Flashback: Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 3

Keeping Track to Focus Energy

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC

Going for the Gold!

Found HERE

Part-3 of this story outlines the two very different manners in which two best friends with two very different kinds of ADD stepped through the process of working with the same ADD Coach.

They designed increasingly more effective lives that suited their two extremely different working styles and individual goals.

This part’s a bit longer, but it’s a real feel-good – especially for those of us who will never be as organized as Katy – and I think most of you will enjoy reading it to the end.

Throughout this story I will continue to use “ADD” instead of the DSM-5 “ADHD.”
Click HERE to find out why.

A few Coaching Results from Clients themselves found HERE

Onward and Upward!

As you learned in Part-2, after that fateful day when Katy Nolan finally “hit the wall,” she did something that is still rather unusual in the ADD universe: she began looking for an ADD Coach immediately. (Click HERE to read PART 1 of this story, where Katy “hits the wall”)

Pinterest – from a 1940s catalogue

Katy had already learned a lot about ADD from her next door neighbor and best friend Barb, listening to her process her pathway through diagnosis and treatment over endless cups of coffee.

She just never imagined that any of her own struggles might be ADD-related.

She and Barb were so different.

SHE had always been so in-control and competent – able to keep up and keep it together, even if it killed her.

Barb had always been the maverick — a free-wheeling spirit who never seemed to get it all together.  There were more than a few days when Barb didn’t even make it out of her pajamas, with many afternoons when Barb’s oldest kids came home from school suspecting that they’d have to start dinner because she’d lost track of the time.  Again.

Still, the more Barb talked, that fateful day in the kitchen, the more Katy could see how similar differences in the brain might possibly have very different presentations.

Besides, Katy was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and was desperate for explanations, even though she was more than half afraid she would discover there were no answers.

If it worked for Barb . . .

Katy could really see the difference in Barb since she started working with her ADD Coach.  Not only had Barb learned a great deal more about ADD, she was finally doing something other than merely dreaming about becoming a professional photographer – Barb’s dream since the two best-friends first met.

Donna helped Barb figure out what it would take for her to do it, and then coached her through each of the steps on her road.

Barb hadn’t found her dream job yet, and she certainly wasn’t pulling in a six-figure salary, but some of her photos were finally beginning to show up in print somewhere besides her basement studio.

The first time a small check for her work appeared in Barb’s mailbox, both women felt like she’d won the lottery.  Those checks are not only arriving more often, they are getting bigger, bit by bit.

Katy could barely articulate her own goals when she began calling in for coaching – other than waking up in any state besides total exhaustion and not letting anything major slide off her very busy plate.

Still, she appreciated having the kind of focused guidance Barb had received as she prioritized her own next steps, without fearing that she was about to turn everything else in her life upside down.

Tracking in her Coaching Notebook

Donna, Katy and Barb’s ADD Coach, requests that each of her clients immediately set up a coaching notebook: a three ringed binder with tabbed dividers, where they can securely “file” everything coaching-related in one easy-to-locate, easy-to-update, easy-to-grab location — pages secured, yet easy to rearrange at will.

Remember that you can always check out the sidebar
for a reminder of how links work on this site, they’re subtle ==>
HOVER before clicking – often a box will appear to tell you what to expect

Tracking Works!

Katy discovered that it really helped to have something to refer to during her Coaching sessions, and that taking notes helped her to focus and remember the details of each session — as well as her upcoming commitments before they turned into emergencies.

She also adapted her Notebook as her coaching progressed, finally understanding the reason for those extra dividers her coach “strongly suggested” she buy.

In addition to the start-up categories, Katy added several new on-the-fly sections:  “Barb,” “Easter Dinner,” “Kid’s Easter Baskets” “Guest Room Readiness,” and “Hotel Accommodations”

She added that last category because keeping up with the frequent changes from all of the relatives coming for the Easter reunion she was hosting was making her nice, orderly “Guest Room” section too messy to be inspiring.

