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How to Find an ADHD Coach: The Short Version
Quick Decision-Making: The Benefits
As someone affected by ADHD, when I take a risk people often think I am acting impulsively. People affect by ADHD often do have impulsivity issues but that is not what is going on. Decision-making is what’s going on.
The difference is it is early decision-making.
I have a theory – taking a long time to make a decision, ending up making it at the end of the “time period” you are putting your self in a precarious situation as a opposed to making an early quick-ish decision which allows room for recourse if necessary.
My reasoning is two-fold. First, if the decision is a bad one if you have made the decision early you have time to do triage. You may not be able to totally salvage the situation but some salvaging is better than a total loss. It you decision was made at the end of the “time period” and it turns out to be a disaster there is no time to re-coup.
Secondly, I believe in most instances we have a pretty good idea as to what we want to do fairly early on. Once we have checked the numbers, the results or whatever constellation facts available to us we know which way we are leaning. That direction is usually the direction we end up going in the end regardless how long we wait. Ditch the wait. Make the decision. The result being a cushion if it is the wrong decision to have at least some movement or room to if not fix it at least lesson the blow.
Quick decision-making is not impulsivity if it has balanced reasoning behind it. It is actually decisiveness.
Abigail Wurf, PCC, M.Ed helps professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners affected by ADHD and/or Executive function issues achieve success in business and in life. Located in Washington DC, Abigail works with clients in person, over the phone and over the Internet. Her new book, “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD,” is loaded with tips to help overwhelmed people get things done and be more strategic about how to live their lives. To receive a free consult from Abigail, make a request through the contact form and she will get back with you to schedule.
ADHD: Try Saying Yes!
ADHD: Try Saying Yes
One of the ways we hold back change is to say “No.” We say “No” to possible new experiences. We say “No” to opportunities that might be challenging to us. We say “No” to situations that might threaten our belief system and point of view.
When we say “No,” we lose.
Why? Because change is constant and by saying “No” we are not moving forward. We are stagnant while the world keeps moving and changing around us.
But what if we started saying “Yes?” What would happen to our lives if we said “No” less and said “Yes” more?
Change would happen.
Our lives would change, our hearts would change and maybe even some of our beliefs would change. The more we say “Yes” the more “flow” we would experience. “Flow” is when everything is working right and you are in the moment and your best self.
As people affected by ADHD, we wrestle with impulsivity. Saying “Yes” is different than impulsivity. Saying “Yes” more often in your life is to embrace change and the future with your arms opened wide. It is about letting go of fear of what might happen to anticipating what might happen.
Saying “Yes” more means showing up in life, something that at times is hard for us to do. So the next time opportunity knocks, try not to say the “No” that is automatically at the tip of your tongue. Instead give a resounding “Yes” and prepare for your adventure.
Quote:
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. – Carl Rogers
Abigail Wurf, PCC, M.Ed helps professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners affected by ADHD and/or Executive function issues achieve success in business and in life. Located in Washington DC, Abigail works with clients in person, over the phone and over the Internet. Her new book, “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD,” is loaded with tips to help overwhelmed people get things done and be more strategic about how to live their lives. To receive a free consult from Abigail, make a request through the contact form and she will get back with you to schedule.
What Executive Functions Skills Are & Why You Should Want to Get Coached on Them
What Executive Functions Skills Are & Why You Should Want to Get Coached on Them
Executive Functions are the ways you interact with the world in the present and future. Executive Function skills include:
• Goal Setting
• Planning
• Task Initiation
• Prioritizing
• Time Management
• Organizing
• Working Memory
• Focus
• Shift/Flexibility
• Meta-cognition
• Self Inhibition
• Emotional Regulation
All brains are not the same. How strong or weak one is on a specific executive function skill varies from person to person. Usually a person is strong in a few executive functions skills, weak in some other executive function skills and maybe middling on the remaining executive function skills. Each person’s brain has its own “equation.”
Whether I am working with someone affected by ADHD or someone who is simply weak in some executive function skills, the goal is to find ways for them to utilize their strengths to help compensate for their weaknesses. The first step is evaluating which executive function skills are stronger than others. Once we know that, we then evaluate what executive functions skills are needed for the person to achieve what they wish to achieve. Obviously, you use all of your executive function skills, but depending upon your goals, you will need some executive function skills more than others.
Different work situations demand different skills. Knowing your strengths can help you figure out how to work better for your own success and for the success of collaborative projects, success with people you supervise and success in your business or organization.
If the case of collaboration you want to choose people to work with whose strengths in executive function skills are in areas you are weak in. For example, if you are collaborating on building a bridge and you are not good at time management, you certainly want someone on your team who excels at that executive function skill. In a collaborative situation you want to create a situation where the executive function skills required to achieve success are fully represented. Usually this means more that you need more than one person.
