Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Hi, everyone.

Welcome back to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef, your host here, as always, and today I'm absolutely beautiful.

Delighted to welcome a guest who we've been trying to get on for a while.

She's got a brand new book out and we, we're gonna have a big conversation today.

I'm, I'm excited.

So we have Hannah Miller.

Now, Hannah has just written a brand new book called A Purpose Pursuit and she is also the podcast host of the Purpose Pursuit podcast.

Hannah has founded a, an organization called hello Sidekick and that works across lots of different businesses, charities, individuals, so to help build thriving cultures and empowered teams.

And she does this with workshops and consultancy and coaching.

And it's based on the principle of helping more people, I guess, navigate, change their strengths, their weaknesses, understand their uniqueness, and pursue purpose with more clarity and confidence.

And that is what the book is about.

So I'm delighted to have you here.

Hannah, welcome.

Hello.

It's good to be with you.

It's been a long time since I've seen you, so.

Hi.

I know, it really has.

And you know, I love talking about purpose.

Not because I think everyone has to have one big purpose and like they should spend their whole life trying to find that one purpose.

I just love talking about purpose because I think so many neurodivergent people are driven with purpose.

And when they don't have that in their life and they don't feel fulfilled in different ways, however that looks, it can feel quite heavy on a neurodivergent person.

And I just wonder, I guess, what is it that's made purpose be the mainstay of what you do and how you help people?

Great question.

And I think I agree with you that it's not about this one big thing, because I think that's quite debilitating for people and I think that's where people get stuck.

And I think like you say, for a lot of people who are neurodivergent, the idea of the why and why am I doing this and why does it matter Is particularly important.

But what I love to do in my work with purpose, with everybody is help them to see it as much more every day and doable and reachable.

Because I think the problem comes when it feels like it's something that's unattainable or only for the really lucky few people that can say my life feels really purposeful.

So what does it feel like to find purpose and find meaning in our everyday work?

And there's a couple of clues to that, which is knowing more about who we are and living a life that has meaning for us and for the people around us.

So the idea is I'm bringing it back from that place of ethereal what does this mean and how do I find it to let's look for what life looks like now and how do I get 10% closer to that?

Yeah, I love that.

So I was looking at your book just before and I was looking at the different chapters and really getting a feel for it and I love it because it sort of breaks it down because it can feel overwhelming, it can feel just so big that we just kind of think, oh my God, I don't even know where to begin.

But you've sort of broken it down in the book and each chapter by chapter allowed us just to find where need to be, you know, starting from of just accepting where we are now, just acknowledging where we are now and giving ourselves the self compassion and all the things.

And especially for people who are only just discovering their neurodivergence later on in life, you know, that is essentially my community, essentially women who are realizing who they are, why they are, all the big questions that they've never had answers to and all of a sudden purpose makes a difference to their lives.

But actually how do they find it?

And not everyone can afford coaching, not everyone can go down this big self discovery route and go on retreats and all of that.

So tell me a little bit about how you've broken the book down and I guess maybe where we can begin if we are feeling a bit empty in our lives at the moment, and.

I think you mentioned a really good point there, that when life throws an event at us, like you've just said, maybe a later diagnosis or other life events, people going through menopause or both of those things at the same time, or a relationship Breakdown or a loss of a loved one, all of these things.

Add in this extra sort of, I'm feeling a bit lost, and the wool, sorry, the rug has been pulled from under my feet, you know, and that's a definite feeling that many people in moments of midlife can feel.

And so one of the big things in the book at the start, before we get cracking, because I'm sure a lot of your listeners are just going, but I want to see change and I want to get moving and I want to do it now, and I want to have all the answers right this minute.

The first bit is very much about stopping, taking stock, and really acknowledging the moment you are in.

What have you lost and what's painful?

What kind of a season of life are you in?

What's good?

What's good about life right now?

What are you learning?

What needs to change?

And so, as much as by nature, I'm a hundred miles an hour person, there is a purposeful section of the book which is, before we go anywhere, we have to really understand where we are.

It's the idea of we can't.

You know, when you're trying to find your way somewhere with your phone and you're lost, and you can't go anywhere until you've got a point on your phone, which has picked up the GPS as to where you are right now.

