Episode 16: ADHD Coaching: Why Your Strategies Stop Working, and What to Do Next

Have you ever found a strategy that finally worked for your ADHD brain — only for it to suddenly stop working?

Perhaps the planner was brilliant for three weeks. The reminders helped until you stopped seeing them. The new routine felt life-changing, and then one day you simply could not make yourself do it anymore.

That does not mean you have failed.

In this episode of ADHD Wise Podcast, Jannine is joined by ADHD coach and professional doctorate researcher Anita Davies, founder of Freedom from Tedium, for an honest conversation about ADHD coaching, executive functioning and the realities of trying to create lasting change with a neurodivergent brain.

They explore why neurodivergent people often need variety alongside consistency, why cognitive load can make even a ten-minute task feel impossible, and why good coaching should help you experiment rather than hand you another rigid system to follow.

They also discuss:

• late ADHD diagnosis, grief and changing identity
• masking and becoming more comfortable with your authentic self
• time blindness, working memory and emotional regulation
• why strategies often work until the novelty wears off
• managing energy and capacity rather than focusing only on time
• the difference between coaching and therapy
• why coaching can cause harm when a coach does not understand neurodivergence
• reasonable adjustments and asking for support at work
• perfectionism, shame and learning to fail safely
• why there is no single “magic bullet” for ADHD

Anita introduces her brilliant glow-in-the-dark ball metaphor: a strategy that has stopped working may not need to be thrown away. It may simply need time to recharge while you use something else.

This episode is for late-diagnosed ADHD adults, autistic and neurodivergent people, coaches, therapists, employers, educators and anyone who has ever wondered:

Why can I do this sometimes, but not consistently?

Good coaching is not about rescuing someone, fixing them or forcing them to become more typical. It is about creating a shame-free space where they can understand their brain, test ideas, make mistakes and build a way of working that is genuinely their own.

Because sometimes the most important thing we can learn is how to fail — without deciding that we are a failure.

https://freedomfromtedium.co.uk/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thank you so much for joining us on ADHD Wise Podcast. If something in this episode has helped you, made you think, or given you language for something you've been living with, you can support the podcast by following or subscribing, leaving a review or connecting with ADHD Wise on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Every share, review, comment, and follow helps the podcast reach more people and helps us create conversations and resources that support neurodivergent people, families and professionals. Thank you. Your support really does mean the world. Welcome to ADHD WISE Podcast. I'm Janine Perryman, and this is a space for open conversations about ADHD and neurodiversity, bringing together lived experience, professional insights, and the questions that help us move forward. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here. So, Anita, thank you for joining us today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

No problem at all. I'm delighted to be here. I like to talk, as you know, and I like to share my knowledge and experience. So yeah, I'm really excited to have a good chat today.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Coaching is one of those things that can bring huge amounts of value to individuals and also to the people who are delivering the coaching. It would also be true to say it can do harm and it can be a difficult arena to work in. You're actually doing your PhD in coaching, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, I'm doing a professional doctorate, yes. Um, which um means that I'm really getting deep into some of the exciting new research that's coming out in the field and really challenging some of the models that we're using as a And do you think that coaching is different for neurodivergent people than it is for the the rest of the population? I think so. There's no one size fits all, but I think there are a number of models out there that can be particularly challenging for a neurodivergent brain. Um but equally there are some outstanding coaches out there who are not understanding of how the neurodivergent brain works, and that can make it difficult as well. Um there is a growing body of great neuroaffirmative coaches building um but but that we do need to recognise that sometimes we need a different approach or we need that flexibility um to support the neurodivergent brain where it's appropriate to do so.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

When I went to World Congress last year in Portugal, one of the main things that came out when they were talking about any kind of therapeutic intervention was that if the the if the therapist was not uh neuroaffirming, they could do more harm than good. And I think in my experience, I think the same can be true with coaching. I know lots of people who I haven't gone on to coach or other people have, and they have been coached by somebody who hasn't understood it and it's done harm because they're kind of like hearing some of those negative messages, they're just coming back around again.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

