Autism and Intentional Living: Expanding Special Interests

Do you want to live with more intention to achieve your goals? In this 6th episode in a series on Intentional Living, Dr. Regan discusses ways to grow in areas of interest by expanding skills and using free or low cost methods of networking and introducing products or services to others. 

Previous podcast episodes mentioned:

Shifting Autistic Characteristics Across the Lifespan

Autism in Women

Coursera (online courses)

 

Dr. Regan's Resources

Book: Understanding Autism in Adults and Aging Adults, 2nd ed

Audiobook

Book: Understanding Autistic Behaviors

Autism in the Adult website homepage

Website Resources for Clinicians

Read the transcript:

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Hello,

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this is Doctor Regan joining you for the sixth episode of Our Living With Intention series on the Autism in the Adult podcast.

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I am the mom of a teen on the spectrum.

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I have a doctorate in the field of brain behavior relationships called neuropsychology.

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I'm also an author and speaker,

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a certified autism specialist and the founder and director of an autism diagnostic clinic in Central Illinois,

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serving adolescents,

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adults and aging adults.

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Before we jump into our topic for today,

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let's take a throwback to past episodes.

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Looking back to two years ago at this time,

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I published an episode about autism in women.

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It's been one of the most listened to episodes of the podcast.

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And one year ago at this time,

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we were in the midst of a series about how autism characteristics may shift somewhat across the lifespan during puberty across life,

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seasons in women and throughout the aging years,

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I'll go ahead and link these episodes in the show notes in case you miss them.

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Now,

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let's talk about our current episode in The Living With Intention series.

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I've named the series Living With Intention because sometimes as humans,

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we just kind of get swept up in the demands of daily life or we get stuck in some areas and it can help to pause and consider where we would like to be in various areas of our lives.

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And then to think about how to take small achievable steps on a path toward our intention.

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And so far,

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we've spoken about three areas of life that someone may have goals for such as improving regulation,

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that means feeling centered,

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calm and psychologically present.

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We talked about communicating and connecting and also about addressing issues of household culture.

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Today,

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we will look at the area of interests.

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Many people that I work with share that they're so captivated by a certain topic or activity that they would love to expand this in their life.

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For example,

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if someone is an artist,

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they may share that they think they would like to sell designs on Etsy,

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another person may share that they are immersed in sewing and this is so interesting and calming to them.

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They've developed quite a skill in this area and they're wondering if they could expand by doing some things in their community.

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Another may have an amazing brain for sports statistics and wish that they could get into sports casting as a niche in life.

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Again,

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it's important to emphasize that these are goals that the individual presents with.

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This is not an episode about what someone's goals should be,

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but rather to address the thought of gosh,

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I love this stuff and I would love to do more or use it in a way that reaches a wider area or a wider audience.

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So how does one start a path toward getting more involved in the area of an intense interest?

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So how to get started as we talked about in the second episode on this series,

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it is recommended that we take small defined achievable steps in the direction we would like to go.

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So one such step may be to gain some additional skills in the area of interest.

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For example,

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if someone produces a product and they would like to offer the product on the internet,

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they may wish to get training in things like basic marketing strategies using social media for sales and creating a website.

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Someone who creates a myriad of characters and stories,

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this individual may want to write fiction books in order to bridge the gap from having great ideas and wonderful creativity to bringing together some stories into a book.

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The individual may wish to take a formal course in creative writing.

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Now,

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I know taking a course can feel daunting but a wonderful place to learn.

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Some of these skills is on the internet and there are Myriads of free online courses in various areas.

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In fact,

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there are so many options that I just can't even list the top opportunities in the show note links.

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There are so many,

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but I'll share a few things about learning from the internet.

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Have you ever heard of a MOOC?

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That's M - O - O - C.

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It's a massive open online course - MOOC.

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And this is a free web-based distance learning program that's designed for huge numbers of people.

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Thus the word massive ... of geographically dispersed students.

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So open means that these are accessible to multiple levels of people very often,

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these are free and they're online.

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So this is all web based.

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I myself have been a student in several MOC courses to learn things that I can't learn locally.

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For example,

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I got to take a Behavioral Genetics course through the University of Minnesota.

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I took a neuroanatomy course through the University of Illinois Chicago.

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And what happens is that you earn a participation certificate from the course,

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which is free,

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but the benefits are both the information you learn and also having this on your resume as an area of self study.

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So the MOOC platforms also have developed paid versions of courses where you earn some type of verified credit or certificate.

