Getting A Coach
With my driving scenario as an example of my ADHD thinking my solution is to hire a coach.
I think to myself:
Should I hire a general Coach or an ADHD Coach.
I wonder, what would a general coach do with my scenario and what would an ADHD Coach do with it?
The General Coach or the ADHD Coach that is the question:
The General Coach
Once I explain my dilemmas to a general coach, she might refer me out because she can’t understand how something as simple as driving is so hard and confusing for me as when she recently drove with me to a luncheon she told me how well I drove.
She thinks I am making it all up.
She realizes that this huge disparity in performance is not something she can deal with, so she decides to refer me to another professional.
This is perfectly within the ethical guidelines of the International Coach Federation (ICF).
She might not know how to help me, other than referring me to someone who does.
She might even get impatient with me and my idiosyncrasies.
The general coach, without realizing it, might try to motivate me with comments that speak of being “accountable for my driving errors.”
I would then feel added pressure which would cause me to shut down further.
Her lack of understanding as to how the different challenges of ADHD show up for me in different situations, with different tasks, makes her believe that making me aware of my own lacks and deficiencies will help me.
But, in reality, this has the opposite effect.
The General Coach will likely not have made much progress with me.
I might even leave the coaching with the mistaken perception that coaching is not the solution for me.
Even worse, I might come to believe that I cannot be helped because there is no one who can coach me or who wants to coach me.
I might come to believe that it is my fault because of who I am.
Besides all that, I may find that the general coach doesn’t understand the frustration that I experience daily. I might even begin to feel like no one understands.
What may appear so simple and easy for the general coach and for others who don’t have ADHD, can be really very difficult for the ADDer.
Of course, what will confuse the general coach even more is that there are many things that are challenging for non-adders but are so easy and effortless for ADDers.
The ADHD Coach
On the other hand, to the ADHD Coach this kind of predicament is familiar as is the way that I function or don’t function on the road.
The ADHD coach understands and recognizes the unique brain wiring that goes along with these kinds of challenges.
It is the challenges of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity in different situations that conceal my natural talents.
They need to be discovered and acknowledged.
Before coaching I spend most of my day working on my weaknesses that I am trying to improve rather on my areas of strength.
My ADHD coach understands this and is skilled at empowering me to identify what I do well.
That way I can begin some positive action to start my day and gain some forward momentum.
The ADHD coach will work with me to discover my strengths.
She will help me understand how I can begin to integrate them into my life with greater frequency.
This will dramatically create more success not just in driving, but in many things in my life
My ADHD will coach listen to me and tell me what I just said.
Sometimes I will be surprised that I actually said what I did because it sounds really good.
I will feel like she really understands me, sometimes better than I understand myself.
My ADHD Coach will ask me the right questions that will get me to realize that talking on my cell phone while driving might be a contributing factor to missing an exit and to getting confused on the road.
That’s not the total reason.
But it does make a difference.
As a result of one of our coaching sessions, I may get motivated to refrain from cell phone talking during driving.
In the same session she will make me realize that listening to certain kinds of music while driving actually improves my ability to sustain my attention for longer periods while I am driving to an important appointment.
My ADHD coach will help me to see that in some situations I function amazingly and have great success while in doing something like driving a car or cooking dinner, I am clueless.
We will laugh when I tell her that I was not able to find the phone until I opened the refrigerator and found it in the fruit bin.
She will help me identify the symbols I may need to remember to do important tasks or assignments that I have forgotten about in the past.
She will empower me to identify what that cue will be and what I may take to remember where I am going and what I have to do when I get there.
She will not take for granted that certain kinds of driving destinations will take me longer and cause a struggle.
My ADHD coach will plan with me to find out who I want to be while I am driving.
Together we will make a plan for that and we will set up a support system for it so that I may succeed.
We will find within my own brain wiring and intention a way to be focused when I choose to be.
We may come to a time when we feel that I need some additional resources.
In that case we will discuss it and my ADHD coach will support me in preparing relevant and important questions to ask other professionals.
We will discuss which will work for me and with which I do not feel comfortable.
My ADHD coach will trust my own intuition as well as hers.
I will feel safe with my ADHD Coach and I will really trust her. She will never be judging as she will accept me exactly the way I am. She will even help me to appreciate, and even like myself.
I will love my ADHD Coach.
Copyright © Chana Klein 2017