She ultimately decided that the relatives who could afford to stay at a hotel would probably be happier having a place to escape the mayhem occasionally anyway (and it certainly made things A LOT less stressful for her!)

Taking advantage of Donna’s policy to discount workshop fees for full-fee clients, she and Barb enrolled in the recently begun Peer Coaching Workshop, adding a weekly peer coaching session to their professional Coaching.  More to track, of course, but also more help with staying on track to completion.

Katy wanted to keep everything together so she could find it — made easier because she took the coaching to buy a notebook “in a color she liked but that didn’t go with the decorating scheme of the house.”

That deep purple binder stood out no matter where she left it!

Besides, somebody had to have ready access to the info. Barb certainly wasn’t likely to find her tattered, once-white notebook on demand!

“That’s okay,” Katy told herself.

“Barb brings a lot of OTHER things to their peer coaching table,
so if the notebook system is a struggle for her — oh, well!”

Meds Management (or not!)

Once Barb talked her into at least trying medication, Katy wondered how she ever managed without it.  She could actually FOCUS without undue strain – for the first time in her life.  (Click HERE for Stimulant Basics: how and why Stimulants Work)

She added a “Titration” section and kept the day-to-day tracking of her medication dosage, timing and measures of overall daily functioning on a form that came with Donna’s Welcome materials.

She also took her notebook with her to appointments with her doctor. Only there did she remove the Self-Observation Log she kept while they were still “adjusting her meds” for Optimal Functioning – everyone’s birthright, according to Donna.

Barb marveled that Katy was moving through the process in much less time than it took her to find her own appropriate medication schedule, working without documentation.

But then, Katy is the one with hyper-organization proclivities. Barb had always been a “seat of the pants” gal.

“I might have lost the whole darned thing on the way to the appointment,” Barb chuckled, only half kidding.

“So if I’d had a notebook at the time and managed to keep a titration log, I SURE-as-shootin’ wouldn’t have trusted myself to take it on the road!

They reminded each other that it was silly to expect “time off from ADD” just because an activity was important!  In fact, they learned, the more important something was, the more likely they were to drop it out unless they had systems in place.  The ADD brain tends to boggle when the stakes are high.

Katy was a model client

She didn’t miss one of her regular, weekly coaching appointments.  She always used the 15 minutes before dialing to review her notebook and her agenda for the call (the Client Prep Form), which she had filled out and emailed to Donna the day before.

Even though she found that she was still at the level where she needed to do a more detailed list for herself before she could come up with the one-page format Donna required, she found that winnowing it down was really worth the extra time it took.

It forced her to focus on her own unrealistic expectations of what COULD be accomplished in any given time period, as well as keeping her eye on all the balls she needed to juggle.

She quickly incorporated the questions on that form into her day, as well as her report, essentially:

• What I Have Accomplished since our last call
  
• What I Meant To Accomplish But Didn’t
• Opportunities Available This Week
• The Week’s Challenges
• What I Want to Focus on TODAY, and
• What I Will Do By The Next Call
  (which they filled out together on the current call —
  anything undone moved to next weeks “meant to” – ongoing tracking!)
  

She was beginning to feel as though Donna was one of her oldest friends.  She shared items previously reserved for Barb and Paul alone, even though she’d never met Donna “in person.”

Oh, did I mention Katy’s promotion and raise?  When her former boss moved to another firm, Katy had been doing so well she was tapped as the successor.  Everyone in the office is accomplishing more under Katy’s supervision, without the chronic intrusions of the former supervisor’s attempts at micro-management.

And then there’s Barb!

Found HERE

Seriously, as little as you know about either of these two women, do you think for one nano-second that Barb ever learned to fill out her Client Prep form in advance?

Truth to tell, she hardly ever filled it out AT ALL. Barb needed Katy’s Peer Coaching to help her set up systems to dial in on time, most weeks.