So you can't set off anywhere if you haven't got full clarity about where you are.

And I guess that's part of why having a diagnosis for people at a moment in life can give them that orientation.

But also it's unsettling.

It's new.

It's something to get your head around.

It's like, what is life going to look like for me?

So the first part of the book is very much around that.

And then we go through a process together where each chapter is sort of a waypoint on a journey.

I guess the idea is we don't arrive somewhere.

We don't suddenly have all the answers, but we start to uncover some information and learning about ourselves that helps us make better decisions.

So we look at what our strengths are, and there's a profiling tool in the book which helps people look for their strengths.

We discover a bit more about what makes us really unique.

Every single person listening to this podcast is a unique individual with their own story, their own personality.

Even if everybody listening has the same diagnosis, they are unique individuals with their own lives, their own emotions, their own experiences making them who they are, which is precious and important to know.

Then we look at our limiting behaviors, we look at our weaknesses, we look at the ways we self sabotage, we look at how we might be making excuses for things that we need to take hold of.

And then we move from that into a bit more of a discussion around our values.

What are your personal values?

If everything's a priority, nothing's a priority.

How do we really hone that down?

And after all of that we then move into, okay, what's coming?

What's the next season for you?

What's the next year for you?

What are you realizing about yourself?

How do you make better decisions about how you're going to spend your time?

Do you have more knowledge now about what you should say yes to, what you should say no to?

And so it's very forward focused, but gathering all this sort of data about yourself that stops us from being put into any kind of box, which is something I really, I guess we will have that in common.

You know that this desire for people to know and understand their unique offering, even within shared experiences of similarities between us.

Yeah, I love all this.

I mean, I'm just writing down and what stuck out for me, maybe for myself, is the blocks and the self sabotage because we do have like, oh, I do want to change the world or I want to make a difference or I want to live a purpose filled life.

And then the inner voices come out, the old conditioning, the limiting beliefs and we've actually got to really hone in on that.

Like all the work I've done over the past sort of six or seven years of myself, I've done a lot of inner work over this time, which includes my ADHD diagnosis five years ago.

There were so many limiting beliefs and so much self sabotage that I didn't make, I hadn't made space for.

So I'm guessing this book is a moment for self reflection with guidance.

Because we need that guidance, don't we?

You know, like if we don't have a book like yours to ask us the questions to hone in, like you say that wayfinding we can, you know, especially with adhd, we go, I'm doing this.

And then we give up.

And then the inner critic goes, there you go again, you've done it again.

You know, you've changed careers, you've changed businesses and we become, there's shame there.

So it's trying to, you know, it's so important we do this through a neuroaffirming lens because the version of us before the understanding will have still had all of these yearnings and all of this kind of interest, but they won't have had the compassion of understanding why.

Why.

Exactly.

It's the why.

That's right.

And I think, I mean there's loads of things that I could pick up from there.

I know from looking at your book there are so many practical things for people to do to help them with limiting beliefs.

And I think the first thing I'd want to say to people is we need to understand what our particular self sabotages are.

You know, what is it?

There are things that I do that you won't.

There are things that listeners will be going, well, this is the way I get in my way and recognize that we do have some agency, but there are going to be things that are harder for each of us.

So whether you're neurotypical or neurodiverse, there will be things that are harder for individuals than they are for others.

Some of us might find it more difficult to be flexible.

Other people are brilliant at going with the flow.

Some people might find it difficult to meet new people.

Other people find it difficult to read emotions.

We all have things that get in the way and then add into that limiting, limiting beliefs that we plunk on top of that which say, well, you're never going to get any better of that.

I guess what I would want to frame it as is when you know and understand the strengths of your personality, how can you use those to help you overcome what you find hard?

You know, what's your best way through those challenges that you will continue to face.

There are things that I will always find more difficult.

My use of time, my desire to be rushing from one place to another will always be more difficult for me than someone else.

But that doesn't mean that I can't get better at it and it doesn't mean I can't use my strengths, my personality to grow in that area.

So it's finding this space between recognition of this is me and this is what I find hard to not becoming resigned to.

This can never get any better.

This can't be something I can work with or support myself in.

And there's a phrase in the book, it's not my phrase and I'm sure you know it.

You.

It's a very famous phrase.

You can't stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can stop it nesting there.

