Flashback: Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 4

— Ten Points from Katy —
Finding the Right Coach for YOU

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

Different Strokes for different folks

I hope that those of you who have read the story to this point did NOT read it as my attempt to “motivate” you to do what they did (either one of them!)

My strong belief is that much of what passes for “motivation” is actually make-wrong under a thin veneer of self-help.

In other words, they seem to say, if you would only learn to do it somebody else’s way (especially their way, of course) you wouldn’t be such a Limp-along Cassidy.

I want your take-away to be that we each need to work around our personal challenges by leveraging our personal strengths — even you!

Think back on how differently our two example clients approached life:

• Katy would have been an anxious wreck had Donna attempted to encourage her to “go with the flow” and move away from her reliance on lists and structures.
• Barb’s creativity would have shut down on her had Donna insisted that she had to learn how to move forward in the linear style that was “Katy-native.”

One of my mentors – the late Thomas J. Leonard, [life] Coaching field founder – once said something to me that has come to inform my life (and my coaching approach):

“Most people spend their entire lives attempting to bring their areas of inadequacy up to adequacy. What could you achieve if you spent that energy bringing your areas of adequacy to brilliance?”

Before you move on to the final part of the Katy and Barb story, I want to leave you with two more quotes:

Found HERE

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing;
it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
~ Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“There are many good ways to get things done –
but none of them involving sight will work well for the blind man.
No amount of ‘wanting to’ will change that reality.” ~ mgh

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.

Flashback: Can This ADDer Be Saved? – Part 2

Katy Moves Forward

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

This week let’s take a look at some of the background details of the story begun in Part-one of this 4-part article, posted last Monday.

Click HERE to read PART 1 of this story

This part of the story outlines the steps Katy took to locate her support structures, leading up to her decision to hire Donna as her coach. 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

You GO Girl!

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 a Coach immediately.

Since she was intimately aware of every little detail of her best friend and next door neighbor Barb Sitwell’s coaching sessions, Katy knew right away that she, too, wanted that kind of help.

Those first couple of years after diagnosis had been extremely frustrating for Barb, and both women could really see the difference in Barb’s life since she and Larry could finally afford to have Barb begin working with her Coach.

Katy believed she had all the ADD-info she needed

After all, she had been listening to Barb process every step since diagnosis, and they both had seen Barb’s many challenges for years before that, even though they only recently understood the reasons behind them.

Since she and her best friend were so very different, Katy wasn’t at all convinced
that it would turn out that she herself had ADD.

Still, she liked the idea of having some kind of guide to help her step through the process, identifying and prioritizing each of her own inevitable next steps following what Barb called Katy’s recent Boggle – no matter what the reason behind it turned out to be.

Whatever was going on, she was sure she didn’t have time to agonize over how to proceed without upsetting the tenuous control she exerted over the responsibilities she was already juggling.

Unlike their friends the Sitwells, the Nolans were a two-income family. They didn’t have to wait for a raise or a promotion to be able to hire the services Katy needed and wanted, and Katy couldn’t fathom finding the time or energy to add self-education to a schedule that was already jam-packed.

But which coach?

Although she trusted Barb’s Coach Donna already, and it was obvious from her work with Barb that Donna had a lot of information about ADD under her belt, Katy was initially concerned that the sessions would take place over the telephone.

She also wondered if hiring an ADD Coach before she
knew for sure if she even had ADD might be premature.

She was dubious of any advice to hire a Coach and a therapist, and more than a little ambivalent about the possibility of medication.  Still, she was more than ready to embrace any diagnosis that would offer an explanation for her feeling that she was always “swimming against the current,” swept backwards every time she missed a single stroke!

After quickly mulling it over, she decided that placing a call for an appointment to check out her considerations and assumptions with Donna might be wise.

Besides, at this point, she didn’t know what else she might try.

Flashback: Can This ADDer be Saved?

A Tale of Two Clients – Part 1

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reposting an article in the The ADD Coaching Series

In a comment communication with  mike2all on his blog ReadAfterBurnout.com, I was recently asked about my coaching.  I took his question to mean, “How does your Coaching work?”

After a relatively brief response to his question I also encouraged him to take a look at a 4-part series of articles written shortly after I first began blogging here on ADDandSoMuchMORE.com.

That got me thinking that it might be time to repost an edited version of each part of this short-story like article.  I doubt that many of my new readers in the past five or so years since these articles were originally published have seen any of them.

They are written in a “magazine conversational” style, and are each relatively quick reads. STAY TUNED for newly edited versions of the remainder of the story.

Can This ADDer be Saved?

A few brief stories of Coaching Results from Clients themselves found HERE

---

 

And so it begins . . .

Like many of us, Katy Nolan was a full time homemaker with a full-time job.

She adored her husband Paul, a terrific father — but not really much help around the house, meaning not really much help with anything having anything to DO with running a household, actually.

Sometimes she joked that she had three kids — Mary, her second-grader, Tom her big fourth-grader, and Paul, the baby! Fortunately, Katy was one of the most organized women anyone knew, so she managed somehow to keep the home-fires burning, despite the demands of  a high-stress job.

Most days she managed to stay on top of things, but she went to bed exhausted every night and woke up every morning dreading the day. She loved her job, her kids, her marriage, and their newly remodeled home — but deep in her heart she hated her life.

“What’s wrong with me?” she often wondered.

THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED

The words that started Katy’s day were about the worst she could possibly imagine, “Mommy, I don’t feel very good!”

“Not today!” she complained under her breath, feeling guilty for the thought.
“Please let her be well enough to go to school today and I promise I’ll be Florence Nightingale tomorrow!”

Her upcoming week was booked solid with urgent work to-dos and a million errands related to the upcoming Easter holiday. She had taken the day off to work on an important report due Friday — without the distractions of the office.

For some reason she usually struggled to get her thoughts on paper at the office with the background of the constant ringing of the telephones and chatting of her office-mates.  She also struggled against the frequent interruptions of her new boss, the micro-manager’s micro-manager. Her recent memo about the “slippage” of the quality of Katy’s reports was scathing.

Advice and Boundaries

Linears and  Holographics
Different strokes for different folks

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections Post to introduce an upcoming Boundary Series

WHY won’t everybody LISTEN?

Found HERE

We humans are funny critters. We want everybody to do everything OUR way.

Secretly, we sincerely believe that whatever we have figured out effectively for our own lives would transfer to anyone else’s — if they’d only DO IT RIGHT, gol-nabbit!

The same advice is meted out to tortoises and hares, linear and holographic thinkers alike, depending on who seems to be currently doing better in the races we like to time.

THEIR problems would magically disappear with OUR solution,
IF ONLY they’d:

• try hard enough
• give it enough time to become habitual
• “want to” badly enough
• stop resisting
• or procrastinating

 — or really wanted a solution and not simply a chance to complain!

Memory Glitches and Executive Functioning

MEMORY ISSUES:

AGING — Executive Functions and Alphabet Disorders
(ADD/HD-EFD, TBI, ABI, OCD, ODD, ASD, PDA, PDD, MDD, MS, etc.)

©Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, MCC, SCAC
Reflections from the Memory Issues Series:
Forgetting/Remembering | When Memory Fails

MEMORY: Movin’ it IN – Movin’ it OUT

With Alzheimer’s getting so much press these days (and with adequate mental healthcare for Americans unlikely for the next four years or more, since extremely short-sighted House Republicans are willing to vote in accord with the unconscionable desires of the billionaire in office) — most of us are likely to be more than a little fearful when our memory slips, even a bit.

Understanding how memory works can help us all calm down —
about at least that much.

As I mentioned in When Memory Fails – Part 2, the process of memory storage is an extremely important part of the memory equation — but if our brain’s librarian can’t find what we want when it comes time to USE the information, what good is it?

 

Human Memory vs. Computer Memory

It would be wonderful if human memory were at least as reliable as those “memory sticks” that allow us to sweep files we need to have with us onto a nifty portable device we can use anywhere we can find a device with a USB port.

Unfortunately, it isn’t.

But before we explore the process of moving information into long-term memory storage, our brains’ version of a “memory stick,” let’s take a look at the ways in which our “neuro-librarians” deliver what we’re looking for once it is stored there.

The “regurgitation” portion of the memory process is a factor of, essentially, three different processes:

• recognition
• recall, and
• recall on demand

Let’s distinguish each of them before we go any further.

Happy New Year’s Life Upgrades to YOU

Resolutions? Affirmations? Intentions?

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
An edited reposting of an earlier idea

A therapist I know has this to say about change:

“Everybody wants things to be different,
but nobody wants anything to change.”

He doesn’t add, “especially anything about THEM” – but I have always believed that’s what he was really talking about: the devil you know, and all that.

What IS it about change that makes us cringe?  

Never one to ask a rhetorical question without some kind of an answer gnawing at the edges of my mind, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking it is – at least where those of us with ADD/EFD brain wiring are concerned: it’s so darned disorienting.

• JUST when we get a few processes on autopilot so that we can finally avoid the dreaded decision-making horror with every step of the process, and . . .
• Just as we get things systematized, automated to the point where short-term memory deficits are no longer as likely to trip us up . . .
• Some idiot updates the software and nothing works the same way anymore. (Those of us in the WordPress.com blogging community know I’m not JUST speaking metaphorically here!)

It’s beyond frustrating – it makes us feel stupid. It’s salt in an ADD/EFD wound that’s barely scabbed over to begin with.

Our only alternative is to revise and adjust, which sometimes feels like beginning anew — and often is exactly like beginning anew.

Great site HERE with more

It seems that ever since the recently deceased futurist Alvin Toffler first published his only-constant-is-change Future Shock in 1970, nothing holds still for very long at all.  And, forced to adapt, we are absolutely powerless to do anything else about that but bitch.

Is it any wonder that we want to dig in our heels whenever and wherever we have a bit of power and change doesn’t seem absolutely necessary?

• RESOLVE to change something we’re used to?
• Change something about US?

When pigs fly, and not one moment sooner!

And yet . . .

Beyond the Limitations of a Post-It Note™ Brain

 

TIME Perception is a factor of Awareness

The more conscious the process,
the longer it seems to take

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections post from the Time & Task Management Series
Part THREE (Part I HERE – Part II HERE)

FreeClipart.net

According to Dr. David Eagleman, we humans are more than passive observers where time is concerned. And he should know. The author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, has studied Time perception for well over a decade.

According to his research, we are not merely watching the river of time flow by as if time happened TO us, or we happened IN time. Science is learning that our brains are actively constructing time.

