I’m Susan, ADHD + Executive Function Coach

Coaching focuses on visioning, success, the present and moving toward the future. Therapy emphasizes psychopathology, emotions and the past to understand the present, and it works more with developing skills for managing emotions or past issues than does coaching. Coaching is very proactive and does not deal with psychological issues. Coaching acknowledges personal issues, but the focus is on skill development and implementation of new strategies that benefit the client in achieving their goals and becoming more fulfilled and better equipped to meet life’s daily challenges. Coaching helps the individual learn new behaviors and habits and even alter thinking patterns that are not serving them. Coaching is client initiated and uses the process of discovery and inquiry to learn. Many times coaching includes creating an environment that is made for your unique brain wiring and works specifically for your needs. A coach can help you enhance your skills and helps build awareness and responsibility toward your endeavors.

ADHD coaches are trained to help you learn more about how ADHD affects your life and find ways to manage it effectively. We’re here to encourage you to stay focused on your goals, develop resilience when you face obstacles, and feel better about the way you engage with life.

ADHD coaches work collaboratively with their clients who have ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms to address specific needs and personal goals. Most current ADHD coaching programs acknowledge the biological underpinnings of the disorder in addressing the core symptoms of ADHD (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity); however, coaching addresses the academic, vocational, emotional and interpersonal life difficulties that are a result of these symptoms and helps clients find ways to overcome these challenges. Through individualized or group assistance and support, coaches help people concentrate on where they are now, where they want to be and how they can get there.

A coach helps people with ADHD carry out the practical activities of daily life in an organized, goal-oriented and timely fashion. In close partnership, an ADHD coach helps the client learn practical skills and initiate change in his or her daily life. A coach may help an adult with ADHD:

• maintain focus to achieve identified goals

• translate abstract goals into concrete actions

• build motivation and learn to find ways to use concrete and abstract rewards effectively

Coaches help individuals with ADHD learn how the symptoms of ADHD play out in their daily lives. Coaches primarily ask questions to help the client reflect and discover their own answers to these questions.

• Goal setting planning and scheduling.

• Developing new strategies for organization and time management.

• Developing more effective communication skills.

• Improving professional skills, such as better meeting management, leadership, presentation, and delegation skills, etc.

• Stress management.

• Health and wellness goals.

• Source of structure, support and encouragement.

• Development of strategies to maintain focus and concentration.

• Safe environment to work on social skills and self-esteem.

• Effectively manage symptoms of attention deficit disorder.

• Moving out of your comfort zone to the next level of self-development.

The coach and client design an alliance together that is synergistic in nature. They co-engineer the process as a team, so as to avoid a situation of “nagging”. The roles of each are clearly defined in the beginning. Together they decide what to do and how to do it. A system of accountability is set up that is comfortable for both. The process for this is designed so the client will feel pulled toward their goal instead of pushed. They decide where to begin and what to do together. Coaching is client driven meaning you ask the client are communicating your needs and desires and your coach is helping you to find the best ways to reach your goals.

Time management and organizational skills are often improved with coaching for the ADDer. Having a warm, supportive, safe environment in which to learn new skills is often very important especially to the adult with ADD who has experienced criticism and negativity growing up. Good ADD coaches understand attention deficit disorder and the challenges it presents to the coaching process in terms of distractibility, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Helping ADDers develop healthy life style patterns is beneficial in the management of their ADD symptoms. Coaching is a comfortable way to learn and implement these new skills. Coaches help to foster good diet, sleeping patterns, exercise habits and other areas of self-nurturing. Coaches also help clients with feelings of being overwhelmed and off track to avoid “shutting down”, or “burning out”. Coaching can help the ADDer learn to select target areas to concentrate on to function more efficiently and manage their challenges with ease.