And sometimes with a limiting belief that we're not in control of the fact that that limiting belief has come in, we're not in control of the thought coming.

I think sometimes people think that Wholeness or health looks like never having those thoughts.

No, it's what you do when those thoughts come.

When the thought comes of I'm not good enough or I can't do that, or that's meant for someone else, or here I go again.

When those thoughts come, that's like that bird landing on your head.

But do I need to let it make a home?

Do I need to go, you know, do I need to say, yeah, come and bring all your friends and settle down for the night, or can I go?

Actually, I don't like that thought and what can I do with it?

So, yeah, there's a lot of.

I also think there's something just to talk about those things and remembering that most of us have these limiting and self sabotaging behaviors.

There are some individuals that don't.

But a large proportion of us will have our own personal self sabotaging behaviors that we've got to recognize is an Achilles heel, but also not resign ourselves to thinking, you know, this is it, you know, nothing I can do about this.

Yeah.

And by the way, part of the solution is help friends, people who are different, people in our lives who compensate for us.

There's things I do well that my husband can't do very well.

There's things he does really well that he compensates for my weaknesses.

So we don't have to be everything, we just have to be good at something.

Yeah, well, totally.

All of this.

I mean, I absolutely love this because I think we, we've as ADHD women, we have been conditioned to think that something gravely wrong with us.

And because we've not understood what that is, we have gone into this inner critic mode of, well, we need to just push through.

And that's where this perfectionist sort of conditioning comes from.

And we believe that when we, when we find something challenging or we see something as a weakness, it's like a defect from our perspective.

And that amazing reframe of I can be really, really good at some things, but it's okay for me to not be good at the other things and someone else can help me with those.

And I'm interested to hear a little bit about because I know you, you've worked for quite a long time in the strength testing and I wonder what your thoughts are with neurodivergent people doing these strength tests and maybe which are the better ones that are more neuroaffirming.

So now we understand neurodiversity better.

So in the book, obviously I don't use anybody else's assessments because I'm not allowed to.

But the thing that I've been trained in, which I use when I'm working one to one with people or when I'm working with leadership teams is called CliftonStrengths.

Some people might notice Strengths finder.

That's what it used to be called.

It's called CliftonStrengths now.

It's a product that comes from Gallup, who are a data company.

Everything they do is rooted in data.

And the reason I would recommend that one is because when I've worked with people who are neurodivergent or they're curious about the possibility of that and they look at their strengths, it is the beginning of a process of beginning to see something that they have seen as a defect or as a challenge through a completely different light.

And to be honest, that's been amazing to do with people from all walks of life to help them think.

I mean, I was with a CEO the other day and he said, I always saw this part of me as something really negative.

And now I'm starting to see that this can be part of my genius.

This can be part of what I do really well.

As long as we mitigate for the things that we struggle with, we can then go right back to focusing on the thing that we're really good at.

So what I love about strengths to your question and about CliftonStrengths is that it is focusing on your natural preferences.

These are the things that before the current job that you're in, before the current life stage that you're in were part of who you are.

And then it adds to that this dimension of what does it look like when that is really firing on all cylinders for your good.

Now, the work I do with people is to help them see that sometimes we can have a really great strength in our life, but it's not working for our good or for the good of other people.

But it can be developed so that that's the case.

So let's take empathy.

People who naturally have empathy, they're more emotional human beings, they're more intuitive that there'll be lots of listeners who would tick this box.

They're more aware of how other people feel.

They're more aware of their own emotional variance and they feel feel the range of emotions more deeply.

I am one of those people.

There are challenges with that.

It makes me more sensitive.

It means that I can feel hurtful things more deeply.

Rejection, sensitivity, some of those things that you will be talking about.

But it doesn't mean that the solution to that is to not be an emotional person.

Because actually if I can learn to develop that strength so that I've got a bit more control over it, it's an actual gift to me and a gift to the people around me that that's the way I'm wired.

But it also can be not good for when that emotional behavior has no sort of boundary or I don't understand the impact I'm having on others.

But we could say that about any strength.

You know, whichever one you want to pick, it has this ability to be good for us, or it could be something that's more challenging.

