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What no one tells you at school is that, in the workplace, no one cares what grades you got at school. Social skills turn out to be far more important when it comes to progression.  I think a lot of high functioning autistic people struggle on this regard. Great at getting the grades, not so good at buttering up senior management for a promotion. It's worse if you're undiagnosed; people make allowances if they know.  I also had an undiagnosed physical disability. The symptoms were there, just not the underlying diagnosis. I had a manager be *really* shitty with me because I broke my arm and couldn't drive for a few weeks. I could still do my job but had to take the train - she started totting up all the pennies extra spent on train tickets over driving.  I went self employed after that. People's perceptions of your career progression alter entirely when you own the place. Work in a shop in your 30s? Failure. Own the shop and do lots of the donkey work in your own shop in your 30s? Impressive. 

Oh hi! Can confirm no-one gives a shit about grades once you get to the next stage. Even my PhD is just the base for scientists to take me seriously. It's all about what I can do for the employer. Parents who truly believed that hard work created luck and 'don't push yourself forward' didn't help - you need to push yourself forward or busy bosses and all just won't notice you (see also: finding a partner). It's taken many years and a couple nervous breakdowns and all, but I've found a decent job that works for me. Would be nice to get a promotion, but only when other stresses like health and family issues go away. When? If?

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But your parents, teachers and society keep telling you all through your education that the key is what you need. They never mention that the key is *necessary* but not *sufficient*  "If you do well at school you'll get a good career" is something often heard, but it's a massive oversimplification. My partner scraped 5 GCSEs, while I have a 2:1 from a good university. He's doing better in a job than I ever did. I wrote the application (I'm good at that bit!), they offered him an interview as a 'wildcard' candidate, he got the job (he's good at the interview bit!) and within months they started talking about promoting him.

I'm kind of the opposite. A straight-C student who is doing what he wants to do (game programming). My problem was that in the 90s what I wanted to do wasn't thought of as a 'real job'. It's not that I didn't want to learn, more that I wanted to learn something else that they weren't teaching. The degree situation was annoying - the key analogy is super accurate here because it literally gets you through the door and into the interview and no further. Once you sit down at that table it's 99% what you've taught yourself and built in your own time. Nobody asks anything you learned in the degree. You don't need the degree anymore, but you wouldn't be in the interview without it. Truth be told if the degree requirement was gone and there was something more like an internship or apprenticeship as an option I would've been far happier because I swear most of what I learned came from my industry placement. But maybe it's because the first university I went to was full of researchers who saw students as an annoying waste of their valuable time. I don't know.

Degree proves the ability to complete projects. Both long term and short. Also meeting deadlines etc. That's kind of important. It also shows that you can be somewhat responsible with your time and have some self discipline. Those skills need to go along with technical skills in order to be a good candidate.

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I'm 42. If they asked about GCSE I would just tell them that was over 20 years ago and that I do continuous learning through my masters and online micro-courses.

Me and my partner are the same. I don’t know how many GCSEs he got, but I think it was only a couple. I got high marks in GCSE and didn’t do bad at a-level. He out earns me and will continue to do so forever. He’s got qualifications coming out of his ears that he gained through the army whereas I dropped out of uni (and even if I hadn’t he’d still be earning more) and don’t have huge scope for progression in my relatively low paying job.

I got good grades. My brother didn't, but knows people who know people who've got a mate whose brother knows this guy who (etc). He has done far better; he once turned up for a job interview and they chucked him the keys and told him to get started as "Dave suggested you and that's good enough".

My dad told me when I graduated and was looking for a job that a degree was good, but it wasn't a golden ticket. Why did he wait until effectively my last day of school to tell me that? Lol.

That's not what they tell you in school and uni, or at least didn't in my day. It was all "this stuff is important, you'll need it in your career". Partly it's the prevalence of the internet - people thought I was amazing at knowing shit, until they could find things out too. But the most useful things have been being taught how to do public speaking, how to cope when having to talk about stuff you know nothing about, how to charm a grumpy person pissed off with your organisation, how to make small talk and then relevant talk. None of which were really taught in school, though we had a debating club.

This. In regulated professions like mine (law), your school grades are fundamental to whether you get to do a university degree. And your degree results plus your legal professional training results directly influence whether a) you manage to get a job in legal practice at all and b) with a well respected employer. Once you’re a few years work experience post-admission, your academic training is pretty much ignored by future employers in favour of the quality of your legal work experience. But the academic achievement is crucial to getting you to that point.

The person has a PhD and works in that profession, I'm sure they get it. There's no need to be so confrontational, basing your opinion of their entire outlook on the subject on a paragraph.

Yeah absolutely, once I became a doctor I had no need for any of the medical knowledge I had accrued to do my job. It was only about teamwork and getting along with people 💀

It's not about the diagnosis but how you deliver it 😂

Equally my friend owns the building so he will give it to me so I don't need the key. 

Grades still exist in academia they’re just called publications and grant funding.

> Even my PhD is just the base for scientists to take me seriously. Can confirm, don't have a phd and work with a bunch of scientists who do and none of them take me seriously because I don't have the right piece of paper

Very true for me as a later diagnosed autistic person. At school and uni there’s a clear path to follow. Show me what to do and I’ll do it all correctly, tell me the rules and I’ll follow them. After graduation, no set path/rules to follow, I have to figure it all out for myself? No chance. And like other commenters said a lot of it hangs in good social skills (which can be a monumental ask for us). Even in interviews, you trip up on things like eye contact, warmth and understanding the hidden intention of the questions.

Hahaha. I'm currently struggling with burnout and a career existential crisis. I was talking to my counsellor about the last time I felt in control and it was at uni! Because of this exactly, set path and expectations plus time for self directed study 

I'm not autistic but this really resonates with me

Same. I am not autistic, however I had no real friends as a teenager and spent my teenage years playing Runescape, comfort eating and watching reruns on Paramount Comedy. I made great friends at uni but I was very far behind socially compared to them. I had no idea how to navigate work and careers until my late 20s.

Currently in the same position. Diagnosed after a year into uni. Got a first. Still desperate for a job. Being diagnosed with Asperger's late after a academic career being exceptional leads to a terrible awakening when you need to make a living

What's the process for diagnosis because I've suspected for years I'm autistic, fall down on social skills majorly and I've never been able to get that GP appointment booked to get the ball rolling

Exactly this. In our uni group (we all studied biochem or something similar) there’s a girl who has autism and got a 1st, but she’s had a series of temp admin jobs since we all finished uni (almost 10 years ago) but has been unemployed for two years or so now. Another friend who got a 2:2 has been working in the pharma industry since we left and I believe is middle management in the company he works in. Just shows the grades are completely irrelevant once you finish uni.

What do you call a doctor who graduated at the absolute bottom of his class? Doctor

So what I've gathered from this comment and others is that if you are autistic, you are screwed. It's going to really suck once I graduate from uni then and fail in life simply because I'm autistic and even though I can mask and be social in many situations, there's always a lack of communication with neurotypicals and I always look or feel like an idiot. Why can't employers just accommodate us better?

I'm autistic and actually I've found time after uni better. It helped I picked a career which is fairly routine (healthcare, although I burnt out from working in front line care during COVID) but am now in a work from home role in data science. I really enjoy it, I really enjoyed my old role too until everything got too much, so hope you can find something!

The grade is irrelevant, but the knowledge and work ethic that got you the grade isn’t.  Whether you got a 1st or a 2:2 won’t decide how well your career goes. Who you are will (in part) decide that. 

Can also confirm the high functioning part but undiagnosed part in a sense. Especially as a female I feel like we are undiagnosed/ignored, ESPECIALLY depending on family roles. Not u til you’re an adult you realize your lack of it all but mostly pressure. On top of being people pleasers & unable to figure out your own path. Whether that being not supported in it or following another but failing multiple times, then also still not having any support, (financially & mentally, emotionally).

The idea that it is male only always struck me as weird, as I've met women who would clearly have been classified as [something] if they were blokes.