Re-engineering Brain Resources

In Eagleman’s words, “It turns out that it has everything to do with novelty, and with how much energy your brain has to expend.

So, when you can predict something, not only does your consciousness not come online, but [the event] feels like it goes by very fast.

In other words, driving to work may seem relatively fast eventually. The first time you had to do it, however, it seemed to take longer because of the novelty, as well as the amount of brain-power you had to burn the first time you did it — before your brain was able to predict much of anything about the trip.

Essentially prediction means that if it’s something you’re doing repeatedly, you’re actually “rewiring” — reconfiguring the circuitry of the brain.

You’re actually moving things into your sub-conscious circuitry, which gives you speed and efficiency, albeit at the cost of conscious access.

So you have to pay a lot of conscious attention if you’re learning to do something new, like playing golf or driving a car.

After a while it’s not necessary, because you’ve changed the circuitry of your brain — no longer at the effect of the conscious awareness of what you’re doing.

Don’t Drink the Kool-ade

Choice vs. Fear-mongered Reaction

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Another Reflections post

©Phillip Martin, artist/educator

 

“Ritalin, like all medications,
can be useful when used properly
and dangerous when used improperly. 

Why is it so difficult for so many people
to hold to that middle ground?”
~ Dr. Edward Hallowell

As I wrote in a prior article, in response to one of the far too many opinion pieces made popular by the soundbite press:

• You don’t have to believe in medication.
• You don’t have to take it.
• You don’t have to give it to your kids.

You don’t EVEN have to do unbiased research before you ring in with an opinion on medication or anything else having to do with ADD/ADHD/EFD.

HOWEVER, when you’re writing a piece to be published in a widely-read paper of some stature, or a book that presents itself as containing credible expertise, it is simply unprofessional — of the writer, the editors, and the publications themselves — to publish personal OPINION in a manner that will lead many to conclude that the pieces quote the sum total of scientific fact. 

It is also incredibly harmful.

Listening from Belief

‘Cause maybe you DON’T know better

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections Post on Listening Skills for Coaches

AS I’VE SAID BEFORE:
More than most people with “vanilla” functioning
ADD/EFDers have had people
trying to “fix” them all their lives —
along with the other citizens of Alphabet City,
whose cognitive challenges are not physically obvious.

UM, this is why . . .

Found HERE

When we try to explain our actions in the context of our challenges, they barely make sense to us – and rarely make sense to them.

Even when those “fixers” appear to be listening,
they don’t always seem to be hearing.

Too many of them seem to believe that their own experience of life is valid and useful, and that their ADD/EFD buddy merely has to adopt their perspective and their correct attitude to be able to function differently — and well!

• You’re running a victim racket  . . .
• It’s all that coffee, or sugar, or lack of sleep –
ANYTHING besides Executive Functioning Disorders themselves . . .
• You are at the effect of an inaccurate BELIEF

Most of us understand intellectually that most “helpful” comments probably come from a positive, even loving intention. Most of us are willing to believe that those we’ve hired to help us (or who claim to love us) wish us well – but do you realize how UNloving those comments are in execution?  They don’t help, and they DO hurt.

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

What’s worse, they don’t even work.

They frequently produce exactly the opposite of what the person who says them says they want! They confuse the issue and delay getting to the understanding that will actually make improved functioning possible. It’s not smart to devalue the clues! We’ll start telling you what we know you want to hear, and then where are we?

Invalidation comes from two assumptions that are flat out wrong:

1. They assume lack of self-awareness — that we are not experiencing or describing our world view appropriately or accurately;
2. They assume volition — well, maybe we’re not exactly doing it on purpose, but we’re not making choices that will allow us NOT to do it either. And we could!

So, once again, we’re back to the underlying assumption that “all” a person who is struggling with one of the invisible disorders has to do is make a commitment to willingness and their world will shift on a dime.

This Chinese finger-trap is a consequence of a failure to listen from a basic belief in another’s experience of the world, their willingness to share it truthfully, and their ability to language it relatively accurately.

My way IS the Highway?

ALL Kinds of Solutions
for ALL Kinds of Minds

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections from posts from January 2012 and March 2015

Get up Early … Exercise to FOCUS! … Bite the Bullet … Eat that Frog
Give it your ALL … Connect with the Pain … Clean out your Closet
Throw out your Clutter … Accelerate your willingness . . .

WHY won’t everybody else do what they should?

Yep! So many people think that everybody else needs to do everything their way. It’s as if they believe that exactly the same techniques that have been effective in their own lives would transfer equally well to anyone else’s situation — if those slackers would only DO IT RIGHT!

Everyone’s problems would magically disappear with “simple” solutions, IF ONLY everybody else would:

• try hard enough
• want to badly enough
• stop resisting or procrastinating or
• give it enough time to become habitual

 — or really wanted a solution and not simply a chance to complain!

As if everybody needed to do the same thing – right?

Found HERE

I know what works for you – uhuh, uhuh-uhuh

More than a few Success Gurus approach the subject of productivity and goal fulfillment from a paradigm that not only is unlikely to work for everyone on the planet, I believe that much of what they suggest does not work very well at all for citizens of Alphabet City.  In fact, it shuts many of us down.

These “experts” certainly don’t mean to shut anybody down – and many find it difficult to impossible to believe that they do.  Still, they speak in soundbites that encapsulate the cornerstones of their systems.

