What is Executive Function / ADHD Coaching?
Executive Function (EF) / ADHD coaching is appropriate for those diagnosed with ADHD or another EF disorder, those who suspect they have an EF deficit or ADHD, those who suffer from EF struggles or ADHD-like symptoms (which we all do at one point or another), parents of ADHD children, teens, and young adults, and spouses or partners of people with ADHD. EF/ADHD coaching can benefit you in the following ways:
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Supports you in gaining knowledge in and increasing your understanding of ADHD and Executive Function Disorder (EFD), its symptoms, and how to manage it
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Aids you in discovering opportunities for increasing your productivity and focus
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Helps you identify how EFD/ADHD might be holding you back in reaching your goals, and what personal gifts it provides you that you can leverage
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Provides you the opportunity to explore your personal impacts of your EFD/ADHD, including social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive
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Helps you increase your emotional intelligence and understand the intersection between emotional intelligence and executive function
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Allows for a judgment-free supportive environment to contemplate and discuss your challenges at work, school, and home, and in social situations
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Helps you understand and work with any co-existing conditions that commonly occur with EFD/ADHD, such as anxiety, depression, oppositional defiant disorder, and learning differences
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Assists you in developing good habits and practice in home, academic, occupational, and social settings
What are Executive Functions?
Executive Functions (EFs) are the higher-level mental processes that help to keep us on track and moving toward our goals. EFs influence our thoughts and behaviors to reach our goals in the following ways:
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Self-Awareness: Recognizing and understanding your own emotions and thoughts by directing your attention to yourself and to what's going on in your head
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Self-Regulation: Changing or altering your behavior in response to expectations, stress, other people, and your surroundings to reach your goals
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Verbal and Non-verbal Working Memory: Leveraging your attention and memory to have a productive self-dialogue, such as step-by-step and sequenced directions to accomplish our goals and plan for the future, to accurately engage in visual imagery, and to transform what we are thinking into what we do
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Emotional Self-Regulation: Using self-awareness, self-regulation, and verbal and non-verbal working memory to manage your emotions and how you think about things
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Behavioral Inhibition: Restraining yourself from having a knee-jerk reaction to a situation and self-correcting your actions (or inaction) to increase the likelihood of you reaching your goals
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Planning and Problem Solving: Thinking of new and novel ways to approach challenges and accomplish tasks toward reaching your goals
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Self-Motivation: Consistently driving toward your goals, especially longer-term goals, even if you lack immediate consequences of your short-term actions
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While ADHD is a type of Executive Function Disorder (EFD), multiple other disorders can cause EF deficits, too, such as autism spectrum disorder and learning differences. We all suffer from EF deficits and struggles at one point or another, such as analyzing a task correctly, planning how to address and tackle the task, organizing how we will carry out the steps to complete the task, creating and sticking to timelines to complete the task, and, when warranted, adjusting the steps we take to complete the task. Regardless of your formal diagnosis, if any, EF/ADHD Coaching benefits you in succeeding at all of these challenges.
What if I have ADD, not ADHD?
ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder, is an older term for ADHD, or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD has three "presentations": predominantly hyperactive-impulsive, predominantly inattentive, and combined presentation (hyperactive-impulsive plus inattentive). Around 2/3 to 3/4 of those diagnosed with ADHD have combined presentation. What was previously known as ADD is usually used to describe the predominantly inattentive presentation.
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Visit my pages More About ADHD and ADHD Resources to learn more about ADHD.
How does Executive Function / ADHD Coaching differ from other types of Coaching?
EF/ADHD Coaching is coaching through an EF/ADHD "lens." It is about awareness, on the part of the coach and the client, on the challenges the client is facing that might be impacted by deficits in EF or ADHD, and exploring goals and tasks with how the client's EF struggles or ADHD may play into it. Other coaching focuses, such as career coaching or leadership coaching, may be combined with EF/ADHD Coaching if that is what the client wants and needs.