[F20] I have adhd and I pick up and drop hobbies weekly to monthly. For this reason, I cannot find a career path I am actually interested in. How can I pick a career path??

I need major help with this. I am stagnating in life, I don't know where to go next due to this issue.

The things I like to do (in cycles bc,,, as title said i dont stick to hobbies) are always something super competitive or don't make any money. I like to learn, so I dive into all sorts of hobbies like coding, 3D art, vfx, video game development, a whole bunch of random things (but are generally about creation).

I do not have the ambition, motivation, or lasting interest to pursue just one of these things, ESPECIALLY not as a career. If I pick a career path based on a passing interest, I will hate my career and become even more depressed, and honestly just quit no matter the consequences (ive done this with jobs). I literally will pour hours of dedication into learning something random like coding (on this right now), and drop it next week like I never touched it and move on to another thing. I cant force myself to go back to it, either. This is a painful process to me, it's as though my learning is all in vain as I let my knowledge fade away, and worse, this makes it so I CANNOT settle on a career.

If anyone has any advice for me, I am open to every and all suggestions. If you have been through similar and got through it, please let me know how. I do take adderall btw.

edit: thank you all for your thoughtful responses, i have read them and i do plan on answering as soon as i have the time! thank you guys so so much 💜

DJDarren,

Something my wife once told me that really stuck with was;

Your job is just how you afford to pay for the things you like to do.

And that really helped me to reframe how I view my working life.

At the time I was a welder, earning reasonable, but not mind-blowing money, doing a job that I never really liked. I hated coming home filthy every night, I hated sweating my arse off during the warm months, freezing it off when it was cold, because you can't carry out my line of work in an air conditioned office. After she told me that, it helped me to look at my work life from a different angle, which bizarrely had the effect of chilling me the fuck out, to the point that, while I didn't love what I was doing, I came to accept that I was good at it. And if I didn't like it, I had the power to find a job doing something else. Hell, I could stack shelves at a supermarket for only a little less than I was earning at the time.

Then I got promoted into the office, because that mindset change apparently made me a more reliable worker.

I've been with this company for five years now, and have managed to wiggle into a space where my job is neither one thing nor another. One day I'll be devising training plans for the guys on the shop floor, the next I'm creating valuable documentation that they need, then I'm helping out the Health & Safety manager with audits. And while I don't love working here, I've finally got to a place where I can see a future where I'm not in my 60s, clambering about under rusty old railway wagons, welding up cracks, fucking my back and knees.

minnieo,
minnieo avatar

i love this advice, jobs just pay for me to live the life close to how i wanna live. i understand that getting a job i actually like is slim to none in this world, i just ask that its bearable. i agree totally with your advice, i think i could do okay in such a situation if i kept taking my medication and it paid good enough to support myself (which jobs dont seem to do anymore). my main issue then is,, which do i go for? i truly have 0 clue what direction to point in at this point in time. i love art and creation but i refuse to pursue something so unstable. that leaves the options for 'careers that get you by' wiiiide open. i also dont wanna be in school forever. soo much to consider, but im rambling now lol. thanks for your advice, it struck a cord with me 💜

Mintyytea,

Is there any class in school you’ve done that’s been sustainable for you? If you feel like coding/art is more like a hobby and you don’t want to be stuck doing it forever, maybe there’s something else out there for you that you’d feel content working on a little every day.

If you’re worried about coding as a job from competitiveness though, I think don’t worry too much about it. It’ll work out if you just try your best. Even you doing coding for fun is pretty cool :o

DJDarren,

I'm glad you were able to take something from my comment.

If I might suggest; perhaps you're overthinking somewhat? Think about where your skills lie, and think about what that enables you to do, then approach a job that makes the most of you at this moment in time.

That job might only see you through the next six months, but the experience you gain from it will carry you into wherever you go next. And so on, and so on... And that's fine. We tend to strive for a career because we've been trained to see that as the most profitable way of being, an attempt to set in stone the next 40/50 years of our lives in as predictable way as possible. And that worked fine for our parents and grandparents, but isn't necessarily the case now.

So whatever you're doing a year from now might not be what you're doing in five years. But as long as your bills are paid, and you're able to live in this world, then that's ok.

TisBe,

I have been there. More jobs than years on the planet. Dozens of hobbies and interests picked up and put down. Four changes of majors in college. It was frustrating and exhausting.

And then this miraculous thing happened: all of that knowledge and all of those skills coalesced into what I needed to build my own business. Each thing I picked up along the way I needed to learn and had no better way to learn them.