They tend to promote techniques in alignment with the claim that increasing commitment to change, demonstrated by “giving up your resistance” to whatever it is they are suggesting, is the single most important step that turns the tide for many of their clients, students and seminar attendees – and that it would work for you too, if you’d only give it a try.

Different folks and different strokes

• Tortoises and Hares
• Linears and Holographics
• Detailers and Concepters
• Prioritize First or Do it NOW propronents
• DECIDE and Do or Follow the Flow

Does anybody REALLY believe that the same “success techniques” are likely to work effectively for each of the examples above?  Their ways of approaching life is at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Who’s to say that one style is the “right” approach and the other is not?

Source: http://worldartsme.com

Taking different routes to work

How you get to a particular location in your town, for example, depends upon a great many variables: where you are coming from, the amount of gas in your tank, the time of day, what else you are trying to accomplish on the same trip — even the type of vehicle you are driving and the state of your tires.

I can recommend the way I travel as the most direct route, or the one with the fewest stop lights, or the most scenic.  But it’s not true that one or the other is “the best,” or that the recipient of my suggestion is intractable or doesn’t really want to get where they are going if they choose another route.

In a manner similar to how a city’s network of roads determines how various people travel to the same destination, the connections that make up the networks in our brains determine how our brains operate. Variations in the way we navigate our world – physically or mentally – are a product of our “equipment” and how life tends to work best for us.

Still, we all like to give advice, and it makes us feel great when people take it.  But it doesn’t mean that we know “better.”

During my 25+ year coaching career, I have worked very hard to jettison “I know better” thinking. I have been relatively successful moving beyond the temptation to spread judgment like a schmear on a bagel, but I still defend my right (and yours) to offer advice, raising our voices of experience to offer information and suggest solutions.

It’s not the advice that is the problem – it’s the misguided expectation that others need to take it!

Attentional struggles? Not ME!

WANNA BET?
Check out a few of the Symptoms of Attentional Struggles

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections from an article published June, 2011

NOT just for ADD

MANY people – not just those diagnosed with ADD/EFD (or anything else) – report challenges with procrastination, follow-through, time and transition management, recalling directions, names or what they said they would do, keeping the bills paid on time, beating back the clutter, keeping on top of the laundry or the filing or the mail — or effectively handling any number of pile-ups of house, garage and lawn chores.

Found HERE

More than a few struggle to have much of a life beyond the all-too-familiar “mess it up, clean it up” cycle — in any one of a host of arenas.

DID YOU KNOW that fluctuations in your ability to manage the Attending system are at the root of every single one of them?

Not necessarily diagnostic

If YOU have even more than a few of the characteristics listed in this article, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have diagnostic ADD – or any of the bona-fide Executive Functioning disorders.

It DOES indicate that you’re juggling more balls than you can manage at one time, and one or more of the The Dynamics of Attending is suffering for it.

Room at my Table

I’d like to invite the rest of you to allow yourselves to benefit from the coping techniques I developed for the ADD community over the past 25+ years.

Whichever camp you belong to, ADD/EFD, “Senior Moment” tripsters, or CrazyBusy, I’m fairly certain you will find that employing a few ADD Coaching techniques will help you become more intentional with your attending, life will become a whole lot easier to manage, and your friends and loved ones will be much happier with the way you relate to THEM.

Looking through The ADD Lens™

I have found the idea of looking at things through The ADD Lens™ extremely helpful. In other words, looking at your functioning challenges as if they were a result of Attention Deficit Disorder.

If Challenges like any of those below (or their kissing cousins) keep you from getting things done, pretend you do have ADD/EFD and start to utilize a few of the techniques that have been found to work with people who have been diagnosed with ADD:

• uneven functioning or completion energy
• procrastination or kludgy time-management
• disorganization or chronic clutter
• mood swings or low frustration tolerance (road rage!)
• black and white thinking or stubbornness
• multiple unfinished projects or anything in the categories below

Found HERE

See if looking at yourself through The ADD Lens™ – as if you had full-blown, diagnostic ADD/EFD – gives you a way to approach areas of prior difficulty in a way that you can handle them successfully.

In The Journey toward Optimal Functioning™, we must give ourselves permission to utilize any trick, tool or technique that will help us to achieve it.

Top 10 Reasons Why Summer Needs to take Early Retirement

It’s been a fine affair
(But now it’s over)

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

Swan Song for Summer?

It’s barely June and already I yearn for September’s end.

Found HERE

What is it they say about dead fish and houseguests? It’s been a fortnight more than three days since the temperature curdled.

My house fairly reeks of summer.

If it were to last but a single month, summer might be grudgingly acceptable, if only to keep peace between the much-anticipated spring and the loveliness of  autumn.

But someone simply must tell it firmly that four entire months of summer is really three too long.

I’m here to state the arguments for same.

Source: Phillip Martin, artist/educator

LOL – You KNOW you have ADD when …

Laughing Out Loud —
You’ve gotta’ be a citizen of
Alphabet City when …

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

Laughing Out Loud for YEARS now

Artist: Johnny Automatic

Here’s A BIT of history excerpted from ABOUT LOL, a brief article I posted here  back in March 2011, introducing the LOL…You KNOW idea to [probably] a brand new crop of ADDers seeking support.

This little ditty first appeared in the early 1990s on the AOL ADD forum (yiikes! somewhere around 25 years ago now – longer than some of the readers of ADDandSoMuchMore have been alive!!)

