As you know being neurospicy means you interact with the world a little differently. The positive side of that is people with these unique traits have qualities and strengths that neurotypical individuals would not have. Someone with neurospicy traits sometimes needs help to navigate the world around them and help their unique perspective operate being a neurodivergent person in a world not built for them. 

I grew up as the weird kid who missed school due to health issues and struggled greatly due to undiagnosed ADD and I lacked the social skills to fit into my neurotypical surroundings. Don’t worry IT DOES GET BETTER!!! In college, I learned the skills to manage (and embrace) my neurospiciness and move on to graduate and OWN a successful art therapy business. Now I help many people function as a neurospicy individual as a life coach. My clients look to learn how to survive their quirks, build confidence, and embrace their unique individual traits as superpowers. 

It’s important to remember that it is out of your control how your quirks come to be, this is my focus with clients in my life coaching program. Your focus should be on what you CAN control, therefore here are 3 steps on how to simplify your life and help you survive this neurotypical world.

1.  Study your routine: Observe your day-to-day, grab a notebook, and write down your daily routine (yes I know, lists … remembering to write things down, it’ll be worth it, trust me). Keep this list simple, make check marks, smileys, doodles, stickers, stamps, etc., and make it fun. Whatever helps you to know what works (and what doesn’t) within your routine. Do this for several days, a week, or even two weeks. Make note of the people you interact with, the feelings that are influenced by various interactions or stimuli or tasks, and all barriers to accomplishing what you need to do. Just be certain to keep it detailed.

2. Adjust your routine: Try something new. See where you can trim things down and what can be simplified. It helps to ask yourself some of the following questions: What’s too much? What’s too stressful? What do you absolutely NEED in your schedule? Or what are some things that could change? Would parts of your routine work better in the morning rather than before bed? Set alarms to remind yourself of the changes that you make, including changes made to your job, however that may apply to your personal situation. Different choices made in your routine will influence how you respond to stress and manage to get through each day. 

For example, you have a certain medication that you must take daily to just exist as a human being. If it isn’t being taken as prescribed by keeping the medication in your bathroom cabinet, what about moving it to your nightstand? That way it’s one of the first things you see when you wake up and helps you to remember to take the medication, add a post-it note to it to grab your attention. Do this for a few days and evaluate if it makes a difference in your routine. If it doesn’t work then try another solution for a few days.  

3. Change your mindset: To be consistent throughout the first two steps, you need to change how you view things, i.e. your perspective. In college, I always thought that I was a bad communicator but a counselor asked me if this was how people made me feel or if that was how I truly felt about my communication strategies. I realized that this was how people made me feel, how they responded and talked to me that I thought that I was doing something wrong. Since then, I have done a lot of my own research on the topic, and depending on what is internally going on with that person’s day will change how they perceive what I am saying. This may not be the case in all situations, maybe you will have to learn new strategies to function in the world better or have better interactions with other people. It’s always good to have feedback on yourself, but if it’s not valid, if it’s truly a “them” problem, then it’s better to make a note of it, accept that you can’t control it, and try not to personalize it. BUT if it is a “you” problem, what can you observe and adjust to improve this mindset. 

So how does this help you build confidence and embrace your quirks? By building consistency in your routine, you will feel confident that YOU CAN get things done, or get that medication taken. By changing the mindset you are finding the triggers that may be causing additional stress and learn to recognize this and adjust your viewpoint. All of this will allow your brain to have a break from trying to keep up with all the tasks that need to be accomplished because it is now a habit in your routine, eliminating some stressors under your control. Ultimately helping you feel better about yourself. This alone will begin to help you feel better both physically and mentally. This is exactly what I do to help my clients as a life coach, one step at a time, you can find out more about my program HERE.