Distinguishing Distractibility

Monday, October 31, 2011 2 Comments

Distractions! What are they anyway?


A distraction is an involuntary diversion of attention in response to a stimulus – beyond our control.

Distractions have a negative impact on our ability to focus on an intended object and sustain that focus – in other words, a distraction is an intrusion into our attempt to concentrate on the task at hand.

Distractions can be external (nagging at any one of our five senses), or internal (“interruptions” from our own brain wiring or emotional states).

They can be subtle or overt, compelling or mildy irritating, important or trivial, but they ALL pull us off task, despite our best intentions.

ADD or not, ALL distractions reduce our ability to place our full attention where WE choose to concentrate.

• Can you fully concentrate on calculating your tax liability with repeated visits from your young daughter pleading with you to come outside to watch her ride her brand new bicycle?

• Are you able to take complicated directions over the phone while your spouse attempts to impart, in your other ear, something s/he deems important for you to hear RIGHT NOW?

• Are you able to drive through a blinding rain while your young children squabble in the back seat and your young teen blares the latest “Listen, this is so cool!” rap song?

Not really, right? ALL distractions have a negative impact on our ability to focus on the intended stimulus, and sustain the focus, the first two of the three Dynamics of Attending.

Read more of this post

Filed under A5g. Distractions & Transitions, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

The ADD-ADHD Coachablity Index™

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 Leave a comment

ADD Coachability

In early 1994, to better suit the needs and reflect the brain-based realities of individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder, Madelyn Griffith-Haynie requested and received permission from Thomas J. Leonard to adapt the Coachability Index© that he developed for Coach-U.

The language of The ADD Coachability Index™ reflects the impact of the challenges of Executive Functioning Disorders on learning and accomplishment: brain-based struggles with short-term memory deficits, focus & decision-making, planning & follow-through, sequencing & prioritizing; activation & motivation, mood lability, time-sense & transition-facility chief among them.

©Adaptions and/or duplication must credit both parties

How Coachable are YOU?

Although the magic of ADD Coaching is a product of the
coaching relationship and it’s ability to compensate for
unreliable executive functioning, it only works if and when
clients are ready, willing and able.

Are you READY and WILLING:

  • to take the actions that will be necessary?
  • to make the changes that will be necessary?
  • to step,  with power and ownership, into the life you were destined to live?

Heck yea!  Seriously, who says no to that?
Certainly not an ADDer! We’re always ready (for that last one, anyway)

Read more of this post

Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Reframing

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 6 Comments

Stuff series: Part 3

Escaping the Frame Changes the View

*attribution below

Changing the context

• Framing (adding perspective)
• Reframing (changing perspective)

Reframing is  a well-worn tool in a number of helping professions.  The fields that seem to advocate it most are Neuro-Linguistic Programming [NLP], therapy, and Coaching (especially ADD Coaching).

Reframing is on the Optimal Functioning Institute™ list as one of the Ten Basic Coaching Skills used Most Often with ADDers.  

Including Reframing on this particular list underscores the importance of of the two most important ADD Coaching skills, normalizing (ADD affect) and endorsing (client actions, perspectives and talents).

But what IS Reframing?

In the coaching field, reframing is one of the Languaging skills that refers to a particular manner of speaking that allows an individual to escape black and white thinking boundaries so that a different conclusion can be drawn from the same set of facts.

That, in turn, changes the way the situation “seems,” in a manner similar to the way that reframing a picture impacts the look of the picture itself.

In other words, changing the context puts a statement or point of view into a different frame of reference; a “seeding” skill that fosters a shift, (paradigm shift, in some fields).
Read more of this post

Filed under A3. Linking & Learning, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, G7. STUFF - and Nonsense!, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Change Requests & SuperSensitives

Sunday, September 25, 2011 5 Comments

Bradshaw’s Change Model and Hypersensitivity
Guest blogger: Glen Hogard

Hypersensitivity: Anything from not being able to tolerate tight clothing or labels in clothing that irritate our skin, to light, temperature, or sound sensitivity, to heightened emotional sensitivity, we often have to find ways to cut down on our reaction or “over reaction” to a stimulus.

While heightened sensitivity can be a valuable benefit in certain areas of life as in jobs such as EMS technician, doctor, fireman, and even a writer, when it is extra emotional sensitivity it can make interpersonal relationships, especially intimate relationships, difficult if not balanced with ways to sooth our hypersensitive emotions.

While it’s easy to see how it affects us, it’s not so easy to temper.

In the 1980’s, before I knew about ADD/ADHD, I was taught a tool by John Bradshaw, a famous family systems therapist, while working with his first satellite center outside of his California facility in Miami. I worked then, as I have done for ADDA, as the volunteer coordinator for his then yearly or semi-yearly seminars hosted by a great therapist Joan E. Childs.

I’m sure there are other variations of this method in practice, but this is how it was taught to me. So here it is: The Change Model

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, E2c. ADD Community Support, Glen Hogard, SCAC, I. Guest Posts Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

ABOUT Values & The Goose Story

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 1 Comment

What’s with the Geese?

