Why I'm stepping back from LinkedIn

I always thought burnout was a bit like anxiety, something that was a constant state of mind. I've often asked myself, 'oh, is this burnout? Will I not be able to get up in the mornings anymore?', but found myself continuing to do so.

This year has looked pretty great from the outside for ADHD Works. We've been able to train hundreds of people as ADHD coaches, launched a new course for managers, talked on some amazing podcasts like THE HIDDEN 20% 🟢 , trained ADHD Champions within some incredible companies like Mind, gone to Parliament to talk about the Neurodivergent Conditions bill, been on BBC Breakfast, had CPD accredited for our ADHD coaching course, and more.

From the inside, 2024 has been pretty horrible so far. ADHD Works has grown very quickly, including with the number of people we support, coaches we train, coaches we've taken on to work with our clients, and internal team. My ADHD response to stress is to do more - because my brain chases dopamine.

However, this has resulted in a number of challenges, including management and organisation, insecurity in my own ideas, and pressure from all angles to sustain this growth and high quality level of support. This impossibly fast growth has resulted in the need to organise it all and lots of changes, which is not something my brain likes doing. This has also been made a whole lot worse with the ADHD medication shortages, and rationing my medication in an attempt to survive.

So, I've had to scale back. I've been forced by my own health to very sadly end the contracts of many fantastic people who work with us to ensure the company can continue at all by me not exploding. It's been one of the worst months of my life, with endless 16 hour working days that all blend into one.

As a company director, you feel responsible for many people's livelihoods, and ADHD Works has felt like a gigantic people pleasing operation where I've completely lost sense of my own wellbeing, happiness, or priorities. I spend my days looking into a screen, and have lost the sense of who I am outside of this, neglecting things like relationships, exercise, and health.

I have tried many different options of how to best do this, including hiring a business manager and going in different directions for the company, but it's always the most obvious that we ignore: I have to do it myself.

This relates largely to LinkedIn and social media. 9 years ago, I became so overwhelmed by living through social media that I ended up suicidal. I was constantly objectifying myself and my experiences, living through a screen.

I didn't even know why I was doing this, because it was completely self-imposed. Social media gives us a source of fake dopamine and control, where we think that by continuing to uphold this external image of perfection we can somehow control the internal chaos, but it just makes it worse.

Social media is the drug that everyone's using, but no one's getting high off anymore. - Liz Gilbert

A couple of years ago, I deactivated my Instagram account to focus on writing a book about this, the Reality Manifesto. Ironically, I ended up bored and writing on LinkedIn, a platform where I felt I had no dignity left to lose and didn't know many people on anyway.

This has become an addiction for me as well. I got high on the dopamine thrills of sharing every day, and seeing this resonate and seemingly help lots of other people. My 'following' has now grown to over 54k people.

This is a bizarre situation to end up in and often gives me a lot of ethical and practical anxiety. I don't want to set the example that you should be sharing so much of yourself and posting at 7am every day to be 'successful'. I've been recognised in public and most recently had someone tell me in my yoga class they follow me on here, which made me feel really uncomfortable. I realised there's a disconnect between my online self and my real self.

I am not a very outgoing person in real life. I have a lot of social anxiety, and am an introvert. I often feel exceptionally lonely and misunderstood by the people around me, feeling unable to share with them how I'm truly doing or ask for help. My inclination is more to isolate myself and avoid them all together.

However, we need human connection. Real life relationships are so important - having someone there to hug us when we're going through a tough time, a literal shoulder to cry on, someone who will quite literally hold space for us and make us feel seen.

It's easy to create and find these places online. Just pay money, and you can join a community. However, these relationships can feel transactional, and the more 'success' I've had online the more insecure I've felt around all relationships in general. My inboxes and text messages from people I both know and don't know are filled with requests for help or sharing things online. All I seem to talk and think about is ADHD and helping people.

My personal values are kindness, integrity, authenticity, and creativity - especially creative freedom to chase my curiosity and act on my ideas. I've somehow ended up losing these by posting so much on here. I don't need to post on social media to do what I love: coaching.

I don't want to run a huge company that is driven by profit and forecasts. I don't want to be a person who objectifies themselves. I don't want what the world says I should want: money, fame, and 'success'. I just want to help people and be happy.

If there's one thing I know for sure about happiness, is that it's not the same thing as success. For me, this doesn't mean money or external validation - it means being able to have a life that isn't filled with screens, notifications and noise. It means being able to do the things I want to do - whether that's going outside for a walk, go to a yoga class, cook and eat food, spend time with people I love, or turn an idea into reality. It means writing for myself, not for other people. It means being able to enjoy the journey, and my life, instead of feeling like a human doing.

This means I need to change how I approach things. So I'm not going to be on LinkedIn as much anymore - the amazing Sarah Hardy will look after my inbox, and I'll show up here intentionally. I'll share the work I'm doing, and have conversations such as the LinkedIn live coming up on Thursday, May 9, but I will no longer post every day. I'll have LinkedIn off my phone and block it on my computer so I can't come on here when I'm bored or sad or anxious.

Thank you so much to every single person that has been part of my community on here. It's been such a privilege and a joy to be able to connect with you, but for now, I need to focus on myself.

If you want to join us in June to become an ADHD Coach, you can do so here. I'm not sure about whether or when we'll be doing courses after June, because I need to spent some time focusing on what the future of ADHD Works looks like - and slow down to take it all in.

I hope that this is a helpful reminder that your worth is not measurable online. If any of this resonates with you, try logging off. Try having less, not more, of an impact. Try being kinder to yourself instead of other people - you can't give from an empty cup.

Social media is filled with posts and validation that lasts for a day - there is always more to post, more expectations to meet, and more connections to be had. Your life is very different - time is too short to be doing things that don't make you truly happy. We have a very limited amount of time on this planet, so make sure that when you look back on it all, you spent it doing things that bring you joy.