So going back to your point about people with ADHD diagnosis, what's so useful about the CliftonStrengths report is they can begin to look at this and go, oh, maybe something that I've seen as part of a challenge for me with the right tools and support are what makes me an amazing part of a team.

You know, my youngest son is 17, and we were waiting for a diagnosis for him, and there are some things around organization and clutter of thought that are quite difficult for him.

He also can get hurt quite easily by certain things, and, you know, that's challenging for him.

But you know what?

He's all in.

He's all heart.

His ability to care for people is so high.

He is 100% in.

When he's in, he's so funny.

He's so inclusive.

And so I would never want him to use him as an example, to think, oh, I shouldn't be those other things.

Yes, we have to deal with the loss of something daily, and we're working on that.

But who he is at his best is something I would want him to carry through all his adult life and not see as a negative or a hindrance because his creative thought, his ability to sense other people's emotions, and his all in ness, for want of a better phrase, is amazing.

We just.

I want to help him harness that, which I guess is the whole point of the conversations you have every week on this podcast is how do we harness those things so that they're good for us and not debilitating.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's amazing and how lucky he is to have you as a mum to help him harness all those strengths.

Are we trying?

Listen, we're all trying.

And, you know, my kids probably listen to about 14% of anything I tell.

Them, but at least, you know, maybe pretty good 14%.

Maybe that's a push.

We can evolve and we can develop.

Can't wait.

This is What I get really passionate about is that everyone's heard about the term neuroplasticity.

I try so hard to help my community and my clients to lean into more of a growth mindset and to kind of step away from the limitations and these sort of limiting beliefs that we may have found very safe and have kept us where we are due to our anxiety, due to not quite understanding ourselves.

But it's this leaning in this curiosity to growth and evolution now that we have more awareness.

And I kind of see it as like, right, we now have a torch and we're still kind of like walking through a bit of a dark tunnel, but at least we have a little bit more illumination and with gentle curiosity and questioning and coaching and self reflection and what's, you know, what you've contributed to in your book.

We can evolve and grow.

And no one's ever too old for this.

You know, I hear all the time as, oh, I'm 60, I'm in my 70s, and you know, like, what's the point now?

And I get so disheartened because I just believe that everyone has a right to fulfilling their potential, Potential and living with purpose and having fulfillment and living with more joy and ease.

And I don't want it to sound like, oh, you're sort of living in this airy fairy world because it can just show up in such daily basic ways.

Maybe you can explain a little bit about if someone's thinking purpose and it's quite esoteric, what other ways could purpose show up that feels a bit more practical if it just feels too hard for them to even go there?

Okay, so first of all, around the growth mindset thing, I'm fully with you.

So before I had my own business, I was an assistant head.

So my background is education.

And I looked after the whole growth and fixed mindset, actually for my school, but also lots of schools I went in and trained on it.

So I'm really with you.

As in, we can grow, we can develop.

I would never subscribe to the thinking, which is, I'm not capable of doing maths or I'm not capable of doing this.

I would say that there are things that we have a better starting point at.

So I would say there are some people who by nature are more able to think creatively.

I would say there are some people by nature who, who are good at making connections with people they don't know and they can utilize that to grow.

But I would never say to somebody, you know, believe that this is all you have and you're right.

When people say, even if it feels comforting, I think it's a comforting thing to say, well, maths is not my thing, or I'm not good at this, or I can never do that.

It can keep us feeling safe.

But I would always say to someone, the way of growing is to use your strengths to help you grow.

Use the things that you know you're strong at to help you with what you're trying to overcome.

So on the sort of neuroplasticity and growing thing, I'm like, absolutely, figure out what you're good at, figure out what you love, and use that as your lens for every challenge you're facing.

So if there were 10 people listening to this call who all wanted to run a half marathon, but they've never run before, I would encourage them to think about their strengths as to what's going to help them actually achieve that goal.

I might be somebody who wants to join a running club.

Somebody else might need to have a really rigid plan.

Somebody else might need a friend to drag them out of bed every morning.

We will all need different things that will help us do that.

Going back to your point around, if purpose feels esoteric, I would really encourage them to get down to the everyday stuff.

So one of the things we talk about in the book is paying attention to what does my everyday life feel like?

What is the stuff that feels really great?

Now, sadly, some people may only have small amounts of data on that per week that feel really good.