That six weeks of fascination with photography gave me the skills to do my own product photography. Eight weeks of obsession with graphic design made my website beautiful. The two week rabbit hole I went down on light and lighting became the basis of my whole business. Each area of study for the four attempts over 19 years it took to get my degree gives me a huge advantage over my competitors that only understand one subject. Two tax seasons of tax preparation prepared me for handling my own taxes. Retail work gave me the skills in purchasing and planning. Customer service is the single most useful skill set I have ever acquired.

I really could go on, but I am now boring myself. My personal goal for my life was to set up a way to support myself while accepting and accommodating my neurodivergence. It took me a long time to gather all of the knowledge I needed to achieve that, but damn when it all came together it was awesome.

My point is that nothing you are doing, or have done, is a waste. It all adds up. It is all useful. It will all add up into something worthwhile. Hell, you would do really well selling hobbyist stuff. You have familiarity with so many different kinds of hobbies and interests you could assemble an amazing storefront.

shepherd, (edited )
shepherd avatar

Hi friend, you got this.

I've been exactly there, and you got this.

Obviously, there's a lot going on here, so right off the bat:

Give yourself time to change, don't expect everything to be different right away. Every day, what you do adjusts your ship's direction like maybe 1° lol. Maybe 0.0001°.

The goal is to eventually be aiming somewhere that you like, but it's okay if you're having trouble steering today. If you had a shit day yesterday, and you steered 3° the wrong way... It's okay. Today, it's time to steer a tiny bit back. Just a bit of work. Tomorrow hopefully a little more work, we'll find out when we get there.

Good luck, captain!

It's okay to ask for help with this. Therapy is professionally trained help so that's extra good, but asking someone you trust for support can make a big difference.

I'M SERIOUS THOUGH, IT'S YEARS MAYBE DECADES OF GENTLE STEERING. WORKING SLOWLY BUT SURELY. GOOD LUCK CAPTAIN.

So two things helped me, and maybe they'll help you too.

  1. LOOK FOR GOOD ENOUGH.
  2. WHAT IF CHAOS WAS THE GOAL?
shepherd, (edited )
shepherd avatar

@minnieo

ONE - GOOD ENOUGH

The most ideal thing would be to discover the exact perfect career that you love forever, one that perfectly syncs with your unique brain lol. But... Well, I'm not you, so I can't know what that would be. I'd be very happy for you if you did find your holy grail though!

Buuuut. A single, super-perfect career is a very high bar. It might not even exist right now.

So screw that, don't look for perfection. Don't look for most optimized career path.

Right now, look for the most accessible job that you can tolerate. That's where we're starting, path of least resistance. Something you can do, anything, so you don't go straight up homeless. Don't sink the ship lol.

For me, my tolerable job involves moving most of the day, a bit of actual thinking every now and then, and never starts before noon lmao. For me, jobs that don't hit those marks are intolerable. For me, this is good enough.

My tolerable job doesn't make a heck of a lot of money. But it covers the basics for me, and I try to plan out my savings for exciting expensive new hobbies in detailed, step-by-step shopping-order lists that I eventually forget about anyways lmao.

For now, find your good enough.

I think you are (as I was) panicking about being a sinking ship. You're right, that is not ideal. Out of your available options, pick the one that seems the most tolerable and start there. You get better at recognizing jobs you can tolerate with experience, but job hopping is work so do tryyy to pick the one that you'll stay at the longest. Job hopping monthly is... exhausting.

brownpaperbag,
brownpaperbag avatar

@shepherd has captured my sentiments on this, existing in a similar boat of hobby fixation and jumping.

I found something tolerable that has enough day to day variation, [usually] weekly mental challenges that involve my problem solving skills (I'm a software project manager), and enough communication-based activities that I'm mostly okay with it nearly 10 years in. Caveat: I have been working remotely since late 2016 and this is probably a huge part of staying with it for me. I stumbled into this career path in 2008 via a temp role for sales admin at a software company that then became a full time role. That I then automated 90% of and earned myself an opportunity to move into support which eventually got me where I am now.

All that said - I am bored. I'd like to do something else. I don't know what that looks like. But I have [very slowly] accepted that it's okay to be bored and that all the new skills and hobbies I like to acquire and dabble in will slowly paint a picture of new, unconsidered possibilities for future opportunities. Heck, I joined up with a volunteer fire department last year and that is scratching so many itches: constantly learning, regular training and meetings, no call is ever the same, I get to leverage skills I've been developing and using for decades, I get some socializing, and I get to help people. I'm exploring this chaos with my regular, boring job and I'm hoping to find that balance.

Apologies if that was rambly.

shepherd,
shepherd avatar

@brownpaperbag No apology needed. I read your ramble, and your thoughts have worth!

It sounds like you've been guiding your ship for a long time, that's great to hear! I'm really happy for you, that's actually a really big deal lol.