It was a time when ADD Conferences were just beginning to be organized and promoted, the Internet was still a baby, and The World Wide Web was barely born. America on Line was relatively new too — and one of the few places where a vital and rapidly growing community of ADDers could meet in virtual chat rooms to support one another with empathy, a few tears and a great deal of humor.

JIMAMS, the official leader of the ADD on-line group, was like the Energizer Bunny in his dedication to AOL’s leadership in the ADD online community.

Give Me My Thousand WORDS!

Am I the only one who misses
EDITORIAL CONTENT???
(Whatever happened to captions?)

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

Is the 21st Century Taking Us Backwards?

As I browse the web these days, I am appalled by the number of apologies for “long” comments that run to – horrors – an “overwhelming” two or three paragraphs!

Have we stopped teaching reading in our schools?
Or perhaps we have stopped requiring it.

Click for Source: Words Glorious Words – SaatchiSynergize

Hatin’ on the rise of Pictorial Slideshows (ugh!)

I am doubly dismayed by the number of blogs that think a slideshow full of 80-gazillion “life-changing” click-upon-click SEO-building images passes for an article worthy of anybody’s time (with barely a word of comment from them and no place to gather comments from those who visit).

• Perhaps they believe they already know why those of us who are literate will NOT be back, so think they don’t want to waste their precious photo-posting time reading our requests for a word or several? (surely anyone who blogs knows how to read, doncha’ think?)

• Or perhaps some recently-graduated 20-year-old raised-on-comic-books, reading-averse art directors have convinced their “editorial” personnel that words are superfluous in this day and age, and that comments are an administrative nightmare that will only compete with their focus-debilating pop-ups and browser-slowing misbehaving adverts (don’t get me started!)

• Since many of these disappointing article-pretenders are on sites sponsored by the decorating and women’s magazines I used to buy to READ, I can only wonder if the editors have all died or been fired, replaced by word-hating art directors who have been given their titles (Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens, etc. – please note “used to buy to READ.”)

Or is it writing that is missing from the skill set of so many bloggers anymore?

It wasn’t lost on me that Pinterest – an image format – feels they must remind the users of their platform to context pinned images (and/or Boards) with captions!

Even if they’ve never personally resonated with the joy of “using their words,”  is it REALLY such a nuisance for Pinners to communicate why they’ve shared a particular image or collection of images?

Don’t forget that you can always check out the sidebar for a reminder
of how links work on this site, they’re subtle (scroll UP for it) ==>

Downloadable ADD-ADHD/EFD Coachablity Index™

ABOUT ADD/EFD Coachability

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

In early 1994, to better suit the needs and reflect the brain-based realities of individuals with Attention Deficit Disorders, 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 ADDCoach 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.

© Don’t forget: Adaptions and/or duplication must credit both parties

How Coachable are YOU?

Although it’s been referred to as “ADD Coaching” since I developed and delivered the world’s first ADD-specific coaching curriculum several decades ago, it’s much broader in scope.

This is a particular type of brain-based coaching that works best for anyone dealing with Executive Functioning challenges and attentional difficulties: TBI, ABI, EFD, PTSD, OCD, ODD, SPD, ASD, PDA, PDD, MDD, MS, APD, and MORE.

While the magic of ADD/EFD 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 yeah! Seriously, who says no to that?
Certainly not those of us who are struggling!
We’re always ready (for that last one, anyway)

It’s that “able” part that’s the kicker!

ADDing to Subtract

How much change can you tolerate
before you STOP trying to cope?

©Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
from the Intentionality Series

We HATE to give things up

Have you ever tried to convince a kid to give away a toy – even a toy s/he no longer plays with and, truth to tell, never cared much for in the first place?

Most kids will take quite a bit of convincing, and some will throw a fit and refuse.

Source: parenting-garden.com

Truly clever Moms and Dads replace the toy with something new – putting the emphasis on what their kids are getting rather than what they are giving up.

And most parents who follow the “one-in/one-out” rule figure out very quickly that the swap needs to be agreed upon UP FRONT.

If they can get the child to fork over the old toy before they receive the new one, so much the better.

An Overwhelmed Brain says NO!

Have you ever allowed yourself to get in over your head?  In your home, for example, have things ever gotten so messy that you begin to doubt your ability to ever clean it up?

I refer to it as being “over my limit.”  Finding myself over my limit happens to me regularly.

• It happens every single time I move to a new home, for example, or the times I’ve been too sick to have the energy to do much beyond making it to the kitchen or the bathroom and back to bed.
• It also happens during (and following) any period where the serious illness of a close friend or family member shifts my priorities.
• Things seem to get worse every day.

Suddenly – or so it seems – I can’t cope any more.  EVERYTHING seems to be everywhere.  I can’t see the items for the clutter, and life becomes a scavenger hunt of epic proportions.

The professional organizers would probably tell me to start pitching things left and right to “clear out the clutter” – but which things?

What the neurotypical never seem to understand is that overwhelm shuts down our capacity to make effective decisions.

• I don’t know about you, but the few times I’ve allowed myself to be pushed to toss against my better judgment have ended badly.
• In a couple of cases, it took me months to jump through the hoops to replace something I’d tossed that I actually needed – and that’s after I’d spent a great deal of time looking for it.
• As I grow older, I am less and less willing to throw those months under the neatness bus!  Especially since I’ve learned the hard way that “neat” and “organized” are two completely different things.  I’ll bet you have too.