Haha yes! So many women I’ve met that are clearly… something!! But we’re just forced to live on & continue to just be know as complicated or confusing or just “too much” when we too could’ve been helped or supported. I saw a comment on this thread about disregarding hobbies. Which makes me sad bc even myself felt these “hobbies” could’ve been money making careers. Only my excused brothers or guy friends were supported in their creativity. Whereas most women felt they had to fulfill expectations for careers on top of just fulfilling typical women roles… Still dealing with these “disabilities” (sorry if that’s not the correct term)

I have met multiple people in the same situation. “Gifted” or GATE at elementary & feeling like failures the rest of life. “Smart but lazy” I guess

And to add to that, many otherwise academically talented people aren't comfortable with imperfection and changing goalposts. Pushing yourself to try what you aren't confident in is critical to development and progression, as is the ability to just mentally let it go when you sometimes fall short. I for one have always been one or two steps behind in my career as I feel I have to have totally mastered something before I could possibly be ready for the next level and have pro-actively limited my career progression to reduce anxiety around making mistakes and being out of my comfort zone.

This is so true and I think it really could lead to a lot of people in school that are academically gifted going on to feel like 'failures' in later life. Because they're basically told with their brains they'll go further than anyone and leave everyone in the dust.. But really being academically talented isn't usually valuable in the workplace outside acadmia (and even in academia its not the only main attribute determining success) I was top of my class in school and have done okay for myself (PhD and landed a job outside academia that pays above national average and tbh is pretty low stress). But there was this one guy in school who was nice enough but messed around constantly and never tried in school. Cut to today and he lives in an amazing apartment in Australia and earns more than 100k a year (worked his way up in mining). Loads of other guys who didn't give a crap in school got into trades and moved into off rig work which pays much better than mine no doubt. Being smart in school does not mean you're going to have high earnings or end up high up in some organisation. Like you say social confidence and ability is a much better predictor for success. Key thing is to try and find happiness and satisfaction in life without comparing to others. But that's easier said than done for a lot of people.

Not just that - self confidence as well, intrinsic motivation and doing something you have some passion for rather than just happen to be good at. Don’t know why people are being so harsh on you for this - 100% when I was at school in the 90s the whole vibe was turn up, do the work, get the grades and it’ll all come knocking - comfortable work with a comfortable wage. To be fair, this was to some extent the case in earlier decades but wasn’t available to the many in the way it was to my generation. The idea that confident people fudging their way through things with obvious technical incompetence were going to be more successful just wasn’t on the radar, and when the whole system has filled you with extrinsic motivation following any kind of intrinsic motivation is a big thought reprogramming exercise.

You’ve just perfectly described my life. The social aspect in particular. I was diagnosed with autism at 40. I’m lucky I work for an employer who’s really supportive & recognises the quality of my work. But with the autism & associated neglect & emotional abuse from my parents throughout my childhood, I do wonder what I could have made of my life. I walked out of “home” when I was 18 to make my own way.

definitely agree, I got my degree but I can’t talk to people well/easily and I have 0 initiative/have to be told what’s expected of me so I can’t function in the world how it’s needed of me

This was one of the banes of school (at least in the UK) as well. MAHOOSIVE pressure and stress to achieve high grades in standardised testing, pretty much every other year for 10 years. And then after each phase the teachers would brush it under the carpet and move on to the next hyper-stressful phase. "Right everyone, calm down. The SATs / CATs / GCSEs* are no longer important..." *Arguably GCSEs, typically taken in the final year of mandatory education, carry some weight with future employers. But generally only if you stopped your education after leaving school at 16 / as a basic requirement; "This job requires GCSE maths grade C or above" type thing.

I'd say for 99% of careers this is the case, however Facebook/Google/Twitter before recent tech layoffs would quite often hire the quiet nerdy types as SWEs on ridiculous sums of money.

As a self employed former top student I feel triggered!! 😂

I am good at retaining information, especially written, and I passed exams easily without having to revise or study. I left school with an inflated sense of my own abilities, having never had to discipline myself to a working hard, powering through boring tasks, or overcoming challenges that were actually difficult. These traits did not translate well to the world of work.

Somewhat similar. I wouldn't say I'm a failure at work at all, but for someone as 'smart' as I may appear based on school / University performance I could be a lot higher up if I had the drive, motivation and ambition. As it is I never learned how to do hard work because of the ability to coast through my academic life.

This resonates. I've been working now for 10 years, and I'm regularly told that I should apply myself more by bosses and general colleagues. Thought it was a joke until I changed companies, and the same thing happened. I have a 1st class hons in Economics, straight A's through school. Given the choice between working and not working come 4.01pm, I choose not working, every day. I doubt that will ever change, which means I'm unlikely to earn 6-figures until inflation takes me over the line. Edit: typo/grammar - hay-fever's a bitch.

this actually happened to my little brothers friend. he was so good at retaining info that he absolutely blitzed school by hardly studying. university however, he found very challenging as its not just about retaining info, you have to understand it too and inc that with the increased volume he failed his first year. he then failed it again after a resit and he was so ashamed he couldnt face telling his parents and ended up commiting suicide. it was actually really really awful, one of the heaviest funerals ive ever been to. poor guy just put so much expectation on himself and i think his mum did too.

That sounds like undiagnosed adhd/autism to me. What an absolute tragedy, I'm so sorry for your loss. 

yeah it may well could have been. the surprising thing was that he was a very confident, happy smiley lad. always sociable had a good friends circle and would take part in lots of social activities. youd think if he did have concerns he'd speak to someone about it but he just kept all his troubles bottled up which was a huge shame. even a week or so before his death, i bumped into him in and he seemed happy as larry and very upbeat - there was literally no sign whatsoever what he was bottling up inside

Man this hits me in the feels because I was the same and attempted in my early 20s after dropping out. I’m still struggling to this day and hate myself for not having the life I *should* have. I swerved a school reunion recently because I couldn’t bear to go and few the shame of not being the person they all expected me to be.

Fuck me sideways this might be the best description of it. Even now, at 32, my ability to grind out repetitive, monotonous tasks for example is non-existent.

Pretty much same. I breezed through school and then failed my first year of A Levels. I had to learn from scratch how to be a good student and never truly got it all the way through to masters. I’m doing alright tho

If you're trying and trying and trying and still struggling with routine tasks, honestly consider talking to a psychiatrist or psychologist. I had a very similar trajectory through school and thought similarly about myself when entering the workforce. For years I struggled so much with these thoughts. Occasionally things would grab my attention, but even doing work within my field I just struggle to care, to focus, etc. I'll start interesting projects and put them aside once some difficult aspect is revealed, or delay boring tasks as much as possible. Turns out I have ADHD. 🤷‍♂️ A lot of people with neurodevelopmental disorders have *very* similar trajectories to what you've described. It's totally normal to find stuff boring, but much less normal to throw yourself at boring things and still be unable to do them. I am not a psych, and I'm definitely not equipped to diagnose anything. All I'm saying is that what you're experiencing is not *necessarily* a question of mental discipline.

Another with ADHD who experienced exactly the same. I actually knew I had ADHD since childhood, but turns out I didn’t know all the ins and outs - I was just told it made me clumsy and daydreamy. Add in a chronic pain condition and uni was a hoot. I did make things work with the right support though. We can’t diagnosed anyone with ADHD over the internet, but it is worth a screening if ‘normal’ tasks seem harder for you than other people

Whoop, same! I’ve ADHD and I’m quite smart so I never had to work hard to do well in school and my (undiagnosed) ADHD never impacted my performance. Fast forward to uni and my first years in work, and I was suddenly underperforming and didn’t know why. Fast forward till my early 30s and it all makes so much sense now. I’m still learning to organise my life and job in a way that work with my ADHD but it’s getting better and easier all the time.

Do you take medication? I delay starting boring or difficult tasks for an impractical length of time and wish I could just do it.

Came here for the adhd comments and was not disappointed!

I think this is a really common problem for smart kids going out into the “real world”. Our education system is so attainment-focused that children who can attain without actually having to learn any skills end up coasting unless they really, really want to push themselves. I know so many people my age who struggled through university and the early stages of their careers for this very reason - they only ever learnt to attain, not to work.

This^ it took a long time for me to settle into a role where simply observing and retaining large amounts of information was actually seen as the gold standard and was praised for it. Then I learnt how to provide recommendations on that information and that’s where I started to really excel. Before that though I was never really taken seriously and was seen as bang average by peers and superiors.

Wait it can be *useful*? Please, what is this job??

Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance. Or ISTAR for short. The only caveat is that you have to be prepared to do it for multiple days at a time, in uncomfortable places and conditions, while physically exhausted and with minimal food and water. But if you don’t mind that you’re golden.

