Are you tired of feeling drained and unfulfilled, constantly fixating on your weaknesses, and struggling to find the motivation to reach your full potential? It’s time to break free from the cycle of self-doubt and embrace a new, empowering approach to personal growth. We know this is not easy, and that is why we’ve crafted a program focused on small, incremental changes that you can keep building on after the program is done. We also like to leverage the power of a community by delivering the added support of group coaching to our modules, to help you with accountability, and support, and to ..read more

Grant application open till August 20th This is just a short announcement to let you know that the Mikel Rijsdijk coaching grant is now launched for its 3rd year in a row. What was once a dream is now a returning piece of my yearly planning. I can hardly believe it! I will be forever grateful for the many people that helped me in some way to overcome the barriers of setting this up. My partners at the Neurodiversity Education Academy and the Neurodiversity Foundation and the coaching clients that pay the full rate and help make this a possibility! And -of course- Mikels remaining family member ..read more

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash My hesitation to write about trauma and the pull to do so I’ve been researching this for a long time now, both by listening to my fellow neurodivergents on various social media, and during gathers like NeuroEmergence and by listening to and reading some of the experts in both fields (trauma and neurodiversity). For a long time now I’ve considered James Ochoa‘s concept of intervention fatigue a valuable name for what is part of the neurodivergent trauma. He describes continuously being unaccepted for who you are, and presented with solutions that do not fit ve ..read more

Because I’ll be offering a Strengths-Based group coaching program and course in the final quarter of 2022 I thought it would make sense to create some content on why I love to work with this coaching modality. Here is a short video: You can find a lot more information on the course page, here https://www.brilliantlydiverse.com/sb-coaching-course-2022/ This offer is both an online guided course to help you discover your Strengths, and a group coaching program. And if the enrollment period has passed and you still want to know about my Strengths-Based approach to coaching: feel free to book a co ..read more

The first days of September are a mix of feelings of stress, responsibility, and joy as I get to announce the recipients of my coaching grant for the second year in a row. This grant is meant to help neurodivergent clients who have financial barriers to coaching services. If you have not heard of this grant before, you can read more here https://www.brilliantlydiverse.com/the-mikel-rijsdijk-memorial-grant/ The application process is opened once a year in early summer, and winners are announced in early September. If you, or your company, would like to sponsor the grant or know potential spons ..read more

The importance of good sleep can hardly be overestimated. Especially for those with ADHD and other neurodivergencies. We need our time to replenish more than most! Meaning we need to go beyond the simple remedies like lavender oil and hot milk and dive deep into what can be problematic about sleep for us specifically. Things like: Things like: not getting to bed on time procrastinating going to sleep with in bed activities distractions in the bedroom unable to fall asleep once you are in bed, and have the lights out restless legs rumination/worry keeping you up boredom leaving your mind seeki ..read more

As I left the dietician’s office after our second appointment I wanted to cry. I did not, at that time, but later that evening, as I was taking a bath I did.  I also began to unpack what about this experience was so extremely uncomfortable for me. I wanted to persist, I wanted to not give up. I actually love food, make time for healthy cooking and I was extremely motivated to make this work. But something in the way the two meetings so far went left me with an intense feeling of hopelessness.  Photo by Nadine Primeau on Unsplash (It has been a long while since I wrote a blog with suc ..read more

The simple answer to that is: find a good coach. They will no doubt have a good process to get to know what you want to be coached on, what you might need, and where you can get started. But what about the less simple answer? Well, ultimately coaching is a process led by you, the client. You need to decide what areas of life you want to be coached on. How deep you want to go into vulnerable topics if you want to work on mindset, and if learning how to self coach will be part of your aims. Or do you just need to get your head above water before deciding on anything else? I use a number of tools ..read more

an introduction I want to spend some time talking about how lists can be really helpful when you have ADHD and share some general ideas about how lists can be “tweaked” to work better for you. How can lists help you succeed? Before I get into talking about the types of lists I’ve used to help myself, and my clients, manage ADHD I want to also acknowledge that a lot of us can build up a resistance to or a fear of using lists. Why is that? And why is it still useful to make apply these tools and invest some time and energy in experimenting with them? Visual thinking can guide and constrain how w ..read more

I want to make a note to refer to any time I’m sharing strategies, tools or tricks with you. It’s important that you understand that this is where I am coming from when I share strategies. Not understanding the intent and approach could undermine your progress and leave you with intervention fatigue. Pushing yourself hard to blindly follow someone else’s strategy, just because “it worked for them…”, is not worth it. And it will undermine that inner voice that knows you all too well and can help you find what works for you. The neurodiversity approach is about recognizing that we all have diffe ..read more