Fear of Tossing?

No, I haven’t developed “fear of tossing” as a result, like some of my clients, but I HAVE learned not to jump in pitching when I’m overwhelmed.

And I’ll bet you have too – whether it is the result of a conscious decision or merely what looks like intractability to anyone watching.

• What’s the worst thing that could happen? they ask, in their ignorance.
• Are you kidding?  I’m barely hanging on NOW – my goose is cooked if things get worse.

Don’t forget that you can always check out the sidebar
for a reminder of how links work on this site, they’re subtle ==>

A brief bit of FUN for Halloween

Ghost Writers who are actually GHOSTS!

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

click image for source

A brief introduction (to a brief little post)

My poor mother had to pack and move a family of seven practically every year of my childhood.

She managed to do a lot of really nifty parenting things anyway, but on Halloween she sometimes took the easy way out.

This happened most often when we lived somewhere that the weather was expected to be particularly cold.

Since we had to wear coats anyway, she reasoned, why not create costumes that could be tossed over them?

You got it – rifling through the older sheets, the costumes for a family of five little ghosts and their Mom were quickly produced with little more than a pair of scissors.

Soooooo – to give me a bit of time off to create a really cool Halloween costume this year, I am repeating an article written earlier – a bit of a different take on ghosts – no disrespect intended.

I believe the ADD/EFDers whose forays into the book world have been as varied as my own will especially enjoy it.

There are links to the sources, for those of you who are unaware of them.  Look for the slightly lighter text – which will turn red and underlined when you mouse over it.  (Hover before clicking for a bit of information about what you will find when you click — it will pop up.)

Writing of a Different Sort

The article below is from my personal blog on ADDerWorld, “the ADD Facebook” – where, in contrast to the more serious, informational, articles that make up the bulk of ADDandSoMuchMore.com, I tend to let my quirky take on the universe out of the box.

In re-posting this particular article, one of my personal favorites, I’m hoping to get more of you interested in hopping over, signing up and seeing what ELSE is available on that site — and maybe to encourage you to let YOUR creativity out of it’s box too.

Life doesn’t have to be so darned SERIOUS all the time
— especially important for serious people.

I hope you enjoy it – and I hope you’re ALSO motivated to check out ADDerWorld.

New title sells books – sells OUT lives

AD(H)D does NOT exist?
Give me a BREAK!

©Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, ADD Coach Training Field Founder;
ADD Coaching co-founder; ADD Poster Girl

Here we go again!

This might turn out to be another of the “shortest articles I’ve ever written.”

Shoot — it might be one of the ONLY short articles I’ve ever written (the list of “related articles” of outrage may well be longer!)

In this instance, it will be a cinch to be brief, since there’s not much to say about this utter nonsense — books on this fallacious point of view seem to crawl out of the woodwork about every seventeen years – like locusts!

And just as big a nuisance.

While more than disheartening, it is no real surprise to see that ANOTHER New York Times best-selling-author-wannabe has decided to make a fortune pandering to soundbite-mongers with a new book brandishing an incredulous title – a book with a cover that looks suspiciously like the one above (albeit with different words).

It’s yet another of the opinion-presented-as-fact books written by unthinking MDs who make the incendiary, controversial and condescending claim that ADHD does not exist.

The sound-bite press will make sure it will make headlines, no doubt, despite the reality that hundreds of expert MDs, scientists, geneticists and respected health organizations can site HUNDREDS of studies to back up their extremely credible and well-respected claims that it most certainly DOES TOO!

Will this NEVER stop?

So how many HUNDREDS MORE children are now going to be left to flounder until they are failing as ADDults because their parents will take this rubbish seriously?

How many HUNDREDS more ADDults will not be able to receive the help they need because their non-expert doctors will believe the popular press around this blather?

How many government officials will read this prattle and ring in to make it even MORE difficult for those of us who rely on medication to remain medicated?

Top Ten LOUSY Product Designs & other nutsy things

Doesn’t Anybody TEST Anymore?
(or maybe they don’t use their own stuff?)

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
from the Top Ten Series

TEN of my [least] Favorite Things

Life is frustrating enough for those of us with Alphabet Disorders (ADD / EFD / TBI / OCD / etc)

It’s adding insult to injury to expect us to PAY for lousy design that makes things harder still.

We can’t even boycott most of the time, because there are so few alternatives.  Whatever happened to “Form follows FUNCTION????”

Hate to be a hater, but . . .

COME ON! It simply can’t be the GOAL to frustrate the @#$& out of one’s customer base, or can it?

Scroll on down to check out what makes ME crazy (er!) — and I know I’m not the only one.  Let’s all get together and hang the perpetrators in effigy.

JUST in case you are starting to think I am getting grumpy in my old age, you can always jump over to my list of Top Ten Products I wouldn’t want to live without.  (I also say nice things in MORE Top Ten Products)

Down below – in the comments section – add your own “favorite” hatefuls – after you’ve primed your pump by reading about ten of mine.

When Memory Fails – Part 2

Memory Issues
& Alphabet Disorders
(ADD/HD-EFD-TBI etc.)

©Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, MCC, SCAC
When Memory Fails, Part 2

According to Psychology Today  ––

Memory makes us. If we couldn’t recall the who’s, what’s, where’s, and when’s of our everyday lives, we’d never be able to manage.