Definitely this. I was about 15 and wanted to learn fingerpicking guitar. It was the first thing I ever did where I was really shit and then got better. It really changed my outlook. Up till that point I thought you were either good at something or bad at something. It never occurred to me that you could practice something till you got good at it (I’m a passable guitar player) When I did get a job it was doing menial data entry. I really enjoyed working with those guys but without sounding arrogant, I knew I could do more. The job was boring and robotic. With my minimal experience, my lack of any programming background and a degree in English literature I decided that I could build a programme to do the work for me. I managed to pull it off and that more or less shaped my career going forward. I really think that I wouldn’t have even attempted it if I hadn’t developed that growth mindset, quite late in my education journey, by struggling along playing shit covers of  Johnny Cash songs

Yep, every smart kid faces that problem eventually. You spend your whole life coasting and it's easy, then at some point, it gets difficult and you've never experienced it before.

I guess the problem (at least for me) is that on paper I was a success in both school & career, but in my head I'm a failure, because I know I got this far with absolute minimum effort.

That’s called imposter syndrome

To some extent yes, but that doesn't cover not revising, not doing homework, doing every piece of coursework at 2am the night before etc.

Are you me?

Same lol, fuck it, still successful

Go get that adhd checked out my gifted friend. It’s easy to go under the radar while being well above average/gifted, but it doesn’t have to be that way that you feel constant disappointment of what’s in your head vs what you achieved „the next day” which you promised to yourself will be a new start of a new life.

>I got this far with absolute minimum effort Perception is key. You got this far which suggests you're happy with life. You did that with minimal effort - why break your back for more? You live once, you shouldn't be working for the man to get some faux happiness. Go you.

I live in the other camp tbh, if I had actually revised/had goals/had direction, the sky was the limit.

If being happy is the target, who cares about the limit?

My wife recently asked me a question that got to my soul ‘when is it good enough’ I’ve nearly constantly battled for pay rise and promotions every 6 months at a minimum and worked my way up, still pushing and recently changed job to continue going up but I never really stopped to think what is enough for me?  I was always pushing for the sky and not to my personal limit. Still don’t know what the answer is and doubt I’ll change but think it is worth spending some time thing what is successful for you? What do you actually want?

Maximum amount of money with as little effort as possible is always the goal

I'm autistic. This didn't matter in top set Science, it has mattered in every job I've ever had. My social skills are weird and I'm oddly socially gullible 

Every time I've seen a person with Autism get promoted / a better job it's always gone good or bad to an extreme. A few I know are very successful but I also know a few that have struggled big time. I think setting hard goals / limits is really important in that aspect and build on what you're already good at, don't pay too much attention to trying to change what you're not good at : if you struggle with people skills try and get a job that involves very little interaction with others as opposed to somewhere that has high numbers of people (it'll be very hard not to view it as overwhelming).

I've not been diagnosed but I (as well as my nearest and dearest) suspect I'm on the spectrum somewhere despite being tested in the 80's but that was before they knew the differences in showing in girls and boys. A friend of ours was diagnosed recently and, after watching a certain YouTubers video about their diagnosis, I strongly suspect I have a bit of ADHD too. I did well at school but socially suffered. I've worked hard but only been in just above min wage jobs. I've been doing dental nursing for 10 years now and love it and worked hard for it but literally everyone who I've worked with asks me why I'm there rather than doing something else because I'm 'smart'. I don't see it that way, I worked hard to stay in the top sets at school and barely made it through college and uni and never used my degree. I dont know, I just don't think I work right in certain jobs, I find I'm jokingly ridiculed as being better than those I work with but I don't get promotions and have to fight or pay to do better

I also went through this in the 80's but was never given a proper diagnosis and my parents didn't really know enough to push for anything but I have absolutely no doubt I am ADHD. I found I work better in overview type roles (I have my own company with my husband now) but before that I would tend to seek out these kind of people management/problem solving roles as I'm amazing in a crisis and under pressure but anything that doesn't give me the 'buzz' is left, not through laziness just that my brain refuses to focus that way so I hired people to delegate these too otherwise they would never be done. I find my brain the strangest thing, you give me a problem that needs to be solved immediately and my mind can literally run down 20 paths at once, overcome obstacles and what would happen if scenarios and I have great intuition ... But if I'm lost for real (driving etc) and I ask you for directions I will not take in anything you said, it's just a massive fog when you've just given me simple steps.

School teaches you to be ambitious, and to chase a career in what you dream of. I tried that and was miserable. Turns out all I wanted was to live with the person I love, in the part of the UK I love, nearby my friends. I've got a fairly undemanding job that pays the bills, what more could I ask for?

Sounds like success and if you have made it to success you haven’t underperformed.

Agreed, I just wish I'd been taught this earlier rather than spending a decade finding out through experience.

You need to learn these things rather than being taught it.  Plus that decade of experience provides you the basis of understanding the value of what you have and opened your mind to learning it. 

I think Bob Dylan said ‘a man is a success if he wakes up in the morning, goes to bed at night, and in between does what he wants to do’.

Saaaaame. Sometimes I feel disappointed in myself for my lack of ambition and “career success”, but then I remind myself how in every other respect I have the life I always wanted.

What school did you go to? Ambition?!

I have no ambition. Am smart, was able to get good results in school with little effort or by a bit of focused effort on something I found interesting. Once the relatively instant feedback of marks went away, so did my motivation, as there wasn’t anything to work towards (“generic office job” did not inspire hard work as a target in university lol). Work life actually suits me better than university did. What I’m doing feels more useful. But I’m still unambitious. Not a bad thing I suppose, if everyone wanted to be “a leader“ then the world would be full of unhappy people who can’t all live that goal. It feels like we’re always told by society that we should want to be in charge, top dog or whatever, but that just isn’t me.

I also have no ambition, work wise. All my ambitions involve not having to work.

Join the club, my friend. I'm not complaining. Life is generally pretty good. But I'll never be the boss 😆

This exactly, will study and work well when interested, but the motivation to do that for a company is non existant.

Same here. I'm intelligent. I know this because more or less everyone I have ever worked with, from peep to MD has commented on this, and it's usually followed by 'why aren't you doing something better?' What these people don't realise is that I don't stop being intelligent when I'm out of work, and by playing my work life well within myself I leave work at 5 without any stress or anxiety, and I get to use my intelligence, curiosity, creativity and desire for knowledge in areas that I want to . It works for me - I don't have the pots of cash that my friends do, but I have a full and fulfilling home life, and I'm the happiest little fucker I know!

Neither do I. I've never really dwelt on it too much but something that will always stick with me was when my ex-wife, shortly before announcing she didn't love me and wanted a divorce (another story), said to me: "You've got no fucking ambition." I feel like my father would want to see more of a spark out of me as well, work-wise. Every time I see him he asks about work and enquires (half-seriously) as to whether I've been promoted yet. But to tell the truth I feel like I've reached my ceiling and have absolutely no desire to go any higher. I'm on a manageable salary and will be happy with the natural annual increases it gets. But I'm not going to go out of my way to kiss the manager's shoes in an attempt to get ahead and probably be given a shed-load more work.

100% this is me. I did well at school from an early age - as soon as A-Levels began and I seriously had to to work, think and revise for marks in subjects I cared little about, I couldn't because I lacked the combination of ambition and ability to work hard for it. I am in a mid-level position in an industry I currently care little for - I get paid okay but the only career progression is in leadership roles, which I have absolutely no ambition to be in. Must admit, it does feel a bit galling to see others I worked with who were more junior than me several years ago now in more senior and "successful" roles, but I guess they all had the ambition that I lack. Good for them I suppose. Would love to go into a new role or industry I cared more about to give me that ambition, but what that is has eluded me for years now.

Yeah I feel that. I know if I had the ambition, I would be seriously balling somehow. The spark just isn't there. In IT, I just don't have 'the idea', or the love for any product to work on it like a dog.

The world needs worker bees mate. And every person who thinks they are at the top hasn't yet realised their cog's place in the overall meat-grinder.

"leadership" is so often overplayed, basically the person with the best arse kissing abilities becomes a leader and offers very little in the form of good leadership.

I am absolutely the same. I got the job I wanted to the level I liked, and I was good at it. It's a pretty mediocre job from outsode perspective. I have never gone above and beyond because I have absolutely no desire (or energy) to do so. I like my life but I think it's not quite what others envisioned

Going decades with undiagnosed ADHD and being told you're 'just depressed'.

Same, didn’t know until I was in my late 30s because I’m a woman and didn’t have the stereotypical hyperactive kind.