It's such an important area, and it's an area I'm really passionate about. We are, as coaches, unless you're qualified, we're not counselors, we're not therapists, but we absolutely need to be mindful and of you know, and we and we need to be trauma informed and conscious of that. Um personally, um I got quite a psychodap psychodynamic style, so I skirt quite close to the boundary between coaching and something more therapeutic. I'm very mindful of that, and I'll always explain to clients that we do not want to unpack anything that we can't get back in that box if we need to. Um, and so we need to be very careful about that. Coaching and therapy can go very, very nicely in hand, but it is not my job to c to create new new projects for that individual and for their therapeutic support. And it and the same for their therapeutic support. You know, we've got to be mindful of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, I've had a few situations where uh during the coaching journey there's been stuff that's surfaced, because it does, because ultimately you're a trusted person in that, and and people are bringing you their real self, and then it's been like, oh, okay. And I will always thank them for bringing that to me. And I will always say, from a coaching perspective, this is really useful information. My job as a coach is to help you to understand how it's playing out for you now and how it might play out for you in the future. What I cannot do is the work around how you got there and helping you to dissolve that stuff. I can only help you to see how it's impacting you. And then I always say about them going and getting some therapeutic support, and I might make recommendations or um be supported in in whatever way is required. Um, but I will say it is up to you and to your therapist to decide to what extent, or if at all, we carry on with coaching while you're doing that difficult work. Because sometimes the the the way lay things layer over each other can be really helpful and sometimes not. And I would sort of just say in that situation, that isn't for me to decide, that's for you to decide as an individual in conjunction with your therapist, or your therapist might say to you they don't feel like you should carry on with your coaching while you're having that therapeutic work done. And it's a very, very individual thing, I think, you know, because every situation is different. And I've I've had um therapists who said to me, as long as you stay away from the emotion stuff and you just stick to the practical things, and I'm like speaking to my client, and they're like, Are you happy with that? And they're like, Yes, I am. So that's what we then contract, we contract to do, whereas otherwise there might be some emotional stuff in it because emotion regulation is part of neurodiversity coaching, but we might just agree that I'm going to allow it to come into the space, but then sort of remind them that actually, you know, we've got to be mindful that we're sticking to strategies because that's the contract that we've got. I've also had ones where it's like, well, let's keep the coaching contract going and I'll see you once a month, and it'll be on practical things, just so that we don't lose that relationship while you're having the therapeutic work. And I'm just so comfortable with being able to say, I'll be led by you, and I'll be led by I'll be led by your therapist.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

And knowing that that trust is there, because often, you know, as you know, I specialise with late diagnosed individuals, so there is a lot of baggage coming, there's a lot of limiting beliefs, learned behaviours coming in, and also many people have lost the confidence to make the decision that's right for them. And so part of it is that relearning and helping them to know that both I and their therapeutic support are there to get the right solution for them, whatever that looks like. And you know, my my coaching is heavily laid around the executive functions. So if I increase cognitive load by not being supportive and not understanding the role of the therapeutic support, then I massively reduce the executive functioning again, because that that's that's the game we're playing all the time is where where are we in terms of cognitive load, and therefore where are we in in terms of our executive function? So we've got to be supportive from that perspective, and we've got to, you know, work hard to create that safe space in which the client can explore what is right for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah. Because they often don't know. No, no, they don't. I remember my own journey into coaching, and I and and the reason I went into it was because of what how much I got out of coaching that I just didn't expect to. Um, I went into it because there was an opportunity, and I actually did group coaching before I did any individual coaching. Even though I was already a coach, I hadn't recognised what I was going to get out of the coaching for neurodiversity, the coaching for my different brain. I have no idea how much I was going to get out of that. I had I could not have predicted it, and it was just quite the transformation. Um, do you know what? We are doing the typical ADHD thing here, and we kind of like need to kind of like almost flip right back round to the beginning. And can we talk about you and what you got you to this part in your journey? Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