But when do we feel like we're in that flow?

When do we feel like we're doing something where time passes without really thinking about it?

What are the things people use to praise us?

You know, what words do people use to praise us?

There are lots of praise words out there, and they're not all used for me.

There are certain ones that people might use.

That kind of data gives us clues towards what we should be moving towards.

And whenever I'm working with anyone, there are some people who do a whole 180 around life and they say, right, it's time for a new career, it's time for this, it's time for that.

And they make massive changes.

But for many people, they can have a really significant shift in their life over time by listening to that and beginning to walk towards it.

So it may even start as something that they do in their free time, not their paid work.

But the goal being five years from now, I'm fully moving towards that kind of work.

And I would always want to say as well, that purpose is not about what you're paid to do, and that's really, really important.

It's not about what we're paid to do.

You can find real purpose in things that are nothing to do with job titles, nothing to do with other people's definitions of success.

Otherwise, there's whole seasons of our life that have very little meaning to them.

So the work I'd encourage someone to do on the most basic of levels is to get that thought around.

What does my everyday life look like?

What do I really not enjoy?

What's okay and what's great and actually pay attention to that data.

Think about some of the recent things you've done where you thought that was really satisfying or I lost track of time.

Think about the things that come more naturally to you.

Think about the feedback you get from friends and loved ones when they're giving you praise and recognition.

Or maybe even ask them.

Funny, I got asked a while ago for an interview.

They gave me some questions beforehand, and they said, how would your best friend describe you in five words?

So I actually texted her, and I said, can you.

This is a bit weird, but will you tell me what five words you'd use?

Nice ones.

And I said, I'll do the same for you if you'll do it for me.

And it was just so interesting to see what she chose.

I would so encourage people listening to just say, you know, what words do you think of for me?

Positive ones.

And if you ask five people, I promise you there'll be trends.

Lots of people might say something like energetic or kind or creative or organize.

Those are very different praise words.

And we're not gonna get all of them, but they're all brilliant things.

So that's a very practical next step people can take.

Kate.

Yeah, I love that.

And there's a part of me that the RSD would kick in and go, oh, my God, I know that.

I'm just.

I know, I know.

I get it, right?

I'm dying.

Dying.

But on the flip side, if someone sent me that message, I'm just thinking of, like, a group of my friends.

I would, you know, in.

No, in two minutes, I'd be able to send that text back to them, and I'd want them to hear that.

But there's something within us, and I do think it is that.

The rejection side of us, of that.

That fear of what people think and all of that, and just not even being able to do that.

And it is hard for us to see that in ourselves.

So we do sometimes need someone.

And again, I think it does come down to the fact that there's been probably a lot of criticism about how we show up as people throughout the years.

I think what people don't quite understand growing up as a woman and diagnosed ADHD neurodivergent, is that there's a generation gap, a massive gap.

So our parents will be undiagnosed neurodivergent and they won't have the same self awareness that we've got from doing the work.

If you're listening to this podcast now, you're doing the work, you're learning, you're wanting to understand better and educate yourself.

The generation before us aren't really doing that unless you're in the small minority.

So we will have been brought up in a way that we're trying to actively change the programming and the conditioning that we're actively changing.

And that can feel quite triggering because there's a part of us that can still hear maybe a parent or a teacher or a system telling us that this is who you should be, try harder, do better.

And then there's a part of us that's doing the work and we are trying to override that.

And I just want to say to people to give yourselves that compassion because there's the duality of what's happening and we're kind of like in this, this inflection point where we're moving hopefully towards more of living in this more growth mindset, understanding ourselves and embracing who we are and hopefully living to what you're saying.

But there's also gonna be that, well, you, you know, you didn't do this and you couldn't do that and you, you know, you didn't finish university and you should have changed jobs and da, da, da.

And so I just want to say, I mean, I love, love all of this, but it's also, it's, you have to kind of wade through the, the, the dirt a little bit to get to this place you do.

And I think some of the activities I put in the book, like for example, asking people to give you some feedback, I recognize it for lot actually those things can feel quite vulnerable.

And so I've kind of said, blame me, you know, say I'm doing this process, I'm going through this program at the moment.

This is why I'm asking you blame me and say I've had to do this because I'm part of a program and sort of put it like that and ask for that support.