BEING THERE is a struggle for Barb, simply because of her brand of ADD. She has NO internal sense of time, and tends to get stuck in hyperfocus: hours flying by like seconds whenever she is working on anything that interests her.

So almost every week both Donna and Katy make Barb repeat aloud,
“Different strokes for different folks!”  

That first time she DID manage to get her Client Prep form filled out and sent in on time didn’t receive the expected response either.

• “GREAT!” applauded Donna, as expected. What was different about THIS week that allowed you to handle this little piece of administrivia? was the surprise.
  
• Remember, coaching homework is a Sherlocking tool, not a should.  We don’t have as much to Sherlock if you don’t do it, but WHY you didn’t do it – the functional stoppers – are much more important than THAT you didn’t do it.
• AND . . . even when we figure out how to make it POSSIBLE for you to fill it out every week, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s your life and your choice about whether it’s worth your time and attention to do it.

Tears ran down Barb’s cheeks the first time she heard that point of view from Donna. Even once she got to the point where she knew exactly what Donna was likely to say, she still appreciated those reminders to STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP for being YOU!

Enabling?

Not on your life. That is, unless you mean that Donna’s approach with Barb “enabled” her to soar. You wouldn’t BELIEVE what that woman can accomplish when you don’t hold her feet to the fire.

Barb had to learn to stop shutting herself down with her challenges
and start applauding herself for her strengths –
and internalize that idea into a HABIT.

[BACK UP, JACK – read the last two paragraphs again. It’s a really important concept]

Found HERE

Oh yeah, the house is still a mess and the kids had to learn to cook in self defense, but Barb is currently WAY too busy to focus on those particular details: she is mounting her first one-woman show at a pretty impressive gallery.

No, she didn’t get THAT in the “usual” linear manner either.

She forgot to buy a birthday present for her youngest son Charlie to take to the guest of honor. She sent along a last-second replacement, hurriedly wrapped in acid-free tissue paper, spray-painted dog bones standing in for bows, dusted with glitter when the hair-dryer approach wasn’t working quickly enough.

What was it?  Ahem!

She grabbed and signed a print from her Nature Cries series submitted and placing in last month’s Sunday Magazine section’s photo contest — returned photos still not filed away, of course.

She hastily evicted a photo of her grandfather
to appropriate the frame.

It was a stunning black and white photo she happened to have taken of the birthday boy’s dogs overlooking the local dump.

Guess whose uncle owns the gallery?

Everybody’s winning

JUST IN CASE you’re worried about Barb’s family, the oldest daughter is now taking cooking classes in preparation for her summer enrollment at a “real” chef school. SHE is in charge of the food for her Mom’s show “to build her resume” – her own idea, which is key.

Her oldest son is keeping his Mom tracked on preparations for the upcoming show and serving as sounding board, official taster and cheerleader for his sister. He organized a disabilities-focused peer-mentoring group at his school, and is thinking about training to become the field’s youngest professional ADD Coach.

Young Charlie has decided to take up photography and is happily “helping” Barb in the darkroom, learning to develop his own black and white photos of every dog in the neighborhood.  (He plans to sell them “to make some money – maybe in an actual book.”)

Husband Larry swings with whatever, as long as everybody’s happy. And they are. GLORIOUSLY happy, even though Barb has been a miserable failure losing that baby-weight.

She actually GAINED ten pounds during her daughter’s
foray into French cuisine. (Blaming the butter!)

Plans are in the works – after the opening – to change the family fare in the other direction: her daughter wants to work her way through Oprah’s chef’s cookbook.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Would your progress be similar to Katy’s?

Probably NOT.  Barb’s wasn’t.  Even though they are best friends with a lot in common besides ADD, their coaching was designed for each of them individually, also taking their Coach’s strengths and experience into account.

Also remember to factor in the additional activities that Katy needed to accommodate to keep the Easter family reunion on track, symptoms of her hyper-organized whirling-dervish nature, and about as different as you can get from Barb’s Holly Golightly approach to just about everything.

