Trusting YOUR Instincts about FIT – Part 4

Friday, December 30, 2011 Leave a comment

You CAN Trust Your Instincts

Listen with an Open Heart and an Open Mind

Listen to the coaches you interview with an open mind.  Expect them each to have certain procedures and standards you will be requested  to agree to follow if you coach with them.

A coach for whom “anything goes” will probably not be the best coach for you in the long run.  Listen to why they feel their procedures are important and what they are designed to accomplish.

THEN listen to your heart and instincts. 

Although NO relationship with another will ever be “perfect,” keep looking until you find a situation you can relax into, *especially* if you get the sense that you are being talked into something you’re not sure you want.

Don’t forget that you don’t have to be *right* about your instincts to keep looking. 

It’s enough that you don’t *feel* right.  Part of the process of coaching involves getting in touch with the truth of the fact that you CAN trust your instincts and that you CAN trust another to listen to some of the “dumb” things you do without making you feel, well, DUMB.

Nowhere is trusting your instincts more important than in the process of selecting a coach you will be trusting with your LIFE! 

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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Coaches, Dentists, and FIT – Part 3

Thursday, December 29, 2011 Leave a comment

Coaches, Dentists, and FIT

Every Coach is Unique

No two coaches will work in exactly the same way –

just as each dentist goes about things
a bit differently from the rest of his colleagues,

and just as there are specializations
within the field of dentistry.

For example:

  • Not all dentists are qualified to do root canals.
  • Some don’t specialize in them, so haven’t performed
    very many as a result.
  • For some, root canals are a practice focus.
  • Still others do root canals for other dentists.

I know which ones I’d interview about doing MY root canal!

What does THAT have to do with ADD Coaching?

ADD Coaching is a specialized skill requiring a LOT of knowledge beyond the basic coaching skill set.

If you are dealing with ADD, make *sure* any coach you hire is an ADD COACH, not just “a coach who knows about ADD” –

and certainly not a coach who knows little to NOTHING about ADD! 

  • The difference between an ADD Coach and any other kind is specialized training in Attentional Spectrum issues.
  • There IS no FIT if your coach knows little more about ADD than YOU do!

THEN you want to find the “right” ADD Coach.  You’ll check out their training, knowledge, and experience of course, but the main thing that will make a particular coach right for YOU is what we call “fit” in the coaching world.

The right fit will make all the difference.

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Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , ,

Brain-based Coaching Paradigms

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 2 Comments

Underlying Assumptions Keeping us Stuck

Each Professional Coach has an way of looking at life and at coaching that shapes his or her particular approach and determines the way they coach.

I personally believe that it is impossible
to make lasting changes
that are nothing more than reactions to shame.

Shame is a lousy “motivator” that we’ve somehow come to believe will keep the “lawless” on the straight and narrow.

MAYBE – if “on the straight and narrow” means “behind the eight ball!”

Shame’s Genesis

After 20 years of coaching ADDers, I have observed that shame is actually the internalization of  repeated “evidence of failure” after years of struggling to incorporate the implications of ADD with the well-meaning “support” of people who didn’t really understand the pragmatics of Executive Functioning dysregulation: what moves things forward and what makes things worse.

Whatever the rationale behind saying them, variations of comments like the ones below not only make it more difficult to live up to expectations, they encourage a black and white belief that we are fundamentally inadequate and always will be.

  • You HAVE to get organized — why don’t you write things down!?
  • Anyone with your intelligence should be doing better! 
  • You could if you wanted to badly enough and put the effort in.
  • You don’t listen! You aren’t really trying. 
  • You MUST take responsibility for your own life!

Our “helpers” need to understand that attempts to MOTIVATE us to make better choices in any fashion will never work – because 90% of our chronic oopses are not the result of a “failure of WILL.”  They aren’t even “choices” at all, unless you want to use the term “choice” to hold us accountable for unconscious assumptions underlying our actions.

We don’t need to be motivated to make better choices, we need to be coached and mentored to learn how to MAKE and ACTUATE choices at all.  And that absolutely must begin with an examination of The User’s Manual for the ADD Brain!