And it's helping people to think like you said, who would I be doing that for.

There are going to be people out there who want to champion me.

Start with the safest people in your life.

I don't mean ask everybody.

I mean ask people who you know are for you.

And I think your point around, there's so much undoing that we're doing.

I've grown up with an undiagnosed neurodivergent parent for sure.

And yet there is a lot of misunderstanding when we're discussing my children around, well, why are they doing that?

And why can't they just do this?

And you feel like you're doing a lot of educating in yourself.

Educating my parents who are grandparents and trying to help my children understand themselves.

I'm finding this tricky balance between I would never want to be the kind of parent that says, well, just settle for this is all you've got.

And also not wanting to be a parent that says, well, stop being that because that's not good enough.

And it's a really tricky in between space.

And I think to your point about women, there is this added thing that I recognize around perfectionism and around being all things to all people that's pervasive.

I said, I used to be a teacher.

And a really interesting thing that I noticed, I've got three sons, so I've got three.

I haven't got any daughters.

I've brought up three sons.

And so they're very different boys.

But my experience is boys.

But in the classroom, I used to notice that there was something about more capable girls, that their desire to be perfect and to not put a foot wrong and to not fail was actually a barrier in a way that there was something about a lot of the boys that were okay with making mistakes and they were okay with giving it a go.

And there was almost this sort of extra pressure that a lot of these girls felt around, you know, I don't want to get it wrong.

Or they would be so tightly coiled at school to behave really well.

And their parents would tell me when they come home, they're a nightmare.

But that's because they've been so tightly coiled at school that they, you know, with perfectionism and where they're in their safe place, they're not like that.

And I watched that over and over again.

That don't get me wrong, there are plenty of issues for boys to have to handle that are different ones.

But there was something around this.

I don't want to look like I can't get this right.

I don't want to look like I'm not Perfect.

That was so pervasive that I felt quite sad about that.

And I would often say to those high performing girls when they'd come to me and they'd show me this perfect set of work, I'd say, I'm really sorry that I wasted your time.

Because if they got it all right, I was trying to help them see that that wasn't the goal, you know, and I was trying to do my little bit of saying, you know, if everything is perfect, I've not challenged you enough.

I've got that wrong.

My job is to help you make mistakes so that you are challenged, so that you are stretched, so that you don't feel like you can do everything.

Because the problem comes one day when those high performing girls suddenly realize, I can't do this.

And if they haven't felt that young enough, it's actually really quite disabling.

Yeah, I'm glad that you've touched on this.

Yeah, I think it's really important that there'll be some people listening, thinking, yeah, I performed high at school, I knew how to look after, I knew how to contain things that I was struggling with masking.

And yet a day comes for everybody where they start to realize I actually haven't got everything that it takes and I don't have everything.

Whether that's A levels, whether that's degree, whether that's in the workplace, that moment will come.

And if it's been built on this foundation of I should be able to do everything, you suddenly feel like a total fraud.

Whereas if you've got a more capacity to think, actually I'm a human being with not unending capacity, there are things I can do and can't do.

That's hugely.

One of my adult learning curves has been around this.

Actually.

There are lots of things that I can't do.

There are lots of things that I thought I could be all things to all people, but actually I'm just making myself very stressed and very tired and very overwhelmed.

Yeah, 100%, you know, and I hear this all the time, this sort of like high, I'm gonna say high achieving in inverted commas and overachieving and over functioning.

Because this is where burnout shows out the whole time in this community.

You know, I've never met one ADHD woman who hasn't gone through some form of burnouts.

You know, whether it's a career burnout, family burnout, emotional physical health burnout.

And it is down to so much of this programming that we've been talking about and this fear of Showing up, that's not perfect.

And I think, you know, men and boys have had unfortunately, that kind of privilege of being able to just kind of be the trailblazers, the disruptors, the people that can just kind of like muck about and get away with it.

And, you know, whether it's tribal and again, it comes down to so many different conditionings that we've gone through as women that it's, you know, it goes back to like, it's okay to acknowledge that we can't do it all and failure is okay and quitting is okay and putting your hands up and just saying, right, I need boundaries and I need to say no.

And not having this extra pressure to be in this purpose driven life of how can I have a purposeful life without it adding another layer of inner pressure.