So, yeah, I mean it's it's important to be authentically neurodivergent, right? Um, so I am ADHD. I would consider myself to be ADHD. I have an ADHD diagnosis formally, and then I'm educated for that when I remember to take it. Um ADHD. Um, I'm on the autistic pathway, um, so not currently um formally diagnosed, but I know my brain and I know the traits that I have. I share that and I share that with all of my clients as well, purely because I want to demonstrate that there is a place for diagnosis, but it isn't important to me in the coaching room. If you identify with traits, whether you've got the badge or the label or the diagnosis, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter because we can still support you with the tools and the strategies and allow you to experiment with those to make a difference to your brain. And so, of course, I'm coaching from lived experience, and I've coached for approaching 20 years now in various um different roles. My background is higher education, um, and so coached a team and have coached student the student body. I'd moved away from that, kind of lost myself a little bit in self-employment of, you know, again, serial entrepreneur, um, regular burnout, great shape for those of us with a neurodivergent brain. And so then I kind of came back to, you know, what's at the core of what I do and what I enjoy. And what I found was that whenever I tried to pass clients on, so I developed a virtual assistance agency, but I'm no virtual assistant because I'm not a finisher. Um, so I trying to hand clients over to the team who were perfectly capable of supported the virtually far better than me, but clients didn't want to let go. And what what we found was that it was the coaching and mentoring that they were really clinging on to, and of course, the vast majority of my clients were neurodivergent surprise in you know, in the in the kind of entrepreneurial um area. And so I thought, well, that's where I need to go back to because that's what I find rewarding. Um, of course, then you know, the hyper focused special interest kicks in. I needed to know that whilst I was already a good and established coach, that I knew how to support neurodivergent individuals in the most effective way. I wanted to know more about executive functions because it was supporting me, but then I could do the very best in my own coaching. And so I undertook several coaching courses and added all of those in. Um I took some um ADHD specific coaching myself. I'm a strong believer that it's impossible, and I will say impossible, and I'll stand by that. That's that's an injustice hill I'll die on this week, because I don't see how anybody can coach effectively if they've not been in the coaching room on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, completely that. I yeah, if your coach doesn't have a coach, why not?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

They've never been through coach. So they need to have been there, you need to have experienced it. Um and so I did all of that and then kind of tentatively um, you know, step stepped into it and it's just gone from strength to strength. And as you know, that's you know, it's now led, you know, I'm um I speak regularly, I'm I'm undertaking my professional doctorate, I am pretty much full in terms of clients, you know. So people are waiting then for for when we complete one individual to bring the next in. Um I'm training up and down the country in in neurodiversity and neurodivergent support and neuroaffirmative support. So it's just really brought for me the true benefits of self-employment because you take these risks to step away from a job because that can be challenging. And of course, I spend my days in the class uh in the coaching room, sort of saying, you know, what are what are your strongest executive functions? Which are the executive functions that we need to accept are weaker, and maybe you delegate those, or maybe you get someone to support you with those, and you accept that that will be your weakest trait, and then you build a career or you pursue employment that that suits that. And I hadn't been doing that. So for probably the first time in a very long time, I I you know I started to do what I say rather than keep doing what I've always done. Um, and it's just been just the most satisfying and affirming experience to be able to to give back every day to people, you know, and and make massive changes. Or s well no, I'll correct that. I don't make the changes, I get to cheerlead and sit alongside and watch it, and I ask the questions and I just support the individuals. The clients are the ones that make the changes day in, day out, and it is just wonderful to watch that.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