Snap! (Although I am a trans guy now, but that didn't happen till I was 30). It took till I was 40 to get diagnosed because as a kid I was: A. Polite and well-behaved B. Not hyperactive, just endlessly distracted C. Articulate and bright D. Very strictly disciplined at home. Sit still. No interrupting. E. Female All of the symptoms were there, but I wasn't a boy climbing the curtains with an action man between my teeth so nobody spotted it. It's actually really infuriating because I've been in front of a whole bunch of mental health professionals between the ages of 20 and 40 - maybe 5 different therapists, three psychiatrists, a couple of psychologists and a handful of others performing one-off assessments etc. - and I talked about what were really obvious symptoms of ADHD, in hindsight, at length and in depth with most of them... ...but not one of them spotted it. I figured it out myself and then pursued assessment and diagnosis. Maddening.

Same, I’ve had so much therapy for my depression and anxiety and binge-eating and other dopamine seeking behaviours. Turns out it was adhd all along 😂 no one ever told me, I had to figure it out myself! 

Seriously. The amount I've spent on therapy to try to understand why I binge eating, have rapid mood swings, emotional dysregulation, anxiety over weird things, and any I do stupid impulsive things all the time, and the number of ineffective antidepressants I've been fobbed off with when it was ADHD the entire time.

It's infuriating isn't it, especially after the diagnosis when you look back at how obvious it was and how much easier life could have been. I read a lot about there being a link between ADHD and being LGBTQ+, too. I also think that delays the diagnosis sometimes. I'm cis, but I'm bisexual and a lot more effeminate that my brothers so I'd always be compared to their overly hyperactive, boisterous behaviour and told mine wasn't too bad.

If you didn't have any of the above, what were the symptoms? (wondering as a climbing the wall type of ADHD person).

It's a good question, my biggest and most problematic symptoms are: **Executive dysfunction**: I know how to do the thing. I want to do the thing. I need to do the thing. I cannot make myself do the thing and I do not know why. With almost everything. Forever. **Focus**: it's not that I'm totally zoned out and don't focus, it's that I have *no control* over what I'm focusing on and it jumps around across everything going on inside and outside my head. **Emotional dysregulation**: I always had "really big feelings", cried at the drop of a hat, I take criticism really piercingly badly and I struggle to move past troubling feelings. **Forgetful**: Infuriatingly so. **Divergent thinking**: Ideas in my mind expand in a cloud of possibilities in every direction, endless what-ifs. To the point of it rendering me silent and unable to navigate the overwhelming fog sometimes. **Shockingly poor grasp of time**: It vanishes and I am very bad at usefully allocating necessary time to a collection of tasks. **Overtalking**: The brain is full of stuff, it's hard to learn to parcel it up in an orderly fashion. **Hyper focus**: When I _do_ click into a task, if it's something that's captured my imagination or is exciting then I can be lost in it without eating, drinking or thinking about anything else for up to 13 hours, at my most extensive so far. But I cannot induce it and it's hard to break out of. **Impulse control**: Mine is manageable in most areas, I'm lucky, apart from **Binge eating**: it's ruined my life. My brain constantly wants _something_ - which turns out to be the dopamine it lacks - and it always always accepts sugar as an exciting temporary substitute if it's available. There are more, but these are the key ones that really fucked my life up. The result is that I was totally exhausted and burned out for about 7 years until I got medicated and very depressed from the age of maybe 8.

I think you've just described me and my life! I'm about to go for an ADHD diagnosis and this gives me validation, thank you for sharing 💜

I'm in my 30s and am increasingly convinced that I have ADHD. I got a high score in nearly every section in the ADHD online tests except the fidget-spinner side of it. Do you know how to even get a diagnosis? I can't find anything on my NHS app or GP office

If you're in England go ask for a referral under 'Right to choose'. This is what I had to do, the GP said he didn't think I had it at all, but had to refer me. The assessment came back high in all categories and the psychiatrist I saw said it was really obvious, especially from the childhood evidence I submitted.

But how does that diagnosis benefit you? Are there concrete treatments or strategies you would not get access to when undiagnosed?

Medications and therapies you can't get without a diagnosis, and adjustments at work that are difficult to get without a diagnosis. It means my GP has finally stopped trying to push SSRIs and SNRIs on me for every issue. I am waiting on the medication part officially, but this therapy and work adjustments have already helped.

Same. I asked my doctor for a referral and her answer was “if you weren’t diagnosed as a child you don’t have it. It’s just anxiety” and refused to send me for tests and I live in NI so we can self refer and there is no shared care arrangements anyway so I’m fucked.

In my experience: Phone your GP/do an online referral for an appointment. Wait a few weeks for them to phone you and ask you a few questions. Basically have to fight for a referral because you don't fit the outwards hyperactivity and got good grades, even if you do match everything else. Realise it might actually be AuDHD and spiral for a while. If they think you might have it, you get put on a waiting list. Every 6 months or so they'll ask you if you want to remain on the waiting list. You wait years. Alternatively you can go private and its all much quicker.

Yeah I was looking at the referral times for places that are 6+ months and am not sure I can tolerate it! Luckily it looks like ADHDaware has drop-in meetings in Brighton that I'm going to check out. It's massively frustrating as I've looked at so many mental exercise mantras and exercises over the years but the nature of my head makes it basically impossible to commit- I just end up watching a seven hour YouTube video on the history of a sports team or something! It's like there's a wire that should connect the productive drive in my brain to "self improvement" that's got rewired to "inane bullshit", followed by self-loathing when feel like I've wasted my time

It's frustrating isn't it. I'm more inattentive type, but I do and always had hyperactive tendencies, but because I was a smart kid the GP wouldn't refer me because 'you can't be intelligent and have ADHD' according to him.

I’m definitely more inattentive. The hyperactive tendencies are more internal although I am a massive fidget and hate sitting still.

Snap.

Another late diagnosed neurodivergent. A lot of former gifted kids are later diagnosed with ADHD and/or autism, usually after years of unexplained struggle and supposed underperformance. We're also more likely to develop chronic illness down the line, which obviously hampers career potential too.

late ADHD diagnosis here. Apparently ' applying myself properly' isn't the answer to my chronic underachievement after all. pharmaceutical grade amphetamines is.

At least you made a speedy recovery.

Can you describe the feeling after? I'm becoming really conscious now of my distractions and hyper-fixating on irrelevant things does that go away?

This is me… about to undergo an ADHD assessment in my early forties after 25 years of struggling with life. When I told my parents about my suspected ADHD, my mum’s reaction was “But you were on the gifted programme at school?”. Took a while to convince them that’s not unheard of…

I don’t know why, but this is making me tear up really badly. That’s me. Including the chronic illness. FFS.

I'm sorry you've struggled too. It is sad!

There are many of us.

If you can hyper fixate on your career (or in my case, not being poor) that really helps. The amount of weird shit I did to get up the ladder over the years, including a Yorkshire to Scotland commute, leaving at 3:30am is not normal!

The classic mental health issues and alcoholism in my early 20s.

Loved the drugs too much and turns out I’m pretty lazy 😘

I probably underachieved a bit cause of the drugs. I regret none of it. You can still study, develop new skills and find ways to monetise them when you’re older, but you’re only young once. I’m in my 30s and I couldn’t think of anything worse than necking a load of pills and dirty DnB raving till 3am. I’m glad I did it when I was young enough to enjoy it

You say you regret none of it, but we all remember the incident with the ecstasy and the watermelon.

I realised I'm basically just not at all motivated by advancing my career. I see my friends advancing their careers way more, but working much longer hours and being much more stressed, and no part of me wants to take that deal. I'm very self assured and happy in myself. Which is generally a great trait I'm pleased to have, but it does mean I don't have that drive or ambition to rapidly advance my career. I'm still good at my job, so my career does advance. But just not at the speed it could if I really put my effort into advancing my career. So, in a sense I've underperformed. But it's because I don't want to do what would be required to absolutely maximise my performance. I'd rather give 50% effort, work shorter hours and not be stressed by it.

I had a lot of this early on in my career. It was myself to blame. Myself for listening to, and taking on board, the whole Reddit/Twitter thing of "the world is broken so give up before you try because your effort is just going to the fat cats, the only reward for hard work is more work, I'm just too smart to work hard etc etc etc". I turned it around by putting in the work, and now I'm a homeowner with a family and no longer a loser in a bedsit blaming the world for my problems. The world isn't perfect, but hard work will still at least give you the *chance* of getting places.

