Interview with Michelle Chappell!

Michelle is a multifaceted superstar with an array of talents that highlight the creative power of ADHD. An avid traveller, with a love for fitness, and a soft spot for Hawaii, Michelle harnesses the magic of neurodiversity in everything she does. As a painter, photographer, and ADHD life coach, Michelle also embodies the balance between creative living and professional success.

Let’s start things off with the highlights of your own neurodiversity origin story. What led you to your ADHD diagnosis, and how did you become an ADHD life coach?

10 years ago, I was working as the manager in public policy for a high-profile government ministry. I became interested in coaching at the time because I wanted to be a better team leader. There were a lot of demands on me as the manager to ensure that everyone was able to contribute to their best abilities, and I figured that coaching people rather than directing people would be more worthwhile and helpful.

So, I enrolled in a 10-month general life coach training course. Our training emphasized the philosophy of "live it to give it": what we were going to give to others, we first had to go through for ourselves. In coach training, I developed a newfound and much deeper awareness of myself and my way of seeing the world. I began to realize that my lifelong struggles with school, work, friendships and intimate relationships were not the norm, and that my lifelong feeling of being different from others needed more exploration. 

After an assessment with a psychologist, I was diagnosed with combined-type ADHD. I remember feeling relieved that there was a name for what was wrong, and at the same time thinking: "no one should have to struggle the way I did... there has to be a coaching modality for people with ADHD." So after a little research, I found accredited training for ADHD coaching and immediately enrolled. Following another nine months of training, practicum and mentor coaching, I graduated as an ADHD coach. In the meantime, we relocated to Calgary, and I decided that I wanted to work for myself, so I became a full-time ADHD coach. A few months later, I began my second nine-month ADHD coach training and graduated with a specialty in ADHD coaching for families. I continue to run my coaching practice in Calgary and, at the moment, I work remotely with clients from all over Canada, the United States, and sometimes even Europe. 

We have more than a few things in common, including a late life diagnosis, a passion for travel, and a love of photography. What commonalties do you see within the ADHD community when it comes to living creatively?

Many of my clients are inherently and intuitively creative people, particularly in the visual and performing arts. There seems to be an intrinsic need among many people with ADHD to self-express through creative channels and to be inspired by what's new and different. Maybe that's because we experience the world differently than the majority of people. Photography, the fine arts, dance, music, and theatre arts are where you'll find people with ADHD, though I know that there are people with ADHD in every possible pursuit: it's just a matter of what stimulates someone's creativity. For example, you'll find extremely creative people with ADHD working in professions and pursuing passions that aren't typically thought of as creative by most. Kind of like the work I was doing in public policy before I became a coach. You might not think that policy work is all that creative, but when you have to develop new concepts and ideas to address real world problems, you definitely need a strong creativity muscle.

I think the biggest commonality within the ADHD community when it comes to living creatively is our ability to actually bring creative approaches into the most conventional, structured, and predictable of environments. We tend to 'upset neurotypical apple carts' in this way, and so many amazing achievements come from disrupting established patterns and structures in different ways.

How do you feel that being neurodiverse shapes your own creative process? What superpowers does ADHD give you as an artist?

My creative process flows directly from my neurodiversity. When you live outside the box, you're naturally going to think outside the box. And when you think about it, that's exactly what you want when it comes to creativity. I've naturally lived and thought outside the box my whole life. I'm aware that what I just said sounds cliché, but I think there's a distinction to be had between creativity being nurtured as a skill on purpose and creativity that comes simply from being who you are naturally. Does that make sense? Basically, I've never seen my thinking and my own processes as creative because I don't know any other way of being. The only times I hear that my approaches and processes are creative, different, or even weird are when a neurotypical person points it out to me.

When it comes to superpowers, my ADHD lets me get out of my own way when I'm creating art, and I can completely surrender to the process rather than try to force a particular result. Don't get me wrong: if I set out to paint a tree and I end up with a brown and green canvas that looks more like a muddy river bottom, I am disappointed. But my ADHD brain is a great problem solver and loves a good challenge, so I'll immediately start thinking about how I'm going to turn my muddy river bottom into the tree I saw in the first place, or into something else that I would find cool and interesting. Rather than pitching my canvas out the nearest window and throwing a fit about how I suck at painting, I'm instead stimulated by the challenge of a problem to solve.

And there's a lot of problem solving in my own creative process because I don't typically plan my paintings or my photos. I simply see something I like, or come up with a funky idea, and I decide to try capturing it in paint or in a photo. It's pretty impulsive, haha! Sometimes, I'll just go for a walk through the neighbourhood or in my own garden and photograph what looks interesting to me at the time. I think that if I actually planned my projects more purposefully, I wouldn't have as many problems to solve and I might get bored. (Somewhere, my art teacher just felt an inexplicable chill run down her spine.)

Also, having ADHD means there's also no end to what inspires me. I sometimes feel I want to paint and photograph everything I see: landscapes, people, cityscapes, animals, underwater subjects even. I bought two little bonsai last year with the idea that I was going to shape them and photograph them, which led me down a whole new path to discover the creative joy of gardening. 

Having ADHD in a neurotypical world means a lot of my energy is used up in constantly managing my ADHD features on a daily basis. (I like to call them 'features' rather than 'symptoms'.) Creating is a safe space for me to be as I naturally am and let my mind wander unapologetically and completely without purpose other than the joy of creating for the sake of it. My ADHD features are an advantage in this space, instead of a hindrance, as they so often feel everywhere else. In my creative space, the worst that can happen is that I use a lot of paint in the process of spoiling a canvas (and canvases can be reused) or I have some crummy photos to delete from my memory card. There are no earth-shattering consequences to being impulsive and "in the moment" when I'm creating, so that makes it completely okay to make mistakes... which also makes it completely okay to experiment with new techniques and approaches, especially when I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I find it very freeing to have no idea what the hell you're doing and yet still do it anyway. I highly recommend it.