And oh man, I'm thrilled to hear that firefighting is working out for you. I don't need it right now, but it's something I've thought about often and I guess I'm saving it for when I need to shake things up again.

@minnieo

Brownpaperbag is a great example of someone who's picked something tolerable for them, and is now exploring the world.

They initially picked a part-time temp job that seemed okay, and then gently bounced around as they dialled in how much responsibility they can handle vs what they can tolerate. That's just right! That's what I want for you minnieo.

And they're also working out the chaos part, but because they're not on a sinking ship, they get to take their time with the journey. Take their time exploring. Brown has space for their chaos, and that's the goal here.

Keep going brown!!

brownpaperbag,
brownpaperbag avatar

@shepherd thank you for that extremely thoughtful, supportive, and kind reply!

If you do ever head the firefighting direction, feel free to reach out! I'm still a probie for another 3 months but happy to share anything I'm able to.

shepherd, (edited )
shepherd avatar

@minnieo

TWO - WHAT IF CHAOS WAS THE GOAL?

So Step One keeps you afloat. You need to not sink, because Step Two could take years or decades. My tolerable job keeps me afloat, and staying afloat means I have the space to work on this step.

I use this mantra: What if chaos was the goal?

This takes some unpacking because it's not what you've been told before. Everyone tells you to stuff all your uncontrollable creative manic learning into a tidy box, and put your stupid box into a neat cubicle beside all the other tidy boxes that aren't supposed to be dripping in this weeks paint-pouring hyperfixation.

Nah.

What if chaos was the goal?

What if you were supposed to be chaos?

What if your brand of chaos is what people want?

Our life's work is figuring out how to harness some of your unstoppable creative output into... literally anything that will help you make money lmao.

Consider this: There are people who really like those tattoos that look like "unfinished" sketched lines. There are people who pay to watch an artist do some crazy thing in sand. There are people who actually prefer what you consider to be unfinished random works.

Your chaos output? It's not useless, that's the plan, man. CHAOS IS THE GOAL.

I can't help you with this either, you gotta figure it out for yourself. Figure out how to turn your brand of weird brain into something that someone wants.

Yes, you jump around a lot. WHAT IF THAT'S WHOLE THE POINT? Some people do it, and a lot of folks really like that apparently.

MAKE CHAOS THE GOAL.

To be responsible here, you gotta find your tolerable survival baseline. But outside of that, you neeeeed to be figuring out how to convert your chaos energy into something that's going to help you out.

It's not going to be an easy job. You're a ship full of TNT. Everyone else is saying you need to keep a lid on that exploding shit. I'm telling you, keep your boat steady, and let's figure out how to focus your exploding shit into a damn rocketship.

Rexxiter,
Rexxiter avatar

I love every part of this @Shepherd and I love that you asked this @minnieo. I needed this from you both... To know I'm not alone here.

I've been leaning into that chaos more and realizing that hey, so what if I'm painting my basement ceiling at 2am? I'm getting something done, no one's getting hurt, and I'm off tomorrow.

I'm feeling less stress because I'm not trying to force myself into the structure of how I'm "supposed" to be doing things

PirateRabbits,

Therapy was a great help in framing in my brain what I wanted to get out of a job. I then started looking at fields that are constantly changing and evolving as well as ones where there would be a fair amount of research and learning. Tech, medical, marketing, journalism, etc

Day to day style jobs didn’t work for me. Essentially doing the same thing everyday was like pulling teeth.

I landed in tech/marketing and my day to day tasks are so varied and the digital marketing field has so many options for what you can focus(or not) on that it keeps me changing, learning, and researching. With all that, at the end of the day I don’t love my job… but it pays for my hobbies.

#1 tip - therapy

Lasairiona,

To give a concrete example of a job* where you're doing all the things all the time (at least in my experience) is office manager at a start up company. It doesn't sound glorious, but it's super varied!

I currently do, among things I'll forget to mention :

  • invoicing and payments
  • basic accounting
  • hr
  • day to day office running (making sure we have supplies, watering the plants, organising lunch, answering operational questions)
  • set up and maintain the company knowledge database and teach people how to use it
  • same for client database
  • event planning (fairs, team building, company parties)
  • organise courses and learnings
  • research
  • agenda keeping for the CEO
  • man the phone
  • random things that you can't really pin down like remind people to clean their desk (we don't have a cleaning service), run to the supermarket because it's hot and the boss is buying us ice cream, give info to new employees moving to the country on where to buy the best coffee)

It's never boring and also not stressful (for me, I thrive on organising thing).

*I don't know if this is a career. Personally I just want to go to work, work, go home and get paid to have money to do the things I like. I don't need fancy new title or promotions that come with more responsibilities and stress.