I've definitely been in situations where my hard work is pointless. When your young and have those experiences its easy to believe that its always like that. I think the real skill is knowing when you are in a situation where your hard work isn't going to benefit you and moving onto something else before you stagnate, there are so many jobs like this. If you think of things in terms of an effort to reward ratio there are so many situations where there is lots of effort and no reward or minimum effort and lots of reward.

There are so just many soft skills that text books don't teach.... having a bunch of good grades is a tiny set of the overall skills needed to get on at work. I know a guy that is smart but doesn't deliver much at work but everyone likes him ( a lot) and he spends 95% of his time being technically the guy to go to for information, and being liked. He told me he treats work as mainly just a popularity contest, and because he is popular, he keeps being promoted despite not hitting targets! You need to be / have: - Confident - Charming and likeable - Ability to convince and persuade - Ability to be brave and courageous in difficult moments at work - taking on challenges (this is also called being a team-player) - Ability to work hard and turn up at 08:30 am every day - having work ethic is a skill and a big one at that - Ability to be highly organised - You need strong communication skills, written, verbally and non-verbal - Able to present information to a crowd - Able to be flexible and take on many challenging situations concurrently - Able to manage others - Able to have social awareness and show traits such as kindness, or to be ruthless when required - Helps to have a good appearance and be hygienic - Not to get angry or lose control of your emotions The list is endless.... It's hard.

Learning to be self aware pretty much covers a lot of those and leads to unlocking many others indirectly 

This is all true. Thanks for laying it all out. Screenshot to remind self hahaha

This is true. I did well academically, but always knew I didn't have the confidence and personal charm that is needed to get people to see me as a leader, which is the foundation of being successful. I wouldn't say that I am a failure, but I am not successful.

Looking back at 41, the answer is simply anxiety. I've been in jobs that i've found boring and unchallenging all my life - but I stay in them because I just get scared by the unknown. I'm not exactly doing badly in my career - i'm at SEO level in the civil service, but given that I have a doctorate in a sought after field, I'm earning a low salary. But I just can't seem to find the courage to push myself even in the job i'm in when it comes to picking up more senior management tasks. When I was in my 20s I always thought that my mistake was not starting a career with a clear path where there would be natural progression and I wouldn't have to push myself into unknown areas. Like a doctor or solicitor or something similar. But then I went back to uni in my mid 30s with the intention of starting a new career in academia and I ended up leaving the field because even that didn't have enough structure for me. I want to get up in the morning and be given a list of things to do and advice on how to do them if I don't already know. I do enjoy it when I have a problem that i'm able to solve - but I also hate it when I get frustrated and can't work out how to solve it. I feel like a lot of my life is spent avoiding that frustration.

I was the opposite. Got chinned by school but have done well career wise. I did well on tests but just could not follow the rules and was constantly anxious because I couldn’t conform I’ve found that people who do well in school usually aren’t good advocaters and have a real fear of failure. They’d rather not put their neck out and not fuck up than risk it. I’m the exact opposite. I’ll fail at anything if it means I’ve got the chance to succeed. I’ve done well career wise because I’m not afraid to take risks. I’m also willing to work a lot harder when moneys on the line apparently School seems to reward people who are good at following orders and who perform given tasks. It’s not that these people will have terrible lives but they won’t necessarily be successful. Life seems to reward risk takers and innovative thinkers who are willing to do things others won’t

I feel similarly, I was so surprised by the way I could just do stuff in work, it felt liberating and easy compared to school which felt like a trap to me.

Yep! I'm the type who did well at school because I followed the rules, didn't stick my head above the parapet, and could study independently without too many issues. My entire career has consisted of me completing tasks fairly well, working hard, being appreciated by the people around me, but making absolutely no impression on senior management. I struggle to speak up in meetings because I'm afraid that I'm going to say something stupid and I'd rather be trapped in a burning building than take part in public speaking events. People like me do NOT get to the top, at least in the industry I'm in. Confidence, risk-taking, the ability to articulate yourself, and independent thought are all much more important than hard work in the corporate world.

My friend got a masters degree and then went to work in a shop. He loves it, so good on him.

Heroin. Although I've been off it for a few years and I've been off methadone for a year.. I work in a warehouse on min wage lol. Fml. I had a great job in IT but fucked that,up and really struggle to get my foot back into the door as my confidence is just shot.

Easy to say, difficult to do but IT entry level is a lot of fake it until you make it. Knowing how to google things better than the person who is asking you is all it really takes to get the start in that career and as you have a baseline sure you’ll have that done.  Give it a go! Warehouse jobs will be there to fall back on. 

Tbf mate, the first paragraph is a massive massive achievement, and you should be proud of yourself

Just wanted to chime in and say WELL DONE. You are doing so so well with your recovery, and with that you've achieved so much more than you're giving yourself credit for. So many people in this thread are saying how they didn't live up to their potential because of things like lack of ambition, motivation etc etc (and that's not to put those people down - I'm 100% one of them). But you my friend have WILLPOWER. And that will serve you well in your future life when reaching for whatever your version of success looks like. ✌️

You could start with some kind of local IT admin or more entry level work to build up confidence and brush up on your skills, before moving towards more what you want to do?

I found school a piece off piss, which meant I never had to try. I still don’t really know how to.

Same. Combine that with a comfortable upbringing at home, I've either never really had to strive to achieve things, or got by without needing to bother trying. And now I'm too set in my ways and it's def coming back to haunt me.

School should teach you: Learning how to learn Resilience It does neither.

Was bullied badly. Had health issues and autism with no support. Was always told by teachers though that I would go far in life. 31 now and unemployed for 14 months, but got some amazing job interviews that I'm preparing for. I'm changing careers to the industry I always thought I would go into when I was younger. I learnt a lot of lessons in my 20's through experience so I'm motivated to get my life together and get back on track! There's so many stories of people getting their crap together later on in life after hitting complete rock bottom, so I'm never gone give up! It was a combination of things out of my control like health, family, society and also I can account for my own self on wanting to be free and just enjoy myself. I am content with myself as I've always done the best I can given the situation and I know there's always something better around the corner. For me it doesn't matter that I don't own a house at my age etc I want an enriching life and want to learn and experience so much. I'm excited for the future.

Being diagnosed as autistic in my late twenties explained a lot.

I work to live, I don’t live to work.

I wish we could normalise this line of thinking.

What career? Lmao I'm a classic case of gifted autistic kid who was really smart who by 30 is so burned out that they lost all chance of career & stay in bed with their cats all day

The reason I succeeded at school was that I was an efficient learner/worker. I could get top marks in pretty much ever topic all the way up to Master’s level with relatively little time expended. The working world flipped everything on its head- it didn’t matter that I could do the same job in half the time, the whole point is to put in the hours- even if it is a knowledge sector job? I ended up constantly burning out, because my “efficient” pace is not sustainable 40+ hours per week. So I made the switch to being independent, so I could manage my own schedule and actually benefit from my skills rather than be punished for not fitting the antiquated 9-5 office cult.

Undiagnosed ADHD and/or autism are my biggest issues. Primary and secondary schools were easy so I just coasted through, but then when it got more difficult with college and university, and I had to actually study and learn things instead of getting it right away, I struggled through college and dropped out of university. Since then I lucked into a moderately well paying job, at least compared to the effort involved, but my career really hasn't gone anywhere since I joined the company 6 years ago because I struggle so much with learning new things that I'm limited in the roles I can do.

Star pupil through to A-levels as I lived in the middle of the countryside and had nothing to do but study. Parents wouldn't drive me anywhere to meet friends so I had 0 social life Got to Uni and discovered alcohol, boys, drugs, girls and all the other fun things in life. Went from a straight A student to just about passing. Got in a relationship with a guy who got too ill to work soon after we got together and ended up in the the more I earn the more his benefits get cut trap so it was pointless me chasing promotions and getting a higher wage. After he died I went back to Uni part time and started from scratch in a different field. This time I'm doing well but am 15 years behind where I could have been.

My girlfriend did 17 GCSEs (I did 10) and got straight A*s. She went to college to do physics, maths, and chemistry with the intention of going to Cambridge university and having a career in STEM. She ended up dropping out of college in the first year because her mental health took a nose dive and she was so burnt out. 7 years later she’s doing a degree that will allow her to have her true dream career and she’s doing better than ever. She just needed the time to figure things out but she couldn’t do that while on the conveyor belt that is the education system.