We mull over ideas in the present with our short-term (or working) memory, while we store past events and learned meanings in our long-term memory.

What Science Says

Memory is dynamic and malleable – and it doesn’t NEED to decay with age.

Through the miracles made possible through our brain’s ability to build new neural-networks — neuroplasticity! — most of us can expect to remain sharp and efficient, lean, mean learning machines throughout most of our lives.  We can, that is, as long as we take care of ourselves.

However, researchers are quick to point out, just as keeping our “physical apparatus” strong and flexible requires good nutrition and hygiene, remaining well-hydrated, and making sure that we get regular exercise so that our bodies can continue to serve us well . . .

Keeping our BRAINS supple has its own set of nutritional requirements and, to maintain peak performance, our brains need even more water than our bodies.

Were you aware that 80% of your brain is good ole’ H2O??
(In case you were wondering, 60% of the remaining 20% is FAT – which is only one reason why extremely low-fat diets may be great for helping you get into your skinny jeans, but they’re LOUSY for the health of your brain!)

The brain’s need for exercise is frequently summed up in the words of an old platitude: use it or lose it!

Related post: Images for Memory Practice
For some help strengthening visual memory,
check out this post on the blog of a TBI advocate

Losing it ANYWAY

Okay, it’s certainly true that our ability to “remember” weakens if we don’t exercise our brains or take care of our bodies.

BUT EVEN for those of us who are reasonably fit, responsibly fed, well-watered life-long learners, there are times when information seems to fall through the cracks in our minds.

Ask any relatively good student if there was ever a time when, after studying vigorously for a particular exam – and even though they KNEW they “knew” the requested information – they couldn’t supply the answer to one of the questions.

Most students will answer your question affirmatively, yet they are members of the community that “uses it” most deliberately, nearly every single day.

That reality underscores an important point in the understanding of memory dynamics: it’s not enough to focus our energies on keeping our ability to store information strong and vital.  We need to understand how to be able to retrieve the information reliably for our “memory” to be of any use to us.

Getting things OUT

The process of memory storage is an extremely important part of the equation, of course — but if our brain’s librarian can’t locate what we ask it for when it comes time to USE the information, what good is it?

So before we explore the process of moving information into long-term memory storage, let’s take a look at the ways in which our “neuro-librarians” deliver what we’re looking for once it is stored there.

The “regurgitation” portion of the memory process is a factor of, essentially, three different processes:

• recognition
• recall, and
• recall on demand

Let’s distinguish each of them before we go any further.

Self-Care Strategy Tips to get you through the holidays

“Non-Pharmaceutial Alternatives”
for ADD/HD, EFD, TBI (etc.)
— Holiday-management —

Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC ©1995, 2013
ADD Coaching Skills Series

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays?!

YES, I AM AWARE that in less than half an hour from the time this article auto-posts it will officially be Thanksgiving — and happy Thanksgiving, by the way.

(I’m expressing my extreme gratitude that
it’s not Christmas YET.)

My BIGGIST Boomer birthday is the Friday after the turkey blow-out, and I am taking it TOTALLY off (an entire no-blog weekend, starting Thanksgiving!)

Instead of a yearly reflection on MY birthday this year, I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on my father’s, November 20th (Homage to Brandy – the most amazing man I never knew).

But I’m giving each of you an early present, a jump-start (so that maybe THIS Holiday Season will be a bit calmer than the last). Wouldn’t it be lovely to be able to relax and enjoy it this year?

Happy EVERYthing!

Since Christmas is my thing, the name of that particular holiday will be featured most prominently in any of my winter holiday articles.

But take a look at what I’m suggesting, no matter which end-of-year holidays YOU observe:

Hanukkah – Kwanza – Solstice – Ramadan – Shawwal – Black Friday – Cyber Monday – St. Nicholas Day – Boxing Day – Christmas Card Day – New Years – Twelfth Night – Festivus – or even You’re Welcome Day, Fruitcake Toss Day or National Bicarbonate of Soda Day (which, according to the Holiday Insights website, actually exist, along with my personal favorite on November 9th, Chaos Never Dies Day – but most of you probably missed it!)

Everything you ever wanted to know about SLEEP

Phillip Martin, artist/educator

EVERYTHING?

Well, everything I’ve already published on SLEEP here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com, anyway —
and that’s quite a lot
(all linked below – scroll DOWN for list)

Predict it to Police It, Police it to PLAN it

Overcoming the
Limitations of the
Post-It Note™ Brain

A Source of Struggles
in Alphabet City

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Part of ADD Coaching Skills Series

Dr. David Eagleman, author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, has studied time perception for over a decade.

According to Eagleman and his lab, we humans are more than passive observers where time is concerned.

We are not merely watching the river of time flow by as if time happened TO us, or we happened IN time.

As with visual illusions and perceptions, science is learning that our brains are actively constructing time.

Re-engineering Brain Resources

In Eagleman’s words, “It turns out that [time perception] has everything to do with novelty, and with how much energy your brain has to expend.

So, when you can predict something, not only does your consciousness not come online, but [the event] feels like it goes [by] very fast.

• So, driving to work [seems] very fast; but the very first time you did it, it seemed to take a long time because of the novelty, AND

• the amount of brain-power you had to burn the first time you did it — before you were able to predict it.