The_Empty_Tuple,
The_Empty_Tuple avatar

A few people have mentioned this, but it's worth reiterating: take advantage of your strongest skills and focus on a career that keeps things interesting. I work as an analyst (data and reporting), and I get paid to solve problems and dig deep into unique projects where the major structure of my tasks are defined around me. My job description is nebulous, and that's how I like it. It means I don't get bored. I thrive when I can hyperfocus on novelty, and there's always something new to explore and learn at my job.

As folks with ADHD, our constant cycling of interests tends to make us a jack of all trades, master of none. That is absolutely a marketable trait, and not only in the field of data analytics (though based on your interests you might do really well in it). I don't think passion is necessary in a day job, though it helps. I believe the more important thing is finding an environment where you'll never be bored.

I also want to add, there's no pressure to pick the right path the first time around. In fact, I think having a wide variety of experiences in life can be an asset. Heck, I have a wildlife science degree and experience with seabird research. While I'm glad I had those experiences, and my passion for wildlife is still as strong, I'm not certain that's the best path for my career right now. Maybe that'll change, but it's okay to not have it figured out, especially in our 20's.

I absolutely consider ADHD to be a disability for me, but I'm always having to remind myself of the strengths I have because of, or maybe in spite of it.

ironic_elk,

I'm not sure if this is an answer as much as reassurance but I have the same issue as you. However, I'm luckily in a job I like. It's not because of the actual job. It's just a desk job where I fill out forms and maybe make some phone calls and do some money movement requests.

But I like it because of the people I work with. My boss treats me like a human. It's a small office (5 people including me and boss). My co-workers are nice. And it just has a good vibe. I never get stressed because we can always fix everything. That's the motto my boss has.

And before that, I worked at Walmart. Honestly. It was mixed. I really liked a few of my coworkers. We really got along and it really helped me enjoy going to work. But also I would have stress at night that I might have forgotten to wipe crumbs off one table which would be cause for write up after a couple times.

Its not like I planned for any of those. They just kinda happened. I'm not passionately writing programs or creating art/logos with lots of love or stuff like that. But I do feel fulfilled because I can do that stuff on my time off. And it doesn't matter that my hobby changes every month since it's my hobby and not something tied to my employment.

And if you do get a job where you're actually miserable at, don't be afraid to move. Some people I've seen seem to think you can only change jobs if you're fired or let go. But you can always look around until you find a place that works for you.

Calcharger,
Calcharger avatar

I've changed careers. Started out in health care, now I'm working in energy. Now I'm learning coding on the side.

Get a STEM degree like mechanical engineering or physics or math. Then you can just move into different careers as your interests change. Do you know how many varying jobs have those degree prereqs? You can do all sorts of different stuff.

Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters had an extremely varied career. Look him up.

Having a KnowledgeBase as vast as you with all sorts of different experiences will be extremely valuable to the right company.

You didn't mention if you were taking medication. Are you? Might help as well.

Frog-Brawler,
Frog-Brawler avatar

Pick whichever career that you can handle that pays the most. Use that money to continue learning and dropping hobbies.

letsroll,
letsroll avatar

Instead of looking at yourself, for what you enjoy, perhaps look at a career that benefits from how you are wired. I would encourage you to look at the start up world, where learning new things on behalf of the team that you’re in is how you all win. Solving problems is super fun, and changes constantly. Good luck!

insomniac_lemon, (edited )
insomniac_lemon avatar

Might make you feel better, I'm almost 30 and all I can say about myself is: oh no
...because I've only had an unpaid internship at a car dealership (many years ago).

I think the only hope I'd have is if I could find somewhere better to live without money (such as an intentional community) but even if what little I can regularly do now were acceptable/desired enough to get room and board, because of health (body and brain) I don't know if I could even be reliable enough for that. I feel like I'd need to mesh well with the community too, and as an oddball shut-in even pre-2020 I don't have high hope for that. Plus I don't expect to find all this within biking distance (I'm in a somewhat rural area (USA)).

I don't (think I) have ADHD though, instead SchizoidPD/depression (but who knows w/brains though, eh?)... though I'm in a similar spot with hobbies (and never did enough personal projects to get actual skill/anything to show).

okbin,
okbin avatar

I'm chronically ill and I have ADHD. I can't work right now, but I suspect that if I ever get to work, I will probably do a lot of different things over time. Sounds fun. If I had to do the same thing my whole life, I'd be more depressed.

You might do well being self-employed in some way. That way, you have greater flexibility in changing "fields".

To echo @_Rook_, I think therapy would also be useful here. Maybe even some kind of medication adjustment.

_Rook_,
_Rook_ avatar

The only advice I can give you is this:

  1. Try to create habits that you do consistently.
  2. You should try therapy and go from there.
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