Yeah.

Of showing up and being like, look how much I've.

I've achieved.

And there was.

Before I got diagnosed, I hosted a podcast called the Ambitious Mum.

And it was me in the very early sort of stages of this evolution of questioning what is this ambition, this drive, this inner pressure that I continuously have.

And now I understand it's like my ADHD restlessness and imagination and maybe purpose, pursuit and kind of like this activism and all these different things.

I have a lot of energy towards it, but I had to be so careful because that cusp of me burning out.

So I now kind of try really hard to do what I want to do, but really recognize those boundaries that I want to put into place.

And one of the big themes of the book is that recognizing that some of the things that are us at our best are some of the biggest challenges to us.

So if you are somebody with a really active mind, that is an absolute gift, but without any control around it, you'll be the person who says, I can't ever sleep.

I can't switch off, I can't stop thinking.

And so trying to pull it back from that burnout stage is one of the things that's a big theme of my work actually is helping people see this very thing that's great about you.

Without control or without harness or without understanding could be so destructive to you and something that actually is not good for you.

But with the right harnessing, with the right understanding, it's unbelievably powerful and who you're made to be.

So it's about trying to find that sort of happy medium between those places which can be so hard for people and the pressure of purpose.

I really hope people who read the book feel that it's diluted for them.

Because for me, purpose is about thinking, what is this stage of my life about?

What are the things that matter to me?

How do I make decisions based on my measures of success and not other people's measures of success?

And going back to your point about quitting, I really want to talk about that because I coach lots of women who are thinking about career change or they've done a couple of career changes already and I kind of often challenge them and will say, well, they'll say, yeah, but I've only done this for a few years or I can't believe I'm giving up on this.

And I'm like, why?

Why is it a problem?

Like objectively, why does it matter if you've done that for five years and now you decide you want to do something else?

Please help me understand.

And actually, when people take a step back, they don't have a lot of good reason other than society.

Yes.

What would people think?

Society?

Yeah.

There's no real valid reason to suggest it's better to stay at something for life.

And also, by the way, if you're listening and you've had the same career for life, that is also fine.

But there isn't a better worse about this.

There are moments when we quit too soon, there are moments when we stay too long.

And wisdom is to know the difference between those two things.

I love that.

Wisdom is when you're like, okay, I really should stick this out a bit longer.

It's too soon to know.

And wisdom is auto to also to say, my time is up here.

It's time for me to put my energies into something else.

And I would love to release listeners in any way I can from feeling that it is better to have longevity.

What's better is to make the right decision, whatever that might be.

That's what's better.

Sometimes we don't know what the right decision is until we've made the decision and we can look back and give ourselves that compassion of But I always think I went through a massive of phase of my life just not having any self trust, like just not trusting.

I was just thinking, well, is that my anxiety?

Is that my inner voice?

Is that my intuition?

What is that?

The inner whisper that everyone talks about?

I was like, just tell me what to do because I don't trust because I had a brain that just wouldn't stop and it was just what if, what if you did this?

And then something just changed in me and it was just like, just make the decision and what will come from the decision is the right thing.

And no matter what, it's just the way life is.

And we just learn.

We learn from the decisions.

Like you say, it's the wisdom.

So sometimes the decision that I make maybe might not have been the best outcome, but the outcomes led to something else.

I've just taken all that pressure off myself to have to always make the right decisions, because we can't ever know unless we're, you know, mind readers and fortune tellers.

Like, we just.

We have to kind of go with what the right thing is right that moment, definitely.

There is a really, really good book called how to Decide by Annie Duke.

And she talks about.

It's all about decision making, and she talks about there being four types of decisions.

A bad decision that has a bad outcome is a kind of a deserved situation.

A good decision that has a bad outcome is bad luck.

A bad decision that has a bad.

A good outcome is dumb luck, when it sometimes goes right for you.

And a good decision with a good outcome is your earned reward.

And so the point in that is to say sometimes we make good decisions, and it just still doesn't work out for us.

Sometimes we make good decisions and it works out right.

Sometimes we make bad decisions, and somehow it's squiggly and it works out all right.

And sometimes we've made a poor choice based on all the information, we still made a poor choice, and we get a poor outcome.