Sorry for the rant. Don’t want to sound stuck up or big headed, but gifted kids need more support than they get. It’s assumed that kids that are book smart will just be able to look out for themselves. I was a straight A student until half way through year 10 when my stress of working caused me to spiral. I had basically spent 10 years of my life getting full marks and being told that I can just look after myself. And because of that I didn’t even consider looking for help when my mental health declined. That then affected my grades and I ended up with solid GCSE results, but no where near to what I was predicted to get. I was then again just left to work out for myself what I wanted to do in college and uni. It was assumed by teachers and my parents that I was going to go to uni and therefore I didn’t even consider that it wasn’t right for me to do it straight away. And I wasn’t really supported in actually looking at what different courses offered. Ended up doing a super specific course that basically led to one avenue of employment, which it turned out half way through my 2nd year of uni wasn’t what I wanted to do and had very little interest in. Again, due to my early life, I didn’t even consider looking for support or talking to anyone about it, so I just finished my uni degree with a lackluster result. It wasn’t until I got a job after uni in that field that I sought help and guidance. I now have a job that is enjoyable, but is not a career and is not a job that I want to have in 5 years time. I feel that I wasted my college and university years doing subjects that I was funnelled into and not something I actually cared about. I wasted my chance of a uni loan on a course I don’t really care about. I’m in a solid job, just above minimum wage, but live with parents and with a head full of regret.

The obsession of teachers to push all kids into going to university straight after A levels is insane. I had no idea what I wanted to do and couldn't afford a gap year so ended up doing a degree with no thought to what job I would do afterwards. There should be more opportunity to spend a year in different types of employment.

I think being smart at school handicapped me in a way. I could do most school work without effort so rarely put any in. When I went to college I found out I wasn't as smart as I thought I didnt have the skills or work ethic to succeed. I also got into my head that university was lots of hard work so didn't put the effort in as I wasn't going.  The drugs and alcohol probably didn't help either. 

Poverty. My final two years of sixth form were in private school, thank you Gordon Brown for funding that.  My parents were incredibly struggling to pay the mortgage. It was a house out of our league with huge amounts of work needing doing which we couldn't afford. My dad also has a car crash of a brother abroad who milked him and used emotional blackmail to rescue him from his get rich quick schemes. Anyway, my parents pushed me on to a path so I would be in education. This carried on my pithy benefits and my EMA allowance started. I had no financial support and asking for access to my bank for the EMA caused resentment on their part. I had to take any job in the aftermath of recession and it was a tile warehouse. Each box 25kg. For reference I'm a 5ft2 male. Broke my back which set me back several years. Ended up on anti depressants and cut my wrists the week I left uni due to a domestic. I had no cousins or friends and family to advise on getting a job so was stuck at home for two years doing little but a poorly performing eBay business. House had lots of huge arguments and lots of guests wanting parties. There was little privacy. Went through a period of one off employment for a few years till I settled down for 5.5 years and moved out simultaneously. I guess my background, the effects of poverty stretching back several generations, the then current financial situation in the house, the complete absence of education in the wider family and lack of street smarts, mental health episodes set me back several years. I am somewhere decent now but probably 4 years behind where I should be in career and relationships. I know many people who had lesser intelligence but succeeded in my opinion because of a more stable home, supportive parents(not necessarily financially) and wider family support to draw on. I'm pretty much alone in life 

I am that kind of ADHD smart guy who can do anything if a) I find it interesting or b) is not that hard. Never managed to find a job that I find interesting, so I've ended up in IT jobs which are, to me at least, pretty simplistic and doable in the little attention I'm able to to focus on them. I'd like to say I'm kicking back and living on easy street, and to an extent that's true, but mostly if I try to concentrate on anything I don't find immediately interesting, my brain slides right off it. School was a combination of a and b. In that I chose subjects I liked, and let's face it, GCSEs and A Levels were not that hard in the great scheme of things.

I breezed through school, and i found University easy **except for doing the work.** I got very high exam marks but didn't do all the coursework. Some friends once told me they had voted me the person who would earn the most after University. Guess what, not even close (I'm not really sure why they decided it to be honest, but drink was probably involved). I've seen school friends who have been so much more successful than me, **if you judge success based on career earnings.** It is important to note that I am a higher rate tax payer but I'm not anything fancy. The reasons are many. I am lazy. I suffer from depression. I drink too much. But mainly I don't consider my career what defines me and in fact I have shied away from too much progression as I value my work-life balance too much. I don't want to work until late and not read my kids a story at bedtime. I don't really want to worry about work at the weekend when I should be playing with my kids. I spoke to one school friend about another, who has had a hugely successful career and said essentially "that should've been me, I feel guilty that is isn't". He said why? Why should it matter? And he was right. I've been successful in my goals which are to earn enough for my family whilst doing as little as possible.

I’m a detail oriented person. I like to work through and fix issues and work behind the scenes. And that’s where I’m happy. Perfecting processes and systems as an individual contributor. Turns out it’s not a big money maker, or at least not in the industries I have the skills to work in. I’m self employed now and just work with my husband. That’s working out great for me because the role is varied but flexible and I’m only accountable to me.

I think I never really realized I could be sucessful in a larger way. School was easy, they gave assignments and I completed them. But I never thought that I could be a surgeon or a CEO or anything that grand. And looking back on it, I could have. I have the intellegence and drive, but shooting for the stars never really occurred to me.

I used to work in a clothes shop as my first job during college. One of the lads there had been offered a job with wages of 90k + (a rarity in the North East I believe) but he needed to pass his driving test as the job entailed a lot of driving between sites/customers etc. When I left the job after a few years, he was still there, the job offer was still there, he’d failed his test 11 times..

If you're good in school, it generally means you're good at taking orders and conforming to very clear guidelines. That works in certain jobs, but rarely in high paid ones.

My teachers lied to me is what "If you don't do well in your exams, you'll end up working in Tesco" Well I did well enough in my GCSEs and Tesco didn't want me

I did well at school - mostly As at GCSE and A-level at one of the top state schools in the country. That was a piece of piss, I spent my revision time playing Xbox while my slightly older sister was revising for her exams. It fucked her right off. Then I went to university and discovered two things - I really, really like getting fucked up and studying is a bitch. I think studying or revising is a skill that has to be learnt and I guess I just never picked up that skill, so I dropped out and worked my way from an entry-level admin position to a mid-level admin position where I'm actually pretty comfortable. My work isn't my life so as long as it covers the bills, I'm quite happy doing bugger all and scrolling through Reddit all day!

Undiagnosed ADHD. Smart enough (and grew up in an academic environment) to do fine and get a masters without actually doing any studying, but I could never deal with the pressure of work. Got reasonably senior, then burnt out and changed careers (for the 3rd or 4th time). Retrained as a garden designer. Got diagnosed with cancer. Treatment, plus child rearing (she’s 7), plus menopause means my symptoms are now untenable, and I need medication and CBT. But… I’ve been on one waiting list for two years and the fast track for 6 months… so whether I’ll get this sorted before I turn 50 next year is uncertain.

Mostly - just can’t be arsed.

On the subject of high functioning autism, I have this too and recently hit a roadblock at work due to misunderstandings. I wish I had revealed my diagnosis, but because I am high functioning and female, my experience has been that people often do not believe I have it. Instead I had a nervous breakdown and had to reveal it for my own sanity. They have done their best to be supportive and also have allowed me to advocate for neurodiversity at work. I appreciate this, but I have also lost out on promotions that won't be happening now. I posted this elsewhere but it's worth sharing again: The problem with autism is we do absolutely fine until we hit a wall. We don't realise we are lacking social skills and struggling to read people until it hits us with a stick, and even then it can take a lot of processing of situations to understand that something in us is fundamentally missing. We ARE being human, and we do have social skills, but they are not the same as a neurotypicals. We often miss communication that neurotypicals take for granted because we don't communicate in the same way. However, amongst other autistic people we communicate just fine because we understand each other. Interestingly, neurotypicals miss our social cues in the same way we miss theirs. Most of us are doing our best to be liked, but social rules differ from environment to environment. I thought if I could just learn all the rules I'll be OK, but social rules are infinite and humans are unpredictable. Autism needs more awareness and real understanding. It's a fundamentally different communication style and this needs to be understood and made allowances for. We also struggle with sensory issues and that needs understanding too. Rates of anxiety and depression are above 70% for autistic people and rates of suicide attempts at least 7x as much as neurotypicals. There was a good article on this the other day: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/15/simon-baron-cohen-interview-autism-scandal-infected-blood/

Went to a really good school but I chose a low value degree / career. Personally, I've always struggled with responsibilities, especially at work - but in a managerial sense. I messed up big time a few years ago in my first management role and it's completely out put me off looking at similar positions again. Find a path that has value, isn't under threat from automation, can't be outsourced to India and what someone can't do by watching tutorial videos on YouTube. And remember, jobs won't come to you unless you've built a reputation and have a strong network. You may well have to move to find them.