Essentially what prediction means, if it’s something you’re doing a lot, you’re actually reconfiguring the circuitry of the brain.

• You’re actually getting stuff down into [your brain’s sub-conscious] circuitry, which gives you speed and efficiency, but at the cost of conscious access.

• So, if you’re learning to do something new, like playing tennis or riding a bicycle or something, at first you have to pay a lot of conscious attention

• After a while you don’t have to, because you’ve changed the circuitry of your brain — but at the cost of being able to consciously know what you’re doing.”
  

Commitment to Transition

Flip a Coin

© By Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
Excerpted from an upcoming book; all rights reserved
CLICK HERE to begin at the beginning

We start small

We begin with the tedium of to-dos – because the lessons learned will generalize to the bigger changes and transitions that we all must face.

Meanwhile, we must all learn the ways in which we, uniquely, “chop wood, carry water.” ~ mgh

Chocolate or Vanilla?

To keep this process as simple as possible, we are going to forget about troubles with the Gap in this article, and work with only one of the other two transitional modes.

The initial step, once you have made your list so that you can work with your own personal and specific examples, is to agree to work on improving one transitional mode at a time.

If you’re having difficulty going into, you can’t simultaneously master the re-orientation of coming out of.  You’ll be left not wanting to do anything except sit in your boggle room and cry (or drink!)  Sound familiar?

Pick one mode and let’s go.

In the mode you’ve selected, write down ten specific tasks that prove extremely difficult (or nearly impossible) for you – even if you feel like an idiot to admit to yourself or anyone else that you can’t manage it like “everyone else.” 

Don’t switch to examples for the other mode – we’re cleaning up one neighborhood at a time.

Next to each one of your ten items, write down all the different activities, mental and physical, you go through to get from A to Z.  Below is an example to give you an idea of what I mean by that assignment.

Top Ten Reasons to Reframe Procrastination

From the Brain-Transplant Series

ADD Information you NEED to know!

from THE ADD Poster Girl: Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, MCC, SCAC
Founder of the ADD Coach Training Field; Cofounder of the ADD Coaching field

WHY reframe Procrastination?

© Phillip Martin – artist/educator

1. First & foremost, Procrastination has become a LABEL.
2. Labeling is an unfortunate form of self-activated, actively defended confirmation bias.
3. Confirmation bias limits the search for solutions – you can’t find what you don’t look for
4. Labeling is judgmental – judgment is make-wrong. Make-wrong never works.
   
5. Make-wrong is mean.  It hurts our feelings and shuts us down.
6. Make-wrong makes us defensive, which activates the amygdala. Bad idea!
7. Amygdala hijack pulls resources from the PFC (prefrontal cortex). Really bad idea!
8. We need the PFC on-board for activation and accomplishment.
   Kinda’ dumb to shut it down, huh?
9. People have been writing “tough love” and “just DO it” advice trying to end the procrastination problem seemingly forever — yet tons of folks still do it.
   It’s beyond crazy to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result!!
10. Time to try a new way ’round, don’cha think?

The collection of article links below will help you change things in your LIFE

Transition Tamer: Beware the GAP!

Transitions:
Into, Out of
&
AROUND
The Gap 

© By Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
Excerpted from an upcoming book; all rights reserved
CLICK HERE to begin at the beginning

We start small

We begin with the tedium of to-dos – because the lessons learned will generalize to the bigger changes and transitions that we all must face.

Meanwhile, we must all learn the ways in which we, uniquely, “chop wood, carry water.” ~ mgh

Transitions: Divide to Conquer

The Great Divide

© By Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
Excerpted from an upcoming book; all rights reserved
CLICK HERE to begin at the beginning

We start small

We begin with the tedium of to-dos – because the lessons learned will generalize to the bigger changes and transitions that we all must face.

Meanwhile, we must all learn the ways in which we, uniquely, “chop wood, carry water.” ~ mgh

Come, Stay or Go?

Does the Fee FIT? – Part 5

Do you REALLY “get what you pay for?”

© By Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC
The final article in the 5-part Coaching Fit Series

Courtesy of Phillip Martin – artist/educator

Figuring out the fee

It’s finally time to wrap up the articles about determining coaching “fit.”  I saved the best for last – the question on everybody’s lips.

How much can you expect to pay for ADD Coaching?

Well, that’s a bit like asking how much you might expect to pay for a car.  It depends on what’s available, as well as what you’re looking for.  But I’ll do my best.

As in any other field, fees tend to correlate with the experience of the service provider. Brand new graduates generally charge the least, and the coaches with the most experience generally charge at the top of the range.

Fees also depend on how much time you spend with your coach — once a week, two or three times a month, monthly check-in coaching?  How long is each session? Services will be priced to compensate the coach for his or her time as well as his or her expertise.

Another ADD mile with Kludgy Technology

A mile in ADD/EFD shoes:
The impact of Kludgy Assistive Technology
on Functional Expectations

Source: arthursclipart.org

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Another post in the Walking A Mile in Another’s Shoes Series

Today’s post started out to be a thought piece.

That is not to say that other posts are unthinking, simply that I had hoped to take you with me on my internal journey as I wandered through an accumulation of impressions gathered during a 10-day bout of Sleeping Sickness.

Sleeping seemed to be its primary symptom — insofar as I can remember — sleeping ’round the clock in a drug-haze as oracles of HULU reruns wafted through my dreams like prowlers.

Too bad there were no drugs.