I have to I I completely agree that it's a complete privilege to sit with somebody while they're working it out, and those moments where the penny drops, or when you get a message in between, and you're just and they're like, I just did the thing. And there is so much job satisfaction in that. Or at the same time as recognising that there are heartbreaking moments because you really are holding someone in the most vulnerable state. So there's a huge responsibility to what we do as well as absolutely, yeah. Right, you mentioned executive functions a couple of times. So for those who are listening that might not know what executive functions, executive functioning is, would you like to elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yeah, of course. Okay, so executive function, every human being has it, depending on what research you're reading, and I'm not expecting anyone to go out and read it, but some of us will. There are eight to twelve executive functions, and they include emotional regulation, or actually more realistically, in our experience, emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria, R S D. It can include time blindness, but actually I always like to explain that that's really the elasticity of time. So some of us will be chronically early, some of us will be chronically late, some of us have no idea how long five minutes is, sometimes five minutes is a minute, sometimes it's two hours. This lack of understanding of how long a task will take for us, and there are organisational skills in there, there's working memory, there's short-term memory, um the list goes on, but essentially it's all this stuff that certainly for me as a neurodivergent individual is busy looking out there, feeling like everybody else can do this really easily. Everybody else finds this really simple and straightforward, and it is a revelation when you discover that that's not the case. Not everybody finds this really easy and really straightforward. But we've been taught and we have learned because the benchmark for a neurotypical, the average person can do these things just fine. And which is where a lot of this feeling of failure comes from, and this feeling of I should somehow try harder or do better. And if only we could help those looking in who don't understand the neurodivergent brain to understand just how hard we're working to not quite meet your benchmark typical, that would make a massive difference in itself.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

I I talk in my training and when I was I was doing a an interview for a newspaper article and I was talking about how society assumes that everybody's ability to access, read, estimate, time is equal. And we actually know that to not be true, but society hasn't accepted that actually some of us are at a massive disadvantage before we start, and that's got nothing to do with whether the person cares enough, whether the person is professional enough, uh, whether they are lazy or whatever other lab negative label we put on it, because ultimately it is not the case that two people facing the same situation have the same access to managing, perceiving, estimating time. It's not the case that people have got that. Same with working memory, same with various other factors as well. And so when you're in the coaching space, helping an individual to deal with that, particularly if they were late diagnosed or late identified, can be really tricky. Because I was 41 when I was diagnosed. How old were you?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I would mean around about the same, yeah, because it's been seven or eight years now, so 40-ish, yeah. Early 40.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