Just as no two therapists work exactly the same way, another ADD Coach may have used different procedures, had different policies, sent different forms or none at all, and guided each of these woman to approach their tasks in a slightly different order of priority.

As long as the client is coachable (ready, willing and able to take the actions to move from where there are now to where they want to be), he or she will find that the services of a comprehensively-trained brain-based ADD Coach can provide a significant shortcut to accomplishment.

I have always insisted that there is no “right” way to Coach — ADD or anything else — as long as your coach really knows brain-based principles and does NOT try to coach you with some pre-packaged strategy. That’s doubly true with coaching so-called “neurotypicals,” by the way.

There is no “right” way to be a human being.
We ALL need to learn to drive the very brains in our very own heads!

And while neither Barb nor Donna were able to explain exactly how to recognize good Executive Functioning Coaching, Katy came up with ten items that were important for her that she is willing to share with you.

She suggests you keep interviewing until you can answer yes to each of the ten points in the following post. (Barb says, “Interview, schminterview, go with your gut!”)

Still ONE more post to come in Katy and Barb’s story, so stay tuned! 

© 2010-12, 2017, all rights reserved
Check bottom of Home/New to find out the “sharing rules”
(reblogs always okay, and much appreciated)

Can this ADDer be Saved?
(The entire coaching story, illustrating how coaching works in narrative format)

• Flashback: Can This ADDer be Saved – Part 1
• Flashback: Can This ADDer be Saved – Part 2
• Flashback: Can This ADDer be Saved – Part 3
• Flashback: Can This ADDer be Saved – Part 4

Shared on the Senior Salon

---

As always, if you want notification of new articles in the Coaching Series – or any new posts on this blog – give your email address to the nice form on the top of the skinny column to the right. (You only have to do this once, so if you’ve already asked for notification about a prior series, you’re covered for this one too) STRICT No Spam Policy

If you’d like some one-on-one (or group) coaching help with anything that came up while you were reading this article (either for your own life, that of a loved one, or as coaching skills development), click the E-me link <—here (or on the menubar at the top of every page) and I’ll get back to you ASAP (accent on the “P”ossible!)

---

COACHING LINKS at end of all posts

• Brain-based Coaching with Madelyn Griffith-Haynie
• Brain-based Coaching Fees & Formats
• The Group Coaching LinkList – explaining how this format works

Assorted articles about ADD and ADDCoach Concepts:

• A Bunch of Words about FIT (#1 of 5)
• ABOUT Boggle
• ABOUT Black & White Thinking
• Reframing: Escaping the Frame changes the VIEW
• Ten Medication Questions to ask your Doctor

A few Articles in the Attention series:

• ADD Overview 101 (#1 of 5)
• A Little ADD Lens™ Background
• The Link between Attention and Action
• The Dynamics of Attending
• Symptoms of Attentional Struggles
• Distinguishing Distractibility

More from the ADD Coaching series:

• 10-Step ADD Coaching
• Brain-based Coaching Paradigms
• The ADD-ADHD Coachability Index™
• What to Talk About in Your Coaching Call
• Until they believe they can, they can’t
• ADD-flavored Coaching
• Key Tasks for ADD Coaching
• 10 Essential ADD Coaching Concepts
• Ten Basic Coaching Skills used most often with ADDers

Related articles ’round the ‘net

• Coaching as a way to develop cultural understandings (ictenhancedlearningandteaching)
• Different Kinds of ADHD, Different Kinds of Coaches (psychologytoday.com)
• Scratching the “itch” (thelovelyaddict.com)
• Coaching, out where the ADHD rubber meets the road of reality (Dr. Charles Parker’s corepsych blog)
• 26 Benefits of Adult ADHD Coaching from Pete Quily
• PsychCentral: What Is ADHD Coaching?

BY THE WAY: I revisit all my content periodically to update links — when you link back, like, follow or comment, you STAY on the page. When you do not, you run a high risk of getting replaced by a site with a more generous come-from.