ADHD Entrepreneurs: Are You Keeping Your Client Numbers Low to Protect Your Freedom?

For those of us with ADHD, work flexibility can be especially important - for some of us it feels essential to be able to function.

Self-employment can offer us the freedom to work around our energy levels, to take sensory recovery breaks when we need them, and have a bit of spontaneity in our lives.

But I wonder how many of us are unintentionally holding our businesses back because we're worried about losing that ?

Are you staying small to feel safer?

Maybe you've noticed yourself not putting yourself out there as much as you could.

Not marketing yourself, put off posting on social media, and hesitating to follow up with potential clients.

Not necessarily because you don't want the work, but because you're worried about what happens to you if you actually get it!

Suddenly, your lovely flexible business might start to feel like another job you're struggling to keep up with.

But then, when you do need more work, you're stuck worrying about how we're going to pay the bills. 😬

And that's not exactly freedom is it?!

Who is allowed to control your workload?

I'd imagine for most of us, we want to be the ones who control our own workload - otherwise we might as well be back in employment!

But paradoxically, when we put number of clients in control of our workload, we can find ourselves staying smaller preventatively, as a way to manage the risk of becoming overtaxed.

What if, instead of limiting how many clients you attract, you manage it by setting working hours that your ADHD could actually cope with.

Not the hours you think you should be able to manage, or the hours someone else works.

Your hours. 🗓️

Maybe that's two clients a day. Maybe it's 2-hour decompression break between sessions. Maybe you need a whole day between client-facing days, to wear your potato clothes and come back to yourself.

You don't have to be working at maximum capacity to have a waiting list!

I used to think that waiting lists are reserved for people who are incredibly busy, seeing five or six clients a day, every day.

But says who?

If you've decided that your capacity is two clients a day, and those appointments are full, you're fully booked!

You can still market your business, build relationships, and have people wanting to work with you.

And when a space becomes available, you've already got someone interested.

No sudden pressure to market yourself because your income has dropped.

Building a business that fits your brain

Of course, having boundaries won't magically solve every challenge of self-employment, and it takes time to build a steady stream of enquiries.

But wouldn't it be nice to adventurously pursue growth in your business, without automatically committing yourself to more work than you could comfortably manage?

You can still have your slow mornings, your spontaneous afternoons, your rest days, and whatever else helps you feel like yourself. 🌿

And if you decide that those things matter, and deliberately built your schedule around them, you can keep freedom you need (instead of hoping nobody shows up in order for you to be allowed to have it!).

Just a thought 😉