An early logo for my first company, The Optimal Functioning Institute™ - with the company name inside a "V" formed by geese flying in formation

The graphic above these words is a very early logo put together by WebValence webmaster Marty Crouch for a coach curriculum I had spent several years developing and was about to debut: the first ADD-specific coach training program in the world (and the only one for many years.)

I founded The Optimal Functioning Institute™ on the principles that Dr. Harry Clarke Noyes articulates in The Goose Story, a free-verse poem about the importance of community.  In The Goose Story, Noyes compares and contrasts human behaviors to those of a flock of geese, starting with an impressive explanation as to why you always see them flying in V-formation.

The reason I was so taken with this story is a story of its own: how I became aware of the importance of a strong personal foundation and of values-based goals. This post attempts to give you a little bit of background.

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, D. Coaching with MGH, E2. Making a Difference, E2b. Midnight Musings Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Goose Story

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 Leave a comment

The Goose Story
by Dr. Harry Clarke Noyes

Next fall,
when you see Geese
heading South for the Winter,
flying along in V formation,
you might consider
what science has discovered
as to why they fly that way:

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools Tagged with , , , ,

Come-From

Saturday, August 13, 2011 Leave a comment

Shifting Your Come-From

Photo of a keyboard on which the shift key has been doctored to read "paradigm shift"

Clever photo courtesy of askpang via Flickr

Come-From?

In the Coaching world, the term “come-from” is used to refer to and describe the point of view and basic assumptions underlying any particular individual’s language or behavior — his or her world view, you might say.

Come-from is one of the most important underlying concepts in coaching.

Why?  Because where you stand to view the scenery determines what you are ABLE to see.

We humans seem to like to keep score, collecting “evidence” to validate our core beliefs.

  • It isn’t just that we see what we look for.
  • Come-from alters perception. We interpret what we see based on our come-from — what psychologists call “confirmation bias.”

Shifting

The term “shift,” or “paradigm shift,” as languaged by Stephen Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, refers to a change in perspective.

A shift involves a change in context that alters how you perceive events, communications, and behaviors.

It also alters your feelings, behavior, and language in the process.

Shifting relies on language, and lies within the province of language, but it would be a big mistake to view it as merely a trick of language.

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, G. From my Books Tagged with , , ,

Key Tasks for ADD Coaching

Friday, May 20, 2011 3 Comments

Old headshot of Madelyn (a.k.a. MGH) long familiar from the webADD-Specific Coaching Skills

Ten Key Areas That Need Time & Attention

A Therapist or Doctor may or may not have the time to work with any of these areas.

A “vanilla coach”** may not find these skills important, agree that they are useful — or even understand why they tmight be an appropriate part of a coaching relationship.

An ADD Coach, however, must be prepared to include a certain amount of work in each of the following arenas — understanding how to use EACH of the ten skills below.  It’s a coach’s job to work with clients to remove “what’s in the way” of shining success.

Backfilling basic skills — insufficient, underdeveloped, or missing as the result of kludgy Executive Functioning –is the most likely suspect in the ADD population, rather than lack of motivation, resolve, ambition or many of the other things-in-the-way that are more common among vanilla clients.
———————
**vanilla = unflavored by ADD – a “vanilla coach” means the coach doesn’t work with ADD/ADHD/EFD clients and/or has not been trained in an ADD/ADHD/EFD-specific, brain-based coach training, regardless of whether they fall on the Attentional Spectrum personally or not.

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ADD-flavored Coaching

Friday, May 20, 2011 4 Comments

Never forget that YOU are “the temp in charge” of your ADD client’s Executive Functioning Clubhouse!

Drawing of the human brain with the prefrontal cortex highlighted (the seat of the executive functions)Failure in this arena is the biggest mistake I see in otherwise excellent Coaches, and it turns pretty darn good Coaching into absolutely lousy ADD Coaching in a heartbeat.

An ADD coach must identify and presence the “Name of the Game” whenever they coach any ADD client. No matter how high functioning, ADD clients hire coaches for help in an area where they are struggling – and the source of the struggle is usually in the area of activation and follow-through to completion.

The main reason we ADDers struggle with activation and follow-through is because in our pre-frontal cortex, the Executive Functioning Clubhouse, the receptionist seems to take frequent breaks — and we get distracted and wander away before she returns with some necessary piece of our process!  If we could stay on track without your assistance, we wouldn’t have hired you in the first place.

Erratic Executive Functioning is the one thing that never changes with ADD, no matter how much an ADDer knows about ADD work-arounds or how well they understand themselves.

Read more of this post

Filed under A. Hopefully Helpful
, A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Listening for Time Troubles

Sunday, May 15, 2011 Leave a comment

Illustration of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland - RUSHINGTroubles with Time and Follow-Through

Most ADDers have trouble with T-I-M-E.  We run out of it, we are continually surprised by it, and we sometimes seem to be completely unaware of it.