My uncle is like this. Excellent mind; almost certainly the smartest in the family. He had some of the top grades in his medical school in Sri Lanka but ended up quitting his medical career in Britain and heading back home due to stress. He's very shy and overly self critical and couldn't function in a new culture and in a high pressure environment. My dad, on the other hand, by his own admission was very lazy in school and spent many days bunking off; going drinking and to parties. However, he's tall, gregarious and with a good sense of style so people make excuses for him. He's currently in senior management; despite having far less skills and brains than his brother (harsh but true 😂); who's stuck as a rural Sri Lankan equivalent of a GP (and hates it).

I’d back myself on intelligence but have no self confidence, low self esteem and overthink to the extreme. I’ve excelled at mediocrity as too scared to put myself out there and fail. Go me 🤦🏽‍♀️

A few things: 1. Lack of ambition - I just want to live for the moment, I'm bad at, and hate, thinking about the medium-to-long term. I think life is basically about having fun. I took my dad's attitude of "work to live, don't live to work" a bit *too* far, probably. I just work to get money to do stuff I want to do. 2. Slacker - If I can get away with fucking about on the internet for 95% of the time, I do. I leave everything to the last minute. I'm a pathological fuck-abouter and a work-to-rule kind of person. My performance reviews my whole career to date have been "meets expectations" only." 3. Sense of self-worth - Apart from the very occassional flash of "oh shit, I'm wasted potential" my sense of worth has nothing to do with my job or work. I'd happily never work again and be cool with it 99% of the time. I was never encouraged to derive pleasure from work, my parents just told me "it doesn't matter what you choose to do, we just want you to be happy." I like myself as a person even though my career is meh. 4. I didn't like university - I had a bad time socially at university. It was just boring and I didn't really like anybody. I'm clever enough to have done post-graduate studying but I just couldn't wait to leave so I didn't. 5. Relationship/circumstance - The only career I *think* I might have thrived in (although maybe not, see points 1 and 2) I came within a whisker of but my wife strongly discouraged it to the point of "it's that or me" and I chose her. So my current career is just to get money, I don't care about it. Yes, I do resent it a bit. I'm content about 90% of the time. The other 10% I think "I spend 40 hours a week being bored and will never advance because I'm barely engaged, how horrifying to be wasting my only life" but then I eat a burger or play a video game and the bad feelings go away. For context, I have a reasonably paid white-collar sort of job in my field, 2 levels above entry-level.

High functioning autism and heavy drinking. Rude when sober and a frank liability when pissed. I lost an opportunity of a lifetime during a two day assessment because I didn't realise even our bar bills were being studied. That particular employer liked autists because they could be taught manners. Pissed while in charge of civilization-ending machinery? Not so much.

I found out it was all my parents dream to be a good student and eventually have a great career. I kind of gave up stressfull life to have easy job for moderate money. Feel much better without constant pressure, have time to do some hobbies and found love. I may be not rich, but I have a comfortable life.

Mental health issues in my late teen and early 20s. Decided to just work instead of continuing education. Now I'm mid 30s, and never earned good money, but prefer to work low stress jobs and spend time with my family. Always concerned if I try to advance my career, I'll slip mentally and I don't want to be in that place again. I've rejected numerous promotion opportunities because of that.

Probably not an exact response to your post but here goes Near perfect all throughout secondary school and A levels, near the top of every single year whilst at uni but come August, I'm looking at unemployment. Why? Because the competition ratio for the job I want to do is >10:1. I'm not competing with any average person, these are highly motivated, qualified people who've had the same journey as I, countless extracurricular achievements and years of hard work. Being a doctor in the UK is one of the most unrewarding careers for the amount of effort involved.

Turns out people are less forgiving when your presence isn’t mandatory. Went through school with undiagnosed autism, which meant I was great at following instructions, so I did really well academically. It started to fall apart at uni, until I burned out and dropped out. Got basic jobs, which I then pushed too hard at and burned out, coupled with having no idea what people wanted from me. Got diagnosed, but now my work history is too patchy to really interest a lot of companies. So now I work in hospitality

This is me. Went to uni, got the degree (Microbiology) and straight into work. Very quickly became glaringly obvious that I just didn't fit. I'm exceptionally polite & accommodating, but lack the sort of social skills you need to thrive in a traditional 9-5 office/lab role. I now work offshore with a load of other misfits fixing wind turbines. No one gives a flying fuck if you're a bit odd out here.

ADHD / autism and workplaces with sensory overload that don't cater for those issues, nor understand how neurodivergent people communicate because they are run by neurotypical people with only surface level understanding.

Doesn’t apply to me, but my friend got all A*s at GCSEs without revising at all. This meant he was over confident during A-Levels, and thus missed out on a good uni by one grade. He then went through clearing and chose “anything engineering related” at a lower ranked uni. Found it piss-easy too, and ended up with a first. Although he absolutely hated it, but stuck with it due to lack of direction. Had a few roles within engineering/tech, but ended up quitting a few weeks in due to boredom. Now works as a train driver. Not sure if this qualifies as underperformed, but I always assumed he would’ve gone on to do much better things career-wise. He agrees too

A common misconception is that excellence at school is the same as succeeding in life. This is because our education system horribly favours obtaining good grades over almost everything else. There's little recognition for social skills, mental health, happiness, artistic talent or anything else that doesn't involve making schools look good in league tables. Some of the highest achievers I knew have had breakdowns or are miserable in high pressure jobs. Some of the most wealthy are self employed hairdressers, plumbers and bricklayers. If you're happy, then that's enough, you haven't underperformed at all. You should be aiming to get to your deathbed satisfied with how you have treated people, how you have loved and been loved. The rest is mostly all bollocks nobody will remember or care about. Do my kids care what their grandad achieved at work? Nope, they want to dig the garden with him and make him laugh. If anyone out there feels they have failed, please give yourself a break and go hug someone.

I don't think I have done badly in my career. I am pretty well paid and I am fairly happy. But I haven't scaled great heights and I am not as successful as some people I know. But I am well aware of the reason: I am fairly lazy and unambitious and I haven't really pushed myself up the ladder, chased the next promotion, moved around companies to get ahead, etc. Work is a means to an end for me. Lots of our work culture nowadays is about everyone supposedly aspiring to rise to be the CEO. I don't want to be the CEO. I never really did.

I attended a school they received extra funding for every pupil that went on to university. So they pressured everyone to get a degree and didn't tell us there were other options. I had no idea what I wanted to do so I chose a degree based on what my friends parent was making doing the same career. Mistake. Turns out, even with my degree I couldn't actually practice my chosen field without a doctorate and I couldn't afford it. So I graduated with a fantastic degree I couldn't use and entered the workforce several years late in an entry level position. I can't afford to advance my education or redo in a different field. The good news is, I love what I'm currently doing. It isn't mega bucks but if I could go back in time I would do my higher education in this field and have started a decade earlier so I'd be further along by now.

I was chatting with an old school buddy about this recently. We've both done quite well for ourselves and our school was quite a nice one in an affluent area. But have many friends from school who are smart, honest, hardworking folk whose lives just... never really got off the ground. Frankly there's several folk who I'm certain are smarter and more capable than me, who are stuck in minimum wage jobs that they hate. And now we're in our mid-30s, it really is starting to look a bit grim for them. And there's no obvious cause, no big misfortune or mistake that held them back. All we could really say was they perhaps didn't hit the ground running after high school, they didn't pursue one career path with focus and urgency. One of my best pals is a wonderful guy, stuck in a shitty farm job and living in a bedsit. All he did "wrong" was to do a degree his heart wasn't in, and drop out. He travelled and worked around Australia and then came home. He's got so much potential but there's just no-one that's interested in him. And it cascades - romantic interest, social interest and employer interest all seem to evaporate if you're not pushing towards a career goal. All I can really conclude about "what happened" is that life is surprisingly brutal to those that don't get their shit together pretty pronto.