So it follows if you supervise people, figuring their strengths and weaknesses regarding their executive function skills and knowing your own will give you excellent guidance on how to run your department.
If you own your own business, you want your first hires to be strong in skills you are somewhat weak in. Many an ADHD entrepreneur has gone under because their first hires did not to fill in where they were weak. Instead, they may hire like-minded people who have the same deficits that they do. This results in a new business growing with big blind spots.
Having a coach that knows a great deal about executive function skills can help you boost your performance and also the performance of the people around you. The more you know about yourself regarding executive function skills the better you will be at seeing other people’s skill sets and how to best mesh with them and/or lead them.
As stated in the beginning, executive function skills are the way you interact with the world in the present and the future. The right coaching can help maximize your strong executive function skills and find ways to compensate for your weaker executive function skills provided you work with a coach who understands executive function skills and their importance to success.
Abigail Wurf, PCC, M.Ed helps professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners affected by ADHD and/or Executive function issues achieve success in business and in life. Located in Washington DC, Abigail works with clients in person, over the phone and over the Internet. Her new book, “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD,” is loaded with tips to help overwhelmed people get things done and be more strategic about how to live their lives. To receive a free consult from Abigail, make a request through the contact form and she will get back with you to schedule.
ADD/ADHD: Create Simple Systems – Find Things Quickly!
ADD/ADHD: Create Simple Systems – Find Things Quickly!
Often due to our ADHD, it is difficult to quickly put our hands on papers and files when we need them. We don’t know where things are because we don’t put them away where they belong after we use them. The first step is to make things easy to put away in assigned easy-to-spot homes. If you are going to put something in a container make it a clear container or clearly label it. Make the label large enough to be read from a few steps away.
If you need paper files as I do for my handwritten notes that go into my client files, use an open file system. I don’t recommend filing cabinets for people with ADHD. They become a wasteland just taking up space. I use steel-based frames that have a divider every couple of inches so that my files all stand up on open shelves (wire organizer from MMP Industries). Each file folder is the kind you see in most doctors’ offices, with a tab on the end not the side. They’re called end tab folders. They make each file easy to read from the bookshelf.
Don’t worry about making pretty labels for your files, worry about function first. Dwelling on making your files look stylish will just slow you down or get in the way of you getting the task done. Simply write labels on the file tabs in big letters. Don’t get caught up in pretty, get caught up in done!
If you don’t put something away after you use it, add a 5- to 10-minute end-of-the-day pick-up to your routine, or at least get items in the general vicinity of where they live. This won’t completely solve the problem but at least it increases the chances of quickly putting your hands on what you are looking for.
Abigail Wurf, PCC, M.Ed helps professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners affected by ADHD and/or Executive function issues achieve success in business and in life. Located in Washington DC, Abigail works with clients in person, over the phone and over the Internet. Her new book, “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD,” is loaded with tips to help overwhelmed people get things done and be more strategic about how to live their lives. To receive a free consult from Abigail, make a request through the contact form and she will get back with you to schedule.
Is ADHD Coaching, Executive Coaching?
Yes, ADHD Coaching is Executive Coaching…when:
The person who needs coaching is an executive and they decide to search out a coach who is not only expert in coaching but is also expert in ADHD coaching. Having worked with many high level executives it has become clear to me that Executive coaching and ADHD coaching have the same goals – the client’s goals.
Everyone today feels overworked, overwhelmed, over-committed, over-tired, if one can say – over-saturated?!
ADHD coaching and Executive coaching help the client move forward in their life. Often by working on their Executive Function skills. Executive Function skills include: planning, organizing, goal setting, time management, prioritizing, task initiation, focus, shift/flexibility, working memory, self inhibition, emotional regulation and meta-cognition.
What is great about working on Executive Function skills and being an executive is you have the opportunity to teach others what you are learning. The best way to master something is to teach it. One of the best ways to do that is to teach by example which can be done through great leadership skills that are a product of the Executive Function skills – self inhibition, emotional regulation, shift/flexibility and meta-cognition.
Add to that vision which comes from the Executive Functions skills such as goals setting, planning and prioritizing followed by execution by way of the Executive Function skills task initiation, time management, focus, organizing, and working memory.
What do you think? Can ADHD coaching be Executive coaching?
Abigail Wurf, PCC, M.Ed helps professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners affected by ADHD and/or Executive function issues achieve success in business and in life. Located in Washington DC, Abigail works with clients in person, over the phone and over the Internet. Her new book, “Forget Perfect: How to Succeed in Your Profession and Personal Life Even if You Have ADHD,” is loaded with tips to help overwhelmed people get things done and be more strategic about how to live their lives. To receive a free consult from Abigail, make a request through the contact form and she will get back with you to schedule.