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , ,

What to Talk About in Your Coaching Call

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Leave a comment

Does your mind go blank . . .

the minute you call for coaching?

Part of the magic of The Client Prep Form is that, in addition to serving  as a session roadmap for you and your coach, it is startle insurance for YOU!

Since ADDers tend to have a hair-trigger startle response that shuts down thinking momentarily, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to develop the habit of USING the Client Prep Form for that reason as much as any other..

To help jumpstart your thinking process for those times you “ADD-out” – including the time it will take to make using the Prep Form a habit - print a copy of the following list and keep it in the front of your coaching notebook.

BY THE WAY . . .

Coaching forms are useful for Peer Coaching relationships too – that’s why I will be making many of them available here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com.

Stay in the Loop: Check back often -or- if you want email notification of new content,
tell the nice form on the skinny column to your right where to notify you.
[Stringent NO SPAM Policy.]

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Filed under ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, B. Coaching Concerns, B2. Working with an ADD Coach, B3. Peer Coaching, D. Coaching with MGH, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Is this YOU? How are you like my former clients?

Monday, May 23, 2011 Leave a comment

Recognize yourself abstract drawing of a group of cartoon humans in various non-human colors

among my former clients?

As I said in the first part of this post
(which you can read if you click HERE)

. . . regardless of “niche,” when you take the time to look closely, most coaches tend to attract clients in “categories” focused around similar types of challenges.


In addition to the challenge profiles I described in Part One of this article, here are a few more of the “categories” that my clients have had in common over the past couple of decades.

Read more of this post

Filed under D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D2. ADD Partner Coaching Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

MGH clients . . .

Saturday, May 21, 2011 Leave a comment


I Coach Clients Who . . .

cartoon drawing of woman in coach hat, sunglasses and t-shirt with "mghcoach" on it

     Like every other coach on the planet:

“I work well with people in transition,
both in personal and professional settings.”

Well, duh!  Who doesn’t that include?  

There’s not a soul with breath to fog a mirror who isn’t
experiencing some sort of transition, right?

Yet, when you take the time to think about it more specifically, most coaches tend to attract clients in “categories” clustered around similar types of transitions, which means they are likely to be working on similar types of challenges.

Even though we coaches redefine our “ideal client profile” relatively frequently, even in brand new niches there remains an essential core of familiarity.  It’s fascinating to look back over a decade (oh, alright, several) to attempt to determine what my clients had in common.  It’s an exercise well worth doing annually for any private practitioner.

So, maybe you will recognize yourself among some of the “transition categories” my clients have had in common over the past couple of decades. Read more of this post

Filed under D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, D1b. Private Mentor Coaching, D2. ADD Partner Coaching 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.

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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 , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How I Coach

Sunday, May 1, 2011 Leave a comment

Caricature of Madelyn with a visor, pearls, earrings, and a striped t-shirt with an ADDCoach logoMy Coach Approach

I want every one of my clients to enjoy their coaching time, and I firmly believe that only happens in an unconditionally constructive atmosphere.  

Like all coaches, I’ll always encourage your very best efforts. My come-from, however, is that we ALL do the best we can at all times, especially during those times when it could easily look otherwise.

  • I know that on days when my functional temperature is low, I’m working twice as hard, not half as hard, even if I have little to show for my efforts.
  • I need a coach who will remind me not to beat myself up, not one who will initiate the beatings!

To my mind, anyone who does well with a “tough love” approach is doing so in spite of the approach, not because of it.  I want my clients to develop healthy motivational strategies. Read more of this post

Filed under B. Coaching Concerns, D. Coaching with MGH, D1. Private Coaching, D1a. Private ADD Coaching Tagged with , , , , , ,

If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t blame the foot!

Sunday, April 17, 2011 Leave a comment

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, D1a. Private ADD Coaching, G2. Rewrite Your Coaching Manual, G3. ADD Coaching Secrets, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training 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 , , ,

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