All ADD Coaches worthy of the term must remain aware that Listening For your client’s awareness of time and their relationship to time (yes, they do have one!) almost always involves some serious sleuthing on the part of the coach!.

The Following Exercise is designed to help ADD Coaches sharpen their Listening FROM Skills

Not a coach?  That’s OK – answer the questions below for yourself.  The information will be useful to you in a Peer Coaching relationship [click HERE if you don't have one of those].  Your functioning insights will be valuable even without an outside observer, but it might be difficult to sherlock in real time or to actuate changes.  Do it anyway.

Read more of this post

Filed under A5. Tips, Tricks & Techniques, A5c. TimeSteps™, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, G5b. The Challenges Inventory™ Tagged with , , , , , ,

10 Essential ADD Coaching Concepts

Thursday, April 28, 2011 Leave a comment

Graphic of a man with a map, sandles & a sword about to enter a maze - in the center we see the top of a brown, furry head, with hornsMore than any other client type, the ADD client knows more about what’s going on with their functioning than their coach ever will. 

The trouble is:

1 – they don’t trust what they know,
2 – they don’t know how to explain their experience, and
3 – they can’t figure out in a vacuum what they need to DO to become intentional with attending.

As difficult as it may be to sort things out without an executive functioning crutch (that’s you!), the last thing they need is a coach who tries to coach them “by the book” – especially if that book was written by the ADD clue-free.

Read more of this post

Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, A3. Linking & Learning, A5. Tips, Tricks & Techniques, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

HOW to Listen from Belief

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Drawing of two smiling figures standing behind a question mark; thought bubbles over their heads: a red X, and a green checkmark

Beneficial Assumptions

I’m not big on listening through assumptions of any kind,
generally, but I think you’ll find that filtering your listening
through the following Four Assumptions will help you
greatly, especially if you are viewing life through The ADD Lens™.
Read more of this post

Filed under A. Hopefully Helpful
, A5. Tips, Tricks & Techniques, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual Tagged with , , ,

The Art and Science of the ADD Question

Monday, April 18, 2011 Leave a comment

Don’t ask, DO tell

My heart breaks when an ADDer tells me about past coaching relationships that haven’t worked out.

While I have empathy for any coach who wonders why they couldn’t be effective with any particular client, my heart shatters when I hear from any ADDer whose coach doesn’t wonder about their own contribution to this client’s struggles.

ADD Coaching is not ADD icing on a “vanilla” cake!  

You simply must Rewrite your Coaching Manual™ through the understanding of how the brain “normally” works, and what’s going on when it works differently.

Line drawing of a person throwing a piece of paper and a huge question mark into a trash can.What you will discover when you do is that there are standard coaching basics that won’t work AT ALL with ADDers.

Never.  Nada!  No way, no how!

No matter what you’ve learned – or how well your vanilla skills work with how many bazillions of non-ADD clients . . .
you simply MUST throw them out when your client has ADD.

Read more of this post

Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, A3. Linking & Learning, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, G4. Mentoring the ADD Coach, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The only valid way to LISTEN

Saturday, April 16, 2011 Leave a comment

Listening from Belief

graphic: take-off of the "smileys" emoticon - hand to ear, strong emotion on face that could be disbelief or skepticismI’ve said before and I’ll say it again:
ADDers have had people trying to “fix” them all their lives. 

And most of those “fixers” think their own experience of life is valid and useful, and that their ADD buddy merely has to adopt their perspective to be able to function differently — and well!

• You’re running your victim racket again . . .
• Everyone gets distracted, just TELL yourself you CAN pay attention . . .
• It’s all that coffee (sugar, lack of sleep – ANYTHING besides ADD itself)

Those comments may well come from a loving intention – most of us understand intellectually that those who claim to love us wish us well and are “only trying to help” – but do you realize how UNloving those comments are in execution?

They’re invalidating. They’re shaming. They’re should-ing all over the place!

What’s worse, they don’t even work: they produce exactly the opposite of what the person who says them says they want!

Read more of this post

Filed under A3. Linking & Learning, B. Coaching Concerns, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools Tagged with , , , ,

Ten Basic Coaching Skills used most often with ADDers

Friday, April 15, 2011 Leave a comment

– Updated legacy post -orig. 11/15/95- from Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC –

Graphic of roadside-like sign: yellow triangle enclosing a ball peen hammer as metaphor for comment on "fixing"ADDers have had people trying to “fix” them all their lives: 
“If you’d just get organized . . .“  “If you’d only try . . .”

While those suggestions usually come from a loving intention, they are actually UNloving in execution, most frequently because they collapse won’t with can’t.

At the heart of that ever-so-well-meaning “should” is the assumption that all the ADDer has to do is make a commitment to willingness and their world will shift.

In other words, the underlying belief is that the ADDer could
 “if they really wanted to,” and that “all” that is missing is
a high enough degree of “wanting to.”

BALDERDASH!

Read more of this post

Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B1. ADDCoach Terms & Tools, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B2a. Mentor Coaching, ADD Style, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, F1. ADD Top Tens, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets Tagged with , , ,

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 93 other followers