My Life Work

A reframing of what it means for me to feel disciplined.

Listen as you read (I listened as I wrote):

Did you know it doesn’t take much gasoline to burn this f-er down

And I know it hurts like hell, but the new you is ready to break out

And I can’t stop hurting, cuz something in me is changing, and I don’t know what I’m looking for

And I can’t stop hurting, cuz something in me is changing, and I don’t know how to do this anymore

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Hi, it’s me.

Well, we did it. We showed up here to talk about ADHD for five whole weeks in a row! I’m exhausted. Are you exhausted? That was a lot of focus work and object permanence! 😂 Thank you for following along—I appreciate all the comments and emails about how my experience revealed or validated your own. 

Will you do me a favor? If you read all the way to the end, I’d love to get your feedback on this series in just a few (three!) quick questions. 🙏

To recap where we’ve been in this series, last year at age 52 I was diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD. In my research of what this meant, I began to understand how the undiagnosed and untreated ADHD showed up in my career through imposter syndrome and frequent job changes that felt random and disconnected, like a crazy quilt. A diagnosis helped me better understand my past and gain the tools and skills I need to move on from decades feeling like a career failure.

If you’d like to catch up on any of those stories, you can access the full series here in one place.

This week I’m coming full circle back to

Amanda B. Hinton

’s words that reframed what it means to be disciplined, particularly for someone like me who has always struggled with consistency:

“...maybe a more expansive way to think about discipline is that it isn't punishment. Discipline is returning to the thing which you value, and we have unlimited invitations to return to the thing that we value.”

Today I want to tell you about that thing which I value and return to, the thread that stitches this whole crazy quilt together!

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My Personal Mission

About ten years ago I stumbled across an articulation of my personal mission that has intrigued me ever since. Where I found it, oddly, was in a paraphrased version of the Bible called The Message. 

Now hear me out, because I promise this whole series hasn’t been a weird bait & switch where I suddenly ask you to consider a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Message just happens to be where this first jumped out at me. 

Back in the day, this narrative-style paraphrase of the Bible offered a fresh take on familiar passages of scripture that I’d grown up reading my whole life. You know how that can be, sometimes. You read something or see something so much that it becomes invisible and meaningless?

Reading The Message refreshed some of those tired and invisible passages for me, like this one from Ephesians 3:7—

“This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message….” 

When the writer mentions “this message,” he’s referring to the gospel, of course, but for me this was a big picture ah-ha! moment. I locked on to each word as my own. Here’s how it dawned on me:

This is my life work…

Helping people understand…

Helping people understand and respond…

Wait, I do that!

When we understand one another, we can respond with love and empathy (or dollars or purchases or signups)…

When we misunderstand, we respond with frustration and apathy (or ignore your product offering)…

You have a message, a thing you want to communicate, do you feel understood?

I can help! This is what I do!

Whoa… 🤯

At the time, I was writing and producing animated videos that explained products and services for businesses. I was helping brands shed their industry jargon in favor of speaking Human to their customers. I was mediating conflict between friends. I was writing personal essays that sought to connect two opposing points of view through empathy and love. 

It’s me! Custom illustration by my friend and former business partner, Andrew Imamura (2014).

A few years later, I would help facilitate a departmental merger and the introduction of new processes and tools by listening to what team members wanted and inviting them to participate in making changes that directly impacted their workflow. I would be asked to repair broken client relationships and help rebuild trust.

And later, while interviewing for a communications role in the nonprofit sector, I would spontaneously use the term social jargon for the first time to describe the way we stereotype people and dehumanize social problems like homelessness and drug addiction.

And so I return to Amanda’s words:

How I make my way through the world may not look structured, but my heart is disciplined and aligned to what nourishes it. 

I feel this now. Deeply. And I see evidence of it throughout my “crazy quilt” career. This whole time, I was helping people understand and respond to one another with love and empathy (and sometimes dollars!)—a pretty unwavering personal mission.

If any of this imposteryness from my midlife ADHD story resonates, I hope you find a way to reframe how you see yourself and your circumstances.

I’m taking a break for the next few weeks, but I’ll be back at the end of the month with a special live Zoom event. Details below!

Until next time,

Jen

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That’s a wrap! 🎬

Thanks for reading my series on how a midlife ADHD diagnosis helped me move on from decades of feeling like a career failure! I collected all the posts HERE in one place.

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What’s next? Save the date!

⭐️ October 26 (Saturday, 9-10am PT): Live Zoom chat with ME! ⭐️

I’m writing a memoir about parenting for those who are a parent or have a parent.

It includes the difficult and uncomfortable conversations or scenarios my family has tackled together, including topics like death, faith, racism, and mental health, among others. It’s kinda funny, a little irreverent, and super duper honest about the hard stuff.

This might be new information if you recently joined the group chat—I haven’t written about it since April.¹

Anyway…I’m planning to share details about my book draft and how it’s evolved over the last few years. In turn, you can help me work out the last few chapters—I got stuck trying to organize my ideas into neat little buckets, and I’d love to get your perspective.

Mics on! Let’s be awkward on camera together! You might want to join if:

• you’re curious about my book-writing process (so far)

• you’re interested in what the book is about

• you like to give opinions and/or can help me organize my thoughts

• we’re Substack friends and you want have a chat!

It’s a FREE conversation, but I do need you to register for the Zoom link:

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A Quick Survey

Please be honest—you won’t hurt my feelings. I’m asking because I want to learn.

1. You can read some shitty first drafts of my memoir HERE if you like.