(Photo by Annika Treial on Unsplash)

I’ve had quite a few excellent conversations with my ADD coach, Cam Gott, about how much overlap there is between ADD and Creativity.

ADD is all about proliferation without a whole lot of discrimination. The challenge for those of us with it is to learn to ride it, to use the energy of it and the creativity without having that all go to waste in unproductive, unfocused time wasting. Which isn’t easy especially in this age of so many shiny objects going past.

Another way of looking at it is like taming a wild horse.

In Martha Beck Life Coach Training, we heard a lot about equine therapy. I haven’t had a chance to enjoy the first-hand experience of it, but I get the metaphor.

In equine therapy you learn to avoid the unproductive ways of getting on a wild horse, like trying to force it to obey.

Instead, you stand with the horse, imitating its actions, bowing your head when it bows its head, pawing the ground when it does. Until it sees that you’re on the same wavelength with it.

Then you walk away from it and let it come over to you. Which, as I understand it, it eventually will.

And then it will put its head on your shoulder. Then you have what Martha Beck calls the “join up.” You can actually get on the horse then, because you have forged a bond with it and let it choose. It knows you are at least trying to understand its needs and so it will try to cooperate with yours.

Creativity is like that too.

It does NOT like to be forced. It likes a much gentler approach, a joining up. As does ADD.

Cam has taught me his AEC system for working with ADD that is made up of Awareness, Engagement, and Completion.

So here are some of the best tricks I’ve learned along the way:

First understand and become more aware of how the creative urge is manifesting. Often this is in just sheer energy without focus. There is just an idea or twenty zinging around in my head. And they are all sounding good! So notice all of them and also notice how having them all zinging around isn’t the best way to get anything done. In fact, if I don’t manage the process, I will just end up exhausted and with nothing accomplished. This is sheer adrenaline and quite a lot of fun for a little while, then a big bummer. Like a horse just running around and running around until it is exhausted and has to watch Netflix.

Next engage. Get closer to the creative urge and see what will work with it. Get to know your own natural routines and work with those. Don’t impose someone else’s system on them. Try out some possibilities and see if they work. For me writing early in the morning and aiming for two pages is the charm. I also have to write long hand, so I need to allow time for that. I have a very eccentric wild horse in my head. So be it.

And last is complete. That doesn’t mean finish everything and do it perfectly. That means I have set out to accomplish a certain set of tasks by the end of the day and I have achieved that. There aren’t too many and they are the right ones. They are manageable and they are important. Because having a real purpose is very important to directing the wild energy of creativity and ADD. It can take me quite a while to get these goals right and I have to adjust quite a lot and they are never as many or as thorough as I wanted. But I am getting better and better at setting out the right tasks and the right number and keeping them focused on the important purpose of being a writer because otherwise I am cranky and impossible not only to everyone around me but, worst of all, to myself.

My creativity and ADD take the form of pretty crazy, eccentric horses that need a lot of time, peace, clear space, and good pens. They also need a lot of help and compassion. Then they are a pretty great, wild ride into the land of imagination, compassion–beyond my wildest dreams.

How about you? How have you tried to partner with your creativity? What works? What doesn’t?