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And they also have programs that are kind of compilation certificates... like, take seven writing courses and get this advanced writing certificate or a grouping of computer courses for an IT specialization certificate.

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The particular site for MOOC courses that I used was Coursera.org and I'll put that in the show notes.

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But there are so many sites to choose from.

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I encourage you to use an internet search engine for free online courses in the area of your interest.

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Another opportunity for learning more skills in your area of interest would be youtube tutorials and also programs like Adobe that offer video instruction to become more expert in their program offerings.

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In this context,

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you could learn things like video and audio editing,

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photography

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editing,

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how to use website design software...

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Podcast platforms like Podbean and others also provide podcasts about how to become and succeed as a podcaster in your area of interest.

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And they also offer blog posts and articles about all the things their sites offer to support your goals.

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So there's a lot of free learning opportunities in the form of videos, in the form of programs that offer their own education about their products and also podcasts that just talk about how to develop your niche in addition to increasing skills in your area.

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Another way to take a step toward your goal of expanding your interest would be to start doing some things on a volunteer basis or to provide giveaways or free products as promotions to highlight your work or skills.

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So again,

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this doesn't need to be the end goal,

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you know,

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to be volunteering as the ultimate end,

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but it can be one step to help you become more comfortable in this area to gain experience and also to get your offerings out there.

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Someone who bakes may wish to donate cookies to the local elementary school open house with a nicely crafted sign about their business,

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including their contact information.

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They could even put a QR code on the sign so parents can scan the sign and save their contact information in their website location.

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The individual who loves sports statistics and wants to become a sportscaster may wish to volunteer time to local sports teams as the sports announcer during the games.

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This helps the person create contacts,

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get used to the tasks involved in doing the work and lets other people see their skills.

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There are other ways to use free venues to increase your credentials and get your work out there.

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Looking for free opportunities to get involved,

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advance your skills and get your work out.

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There is a really good way to step toward that intention of expansion.

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So for example,

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someone who's trying to develop creative writing skills may wish to enter their stories into contests.

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And once you have a body of work developed,

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you might find it fairly straightforward to enter appropriate work in various contests for review and as your work earns mentions or comments or awards,

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these can be highlighted in your credentials on your website.

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Someone who loves making characters and writing may also want to write fan fiction on the internet as a way of using a resource to get their work out there.

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For an individual who loves,

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loves,

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loves running and decides they may wish to do some personal training for other long distance runners locally or in their community,

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this person may wish to enter races and keep track of these credentials to market their services.

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Some races or events may be free and others may have a fee.

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But in the end,

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this could be a way of meeting people with similar interests,

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getting your name out there as someone who's actively pursuing running and training and getting some race placements to add to your credentials.

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The important things about these approaches are that they're small steps,

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they're toward your desired outcome.

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Whatever you've decided your intention is this is where I'd like to be in this area of my life.

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And these small steps help you get a feel for what your goal may feel like in the end.

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For example,

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someone who thinks that they might want to become a teacher will gain a lot of information about teaching by volunteering to teach a course at the community center every Saturday for four weeks.

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So they get a taste of what it feels like to instruct a small group of adults or Children.

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They get a taste for some of the paperwork or the communication demands in between the actual classes and instruction.

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Some people who love a particular topic and they think they might want to teach,

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end up realizing after some of these volunteer opportunities that the actual process of teaching is not something they love.

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Another important thing about this approach is that for some of the options.

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There's really not a high demand for in-person contact or being in crowded classrooms.

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Some individuals may feel that expanding their interests into well formed skills or offerings is most daunting because they really can't imagine themselves opening a whole storefront or running a restaurant full of people.

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But this approach can harness all of the online opportunities for learning,

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for creating,

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for selling through the internet while engaging in certain community events that you choose.

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You get to decide how much uh event based activity do I want to do in the community or how much do I want to travel?

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How much customer interaction do I want versus time to regroup in my own space?

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I'm a firm believer that your community needs your gifts,

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your knowledge,

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your passion and whatever area you find that in and finding ways to take steps to your passion,

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not only blesses you,

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but those around you and having ways of expressing that also is something that fills you up.

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I love creating.

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I love writing,

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I love running.

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I love sports statistics.

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We like to have some balanced way of allowing you to learn and grow in this area to feed that passion and to serve your community.

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Thank you so much for joining me for the sixth episode of the Living With Intention series.

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And I invite you to check out the show notes for links to opportunities mentioned in this episode and for links to other offerings on my website.

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And I hope that you join me for the next podcast episode.