And she talks much more around.

Again, releasing yourself from this perfection of decision making.

We can only make a decision based on what we know at the time.

Like you said, we don't have crystal balls.

You can make a wise decision based on counsel.

What do I know at the moment?

What do I know about myself?

What do people who know me well think?

And that can be a wise decision, but it can still have a difficult.

You could move jobs because it's the right thing to do and be out of the frying pan and into the fire because your new boss is really horrible.

But you don't know that until you've done it.

That doesn't mean your decision was a bad one.

It just means it had a difficult outcome.

So that's slightly different to making a poor choice based on.

Well, anyone could have told you that that was an unwise thing to do.

You know, that's different to being brave, setting up a business.

And for whatever reason, that business doesn't make it.

None of us, you or I did not know when we started doing what we were doing, we'd end up up Doing some of the things we've done.

You will have your stories of things that didn't work out.

I've got hundreds of them.

And sometimes people just hear the good bits and they hear that, oh, they've got a book coming out.

Well, they don't know any of the.

Necessarily, all the challenges and all the nos and all the failures and all the setbacks along the way where you could think, what am I doing this for?

I've made a really bad choice.

So, again, I'd want to encourage listeners to hear that you could have made a really good decision that didn't work out.

Right.

Take the knowledge, take the data and feed it forward and don't give up, really, is what I'd say.

Yeah.

And it takes that pressure off us to always have to know, because, like you say, it is data for us to learn, and it's the wisdom when we move forwards.

And that information is always gonna be powerful, no matter how painful it was at the time.

You know, I see especially, I'm sure you do, in the coaching world that eventually, whatever hardship we've gone through and challenges, it's always kind of like fuel for the fire to maybe pursue that purpose or maybe pursue that new thing.

So, I mean, it's all fascinating.

I absolutely love this conversation.

It's a really, really big thing for me, and it's something that I love talking about.

So tell people how they can get hold of the book and how they can get hold of you and what your plans are in 2026.

Okay.

So if you would like to have a look at the book, if you'd like to take your learning further, the book is called the Purpose Pursuit by Hannah Miller.

You'll find it in all bookstores, I would hope, by now.

And you can find me on socials as hellohanamiller.

If you want to just drop me a DM or if anyone wants to, you know, reach out for any support, I'm there.

There's my podcast.

I do a little bit of individual coaching alongside having a program.

So there is the Purpose Pursuit course, which kind of takes the learning that's in the book for those that, like you say, not everyone can do the deep learning, which is why I wanted there to be a big book.

But there is a deep learning opportunity that people can find out more about.

But start with the book, and I'm sure it will give you some encouragement and feel like a companion to you as you're considering what might be next.

Yeah, no, it's wonderful.

And I will be sharing it definitely.

So thank you so much Hannah.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

So if you've just listened to this episode with Hannah Miller and you've really enjoyed it and a lot of what was spoken about resonated with you, I want to let you know that Hannah is going to be one of my amazing guest experts at my very first ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event on the 6th of March.

It's happening in Wilmslow, which is near Manchester and it's going to be a full day, it's going to be 10 till 3:30.

Myself, Hannah Miller and Dr. Hannah Cullen, who is a specialist clinical psychologist in ADHD.

So we're sort of blending all our different tools and expertise and hopefully bringing you an amaz of connection, of awareness, of education, of understanding, meeting like minded women.

And I am really excited, I have to say.

I've not done a live event for myself before and I think this is just going to be the beginning of some really special live in person events.

If this is speaking to you and you are ready to learn more, immerse yourself into this world of ADHD women's well being, learn more about your nervous system and your energy and your desires and all the things that go with learning about being neurodivergent later on in life and also next chapters as well is like now what I am so rooted in growth and evolution and expansion after an ADHD diagnosis and I hope that this event will bring that to you.

So all the event details are on my website.

If you go onto live events it's adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk or and I'll also put the link in today's show notes.

So I really, really hope to see you there.

And just a note to say that it's only 60 places so we're starting small.

I want to be make it intimate.

I really want it to be a place where it doesn't feel overwhelming or too crazy.

But hopefully if we sell out then we will grow the event.

So don't forget all the information is going to be on my website or on the show notes.

Thank you.

Take care.

If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.