Is how your brain functions limiting you? Are you often:

• Overwhelmed by managing mental demands (analyzing, planning, organizing, and/or scheduling)?

• Thinking slowly (and working around mental gaps) or struggling to effectively convey your thoughts?

• Challenged by scattered attention?

• Forgetting where you put something, what you were going to do next, or why you entered a room?

Together, the doing, thinking, and feeling struggles that come with brain functioning that is frequently misunderstood or  leads to disruptive “dumb” mistakes can create an obstacle to moving forward in both work and life.

Whether you experience regular brain fog, focus (e.g., ADHD), or forgetting problems, no matter how helpless you feel, you’re not at the mercy of your brain wiring. Steps can be taken to change your struggle. It often requires support to nudge you in a more positive direction. It may not be easy to see a broader perspective on what to do, especially if the wiring seems out of your control. But, a more positive direction for working with your brain is do-able.

Beyond how you or others feel about your brain’s condition, the lack of helpful answers can further complicate the situation. You may have many questions and partial information, but an unclear understanding of how to piece it together for the way that you live. For example, you might wonder:

– How long will my brain feel fog last and how do I begin to deal with it?

– What can I do to stay on-track with my aspirations despite feeling stuck or disordered?

– Why am I forgetting so much and how can I live a “normal” life?

– What IS normal for me and how can I live authentically and with purpose?

Although they’re different brain-based problems, brain fog, focus, and forgetting difficulties are related through their inhibiting, uncertain nature. They can similarly hold people back- it can be hard to rise above disappointment, frustration, and shame when “invisible” thinking difficulties show up unexpectedly and/or cause unanticipated impact. And, because others can’t see what’s going on in your head, they may misinterpret what’s happening and all the effort expended just to “keep up”.  Even well- intentioned others may not be able to help you in the ways that you need.

I understand these difficulties AND I believe there is an approach that can make a difference in how you live. Steps can be taken to learn new knowledge, enhance your personal awareness, and gain greater clarity about what is possible. You can feel free even with brain fog, focus, or forgetting difficulties when you are strong, ready, and prepared. You can resiliently manage your unique challenges in ways that fit how you live and where you’re headed, so that they no longer present obstacles in your way.

A different way from struggling beyond coping may be hard to envision. But, you can learn how to create and use success strategies, better understand your difficulty, and take supported action to improve your life.

First, though, you need to (re) discover what you have to offer the world- both the strengths and vulnerabilities. No person is one-sided. When challenged by brain-based wiring, one side (the vulnerable side) can easily become “the truth” about a person, creating imbalance. So, you need to really know and accept your whole truth, “problems” and all.

Second, you need to learn supportive strategies and approaches to help you navigate life with your brain-based challenges. This is true for most people, but especially true when there are hidden difficulties that can be easily misunderstood, assumed to be not present, or energy-depleting (compensating so others don’t know comes at a high personal cost).

Third, you need to create a roadmap with goals and touchstones for evaluating your progress AND begin to take steps to navigate the way forward with resilience. The kind of resilience that comes from having a flexible plan of action, learning how to discern the best choices for you that fit your needs, reframing limiting beliefs and assumptions, and utilizing strategies tools to help you succeed in “off-track” moments.

Combined, these steps can help you to build: the ability to effectively NOTICE what’s going on, REGROUP by stepping away and evaluating, ADUST as needed, and strategically RETURN. Resilience is more than “bouncing back”. It’s knowing how to optimally stay present in life, despite adversity. When we understand that it’s not the size of the obstacles in our way that matters, but how we manage them, we can eliminate the struggle and feel alive (even when the path is complicated or unclear).