to realise that she truly would flourish by achieving both her short and long term goals, which helped provide any tasks associated with these with purpose. We then moved onto look into her “Saboteurs” which are those sabotaging characteristics that everyone has, not just those with ADHD! The purpose of this was to make her more self aware of the moments in which she was applying these and standing in her own way.

I then suggested that our next session should be about Impulsivity / Focus. It’s an exercise that I have done with every one of my clients and it is incredibly effective, it helps to break down goals into smaller steps with associated timeframes. This helps to stop ADHDers from wanting to jump from A to Z without doing the letters in between and helps them focus on what’s important and not jump from A to 5, 5 to V, V to 36…you get it! This exercise was then our “guide” for every session following this.

We of course also did other exercises as and when other symptoms popped up, but we always returned to what was important to her.

And I am so proud and pleased to say that Sabah absolutely smashed her tasks and given timeframes. She has enrolled back into uni as well as launched her side hustle! Not only this, she has also changed behaviours that have eased her overwhelm considerably so much so that friends have noticed.

GO SABAH!!!

*One thing worth mentioning is that the exercises are part of the Executive Functioning Framework taught to me by ADHD Works. And…they truly work!