What would you say are the most common struggles that ADHD creatives have, and can you offer some tips to overcome them?

I think that the number one, hands down struggle for ADHD creatives is perfectionism. Bringing something into the world as an expression of ourselves means we can easily lose sight of what is 'good enough' or even great in our pursuit of perfection. The thought of creating as a reflection of our personal worth or value means we can put so much pressure on ourselves that we don't even start—or when we do get started, we can't seem to stop tweaking and working so we never finish.

To overcome the struggle of perfectionism in getting started, my main tip is to fail first and on purpose. Counterintuitive, I know, but hear me out: When I'm going to start a new painting, one of my favourite things to do is to grab the first paintbrush I see, load it up with paint (usually black or red) and immediately paint a long, single stroke right through the canvas before I even have time to think about it. This accomplishes several things: it gets me started, it immediately gives me a problem to solve (which I love), and most importantly, it means that my painting has no chance now of ever being perfect so the pressure's off and I'm free to give in to the process. With photography, I'll just take a shot of my subject without first checking my camera settings or planning any kind of composition. This has the same benefits as with painting, and it means I'm starting with a crummy photo of the subject so there's no place to go but up. If the shot works out and looks half decent, so much the better.  

When it comes to dealing with perfectionism in finishing, my main tip is to stop the very first time you think you're done. We can get so bogged down in endless tweaking that we move well past the point of diminishing returns, and the time we're spending on making something perfect yields only negligible or largely unnoticeable results. We can even go just a bit too far with our tweaks and turn a great piece into a total mess. If you're working on something for a collector, they will likely never notice or care that you spent six hours getting *just* the right nuance of white on a small section of clouds. They see the piece as a whole. If you sell your work, you likely charge by the piece and not by the hour, so perfectionism is a great way to lose money fast.

Here's something I do to help myself stop the endless tweaking of a piece: whether it's photo editing or painting, I always come to a point where I step back, take a good, detailed look at the image and think to myself: that looks good, I think it's done. That means it's time to stop, and with a photo, I immediately move it into my edited photos folder and then get on with editing the next photo. The same thing goes for a painting: I immediately sign it, put it aside to dry and am done painting for the day. If I still feel uncomfortable with where I've stopped, and I feel the urge to do more tweaking to a painting or a photo, I check in first with the collector or with someone whose opinion I trust and if they say it looks done then the piece is done.

These examples were for photography and painting, but I think that they can be applied to any creative pursuit: writing, baking, dog grooming... haha!

Another common problem for people with ADHD is that of having too many ideas and being unable to choose what to work on, or continually having a lot of work in progress that never seems to get finished. Here's where I recommend treating your ideas like fish and using a catch and release method. I can't take full credit for this concept, it came from one of my mentor coaches (I can't remember which one) and over time, I've tweaked it a bit. It's a staple in my coaching toolkit.

Imagine a flowing river in which you see all these beautiful, sparkling, fish. You decide to go fishing—and the fish you want bites right away! It's exhilarating, so you fish for another and it also bites right away! Cool! And so it goes, until you have a nice pile of fish. But then what? You can't eat all those fish in one sitting, so what happens to the ones in the pile that you couldn't eat? They die, spoil, and aren't good to eat anymore.

What if you were to catch and release instead? You'd get to enjoy the thrill of fishing and can release the fish back to the river to catch again another time. And you'll always have fish to eat when you're hungry. Imagine the same thing with your ideas: you can't act on all your creative ideas at once, but like the fish that keep on biting, you keep getting all these great sparkly ideas. The way to catch and release the ideas in the river of your mind is to write them down as they come to you, and you'll never have to worry about them dying out because you couldn't act on them. Keep a little notebook and a pen with you, or type/dictate your ideas into the notes app of your phone so you can go fishing for a new one when you complete the previous one. If the river of your mind is full of idea fish, then catch them as they come and keep them alive by 'releasing' them in writing.

Fail first and on purpose, then stop the first time you think you're done. Catch and release your idea fish. And remember that 'good enough' and 'great' really are 'good enough' and 'great', and that perfection does not exist.

How can people get in touch with you as an ADHD life coach and what are the benefits of coaching for neurodiverse creators?

Having ADHD or being neurodiverse in some other way has so many benefits, and coaching can help you discover your own strengths and features. I help neurodiverse people to stop hiding. Although I don't work exclusively with neurodiverse creators, they are my favourite clients to coach. I coach neurodiverse creators who want to discover and feel confident in their own creative process, get out of their own way, work through their perfectionism block, and take action in creating. Many of my clients struggle with finishing projects or putting their creativity (and in turn, themselves) 'out there' into the world. There are so many people waiting for the gift that only YOU can share with them through your creativity. It's time to stop hiding.

I offer a 30-minute, complimentary coaching session with no obligation to sign up for anyone who has questions about the coaching process or wants more information about ADHD or coaching in general. I welcome anyone who wants to get in touch. My website is lifecoachmichelle.ca, and I can be reached by email at michellechappell21@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

Image Credits: Michelle Chappell

Thanks again to the amazing Michelle Chappell for sharing her thoughts and art with The Dusty Unknown. As always, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out.