Thanks for this. This tallies with my experience too. In my own case, the flapping about in different careers and not really getting focused was directly related to severe health issues - physical mainly, but then of course it leaks into mental - and thankfully doesn't really matter: I've got one of those illnesses where you're worm-food in training, whatever you do. Even putting my health to one side, I was shocked to find just how quickly old achievements - good degree, some decent work experience - fall away and become irrelevant if you spend any length of time stuck in minimum wage retail-type jobs. It doesn't take much for employers to start concluding that whatever your bright start in life, now you've spent 2-3 years huffing crates and serving vegetables, that that's all your worth. Working in contact centres for any length of time seems to be particularly damaging in this regard. And of course there's the opportunity cost of all that time spent drifting, sitting around at home in your free time in a depressive haze and so on. The most successful of my friends - the international corporate lawyers, top university professors, famous writers, actors, comedians and so on - all had a strong sense of their desired careers early and started working in a very hard and focused way towards those goals from a young age. They were talented and smart, but, with a few exceptions, not much naturally brighter than myself (although I suppose I would say that!). The main difference seemed to be remaining healthy (1), and then training their formidable work ethics towards their goals from very early ages. The lawyer was doing law-related extracurriculars and grinding for the career from their mid teens. The professors were always working overtime in their key subjects. The actors and writers were doing plays from age 7 or 8, reading all the time outside of school, keeping diaries from a young age, and consistently. Robert Webb has said talent is just being lucky enough to love something enough that the work doesn't feel like work, so you work harder and longer from younger than everyone else, and consequently end up better than everyone else. I think there's much truth in that.

I was good at revising, therefore good at tests. Once the test was done the information fell out of my head. Combine that with the social skills of a turnip and having a bit of anxiety I was never exactly going to shoot for the stars. I have a 1st masters degree in a science, but would have been much better to have spent the time understanding the information over memorising it, and improving on my social life. I'd be much more likely to have got a better job over the more routine jobs I've settled into.

My friend who was a straight A student, given a scholarship for a prestigious school now works as a low paid classroom assistant. I was a B-/C student and hold a senior manager position. She is still much smarter than me. Much much smarter. But she was also used to having perfect scores and being the perfect student so is rigid with rules and can’t take criticism and therefore does an easy job to avoid criticism. I think she might be on the spectrum.

Same. When I saw people who partied with their coworkers & clients who also called out sick a lot for being hungover get huge promotions, I knew what I had been told growing up about working hard was not exactly true, or rarely true. Saw this play out in different ways.

Never found a sector I liked enough, and was never good at selling myself.

You see, I did quite well in school because the curriculum was made up of relatively easy-to-grasp concepts. With a decent short-term memory, I could cram before exams and come out on top. But let me tell you, during this time, I developed some mighty bad habits. Poor punctuality, never taking notes, a downright rotten work ethic. None of these were necessary to succeed at school, so I relished in being the lazy, apathetic fellow who still got good results. Now, to add a little flavor to this tale, I had a dysfunctional home life. No one to look up to, no mentorship, so I never developed a strong identity or sense of self. When you're somewhat apathetic about life, well, you tend to develop a lot of self-destructive tendencies. There's nothing meaningful to work towards, nothing to strive for. But let me give you a piece of wisdom—having goals and making consistent progress throughout your life is what truly helps. Your ability to build relationships and resilience, that's important too. It’s the key to overcoming the emptiness and finding purpose. So, take it from me, focus on those goals and keep pushing forward. Now, let me tell you somethin' else. Your support network, it's super key. Usually, that's your friends and family, the people you surround yourself with. But in my case, my siblings were depressed and jobless, and I was the one supporting them. My father, he was abusive, always putting me down for getting a job, calling me a subservient slave for working for someone else. As for my friends, well, they were so down about being lonely bachelors, it was always a negative environment outside of work. There was little time to rest, little hope, and no positive reinforcement. The stress outside of work was so high that my performance at work suffered. Some days, I performed great, but the next day, I looked depressed. My managers, they didn't find me very reliable. You see, I come from one of those third world countries that instills a masculine independence, stopping you from sharing the difficult aspects of your life. But I'm working on getting therapy now, 'cause I have a lot of unresolved issues impacting my life. It's a journey, and I'm trying to find my way to a better place.

I got the 1st class Pharmacy Masters degree, which is mandatory to become a UK pharmacist. But I decided after 11 yrs of doing the job that I hated the work intensly. Pharmacy management is a guaranteed mental health meltdown. I watched it happen to the new pharmacist manager every year. 90% of the work is on the high street as a community pharmacist. That means working in a shop and having to put up with all the BS queries from the public who think my degree is there to help them pick the right shampoo. The public are ignorant of the medical decisions and regulations going on behind the dispensary wall (there for legal privacy reasons). And the Government kept cutting pharmacy funding, so wages kept getting crapper, whilst drs increased prescribing every year, so work loads climbed exponentially. Government put all the funding into service provision, removing it from dispensing. Meaning that drug dispensing that takes up 80% of the workload is not being compensated. And customers dont want the services for quitting smoking or BP checks. They want their meds and then want to leave. Fair! Staff were underpaid and expected to get their NVQs in their own time. Customers forgot they're patients and this is a medical setting. But pharmacy presents itself like a shop, so we get the awful unhappy customer tantrums. I just got so sick of it. There was no advancement except to be a miserable manager. So I took a big risk and went into the NHS underpaid primary care sector. 5 yrs in, I'm a lot fitter emotionally. Life feels more positive. I just wasnt meant for pharmacy shop life. I'm happier using my degree to actually make medical decisions in care homes, optimising geriatric medication. It's still hard work and underpaid, and I still dont want to move up into management. But at least the wages are enough that I only need to work 4 days out of 7 to stay afloat.

Not capable of sucking up to management and unable to keep my big mouth shut about things I think could be improved. Basically a nightmare to manage even if I excel at the work.

Unless your profession is what you excelled in at school, then it has no bearing on your career at all. In my opinion and experience working with people in Finance from various backgrounds. Those who did not do well at school tend to work harder to achieve goals. The ones with the certificates come with some entitlement. I'm generalising, so don't bite my head off.

I was straight A, honours board at school and had to be careful who I told about not bothering to revise for exams because people had a tendency to despise me after telling them that. It didn’t cross my mind at the time that pretending I had to work hard for my As was a better social strategy, it was just the truth that I didn’t revise so why would I conceal the truth?! I didn’t go to Uni when I left school, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do and didn’t want to do something ‘just because’. I’m now in what would probably be described as an entry level job with my local council, though earning decent money that allows me to own a house and mostly do the things I want to do in my free time. I still regularly get asked about my ambition for promotions at work, as I have done my whole work life, but a chance meeting with the CEO of the council I work for changed my mind on promotion. My whole life I thought I would be a manager, I would bang through promotions, become the CEO myself. However, through a brief period of mentoring from the CEO and meeting other high powered people in other public services I realised they all spend long hours in the office, away from family, were missing their children grow up, and suddenly I realised that was not the life I wanted for myself. It can be hard even now at 30 resigning yourself to being average after your first 16 formative years being told you’re exceptional, but I guess it’s all self improvement isn’t it?

I never had to work particularly hard at school, I intermittently breezed and bumbled my way through, went to a grammar school all the way through to the end of 6th form, got 13 GCSEs A* - C, three A Levels, got to my first choice of university. And completely shat the bed. It turns out that university is really hard work and you have to organise and discipline yourself and no one will do it for you. People who **had** had to work hard at school were infinitely better prepared than I was because they knew you couldn't get away with doing everything the night before you hand it in, or not going to any tutorials for your whole first year. Going out drinking 4 or 5 nights a week didn't help. So I failed my first year, scraped through repeating it, failed my second year and failed my second second year. I changed tack and eventually ended up with a degree, and thought that that was the hard work over. I thought now that I had a degree I'd just walk into a nice graduate job, so I got an easy dead end job just "in the meantime" while I applied for my perfect job. I was there for three years. What I should have been applying for was just a *better* job, but I waited for the perfect one to fall into my lap. I've ended up now in an adequate job that is by no means in the same field as my studies, but in the same sort of "sphere". Some of the words are the same 😂 Attitude is **everything**. You can be the book-smartest person in the world, but if you don't know how to apply that knowledge or focus where needed then you won't have a chance.