Why an ADHD Coach is Powerful

One of the most powerful tools a teen or adult can draw upon for mastering their ADHD is a coach. A coach who is trained in ADHD/ADD, is certified by a respected coaching organization, and ideally, has some first hand experience of what ADHD is, and how to overcome it. Coach Linda Walker explains her role in supporting an adult with ADD to deal with the emotional roller coaster while building new habits with strategies that work for the ADHD mindset.

LINDA WALKER

Coaching is really about questioning and helping people build self-awareness. One of the issues with ADHD adults is self-awareness because they don’t pay attention to what they’re doing, or paying attention to what they should be paying attention to sometimes. That creates some issue with their lives. I’m there to help them realize some of the things that they don’t realize themselves, by questioning and noticing.

I have to direct a little bit, because they need to be heard, but at some point we need to be able to move forward. I usually start by what do you have to celebrate today. What are the things that you have done this week that has made you proud, and want to celebrate. They usually always say that they don’t have anything. I ask them questions to see if they have obstacles, I realize that they’ve achieved everything that they expected to this week. We celebrate the things that we do.

ADD’ers tend to be task oriented the jump from one thing to another when they finish and they don’t take time to look at what they learned from this.

I also look for patterned language. Sometimes certain language can tell me that someone has very limited beliefs, about themselves, or about what there able to do, and about the world in general. It’s questioning that will first tell us about their limiting belief.

Afterwards it is important to work through it to find out if its still a belief, if it isn’t would could you believe in differently, what would life be if you believed differently, often just that question gets the clients thinking and that is what we listen for.

I also listen for strengths.

Most ADDers when they concentrate on their strengths end up being amazing at them. They go from mediocre to amazing and those are some of the things that I listen to in a session.

Also in a session we will look for the next things that you want to achieve.

The client sets the agenda. The client decides what they talk about for the most part like an issue at work or with their boss. When we look at the issue we decide what we want to do about it, put together a plan of action and commit to certain things. When they get back it starts over again. That’s a typical coaching session.

For More adult ADHD information see Also:

• ADHD Emotions:  Why Do I Overreact?
• 7 Reasons I Couldn’t Possibly Have ADD
• 23 Signs You Do Not Have ADHD
• I Never Finish What I Start
• 5 Reasons People Say It Can’t be ADHD