So I'm I'm I'm 12 years in now, and it just took a long time to make those adjustments and to accept the diagnosis, actually, you know, to accept that it's real and that I'm not faking it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Well, that I mean that that journey is huge, isn't it? And and I trying to explain this to clients very early on. If you're late diagnosed, there is often a period of grief, even if we've pursued the diagnosis actively, you know, that whether we've gone privately, whether we've waited for years on on a waiting list, whatever approach we've taken, there is still this grief. There's a huge relief often, but then this grief and this loss of identity, and trying to then deal with that, then learning and starting to accept so that some of the masks come down, some of the layers start to drop, because it's almost like peeling an onion with the number of layers. It's like, oh, you think you've got three masks, give it a month, you'll have six. But hang on, I've taken four off, you know, and it's like, no, I know, but there are layers here that you didn't realise that you had, and so then we're starting to hear, oh, do you know your ADHD has got worse since you were diagnosed, or your autism has got worse since you were diagnosed. It hasn't. It's just I am learning to be more comfortable with it. I am finding then in psychologically safe spaces I can remove more of the masks and be more authentic than myself, which means then I can have more energy because masking is incredibly tiring, exhausting. Yes, and so we can really learn to be ourselves and we can play with that because actually being our authentic selves can be a bit uncomfortable to begin with, because we've never had the opportunity to be that person. And so that watching that kind of unfurling, again, incredibly challenging for the individual, challenging and difficult to watch sometimes, but also really reassuring. Again, when people go in and say, Do you know what? I said no this week. Yes, okay, tell me more, you know. And it's like, oh, someone wanted me to do something, and I kept my diary before I answered, instead of just the impulsive, oh yes, okay, I'll I'll find a way. And just seeing those breakthroughs that to anyone that doesn't understand is gonna look like nothing. But to us is massive, and that it starts this snowball effect then, where we can go and we can practice until we until we fail or someone knocks our confidence. And I said to you beforehand, like uh it's so important, I think, to share that a big part of my role as a coach, I believe, is to help people to understand that I expect them to fail. I tell everyone, you're gonna fail, you know, and that's like, well, how supportive is this coach? Like, no, no, you're meant to fail sometimes. Because you're making massive change, and so then it will work. Say I'm working with an ADHD, I'm like, this will work for a while, but you're a dopamine hunter, so at some point it's gonna wear off and it will stop potentially stop working, and that's okay. That's why we have more tools and strategies in our in our box than we need. So it's I guess I'm almost actively encouraging failure because I want to normalise it.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Do you feel there is more going on for you or for your child, but you are unsure where to start? At ADHD WISE, our neurodiversity pathway offers a cross-neurotype assessment for adults, children and young people. Cross-neurotype means we look across a range of neurodevelopmental profiles and differences, including ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, language and communication, sensory processing, executive function and regulation. The pathway includes WISECLIR, which helps collect detailed information from you about everyday experiences, strengths, and challenges. It also includes Craos, which gives us an evidence base based on activities that you perform online that shows us things like attention, memory, reasoning, and cognitive processing. We then build this together with a semi-structured interview so that we can triangulate the information and build a clearer picture of what may be going on for you. The aim is to help you know where you are, what might be contributing to the challenges that you or your child are having, and deciding on next steps, whether that be a diagnostic, support in school or in work, coaching, adjustment, or simply better understanding yourself or your child. The Neurodiversity Pathway is about clarity, direction, and helping people be better understood. You can find out more at AB. And look for the Neurodiversity Pathway. I feel like I'm pretty good at modelling um imperfection. And this podcast This podcast in itself, we try very hard not well, no I was gonna say we try really hard to make sure it's not perfect. That's not actually true. We just just don't get caught up in the perfect because actually that doesn't actually help anybody. If it's all just like polished and there's not the occasional dog that barks or a glitch in the in the sound and stuff like that. It's not like I can afford to go and like hire a studio and have everything in a sort of like a I'd love that. I'd love that maybe in the future that will happen, but that's just not where we are. But I think that I've I know I've had to overcome my perfectionism in order to podcast like this. And I think that that is something that is really useful for as an example to set to coaching clients. It's just like, actually, do you know what? Done, not perfect, is generally speaking better than the polished-off thing that's kind of like got rid of all those glitchy bits. It's I don't mean glitchy bits in terms of professionalism, because professionalism matters to a point, depends on what you mean by professionalism. But you know, perfection is not generally required. Now that's not the same, like you were talking about you're you're submitting your assignments and stuff, and it's like that's a different thing because you've got standards that you've got to demonstrate to. So I'm as a dyslexic ADHD autistic person. My spelling and my writing, the fact that I will write two when I mean the um and I will write a word twice, and I get my B's and my D's mixed up and a few other bits and pieces that kind of come out. Now, in my social media posting, um I do obviously try to manage those things, but the reality is that they appear. Um, and then I'll look back and I'll be like, oh, and I'll do my editing probably after I post it. Okay, I can edit it and then post it back again. And I'm alright with that. And I'm actually alright with things being out there that I've written being imperfect. Not as they're academic, though. Not as they're academic. They're academic, they they I have to have written it, I have to have put it to one side, uh, I might have to ask somebody else to proofread it from me from a from that sort of stance. And I will encourage I actually coach quite a lot of writers, a lot of teachers. So we go through that sort of like process together in terms of the fact that it's what's okay and what's not okay. And in the workplace as well, it's like if your internal communications are something you don't have to worry about, but you have more care taken on your external communications, then that would be a reasonable adjustment because ultimately things that go outside of the company, the a professionalism and a social expectation around what's what's what's right and what's acceptable that actually an internally isn't necessarily important.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Absolutely. And it's part of that learning to accept who you are, and that doesn't mean that we are giving you a flag and waving you through and lowering standards at all. It means that we're looking for an equity model where everyone is has the ability to bring out the best in one another and support one another in that way. And so again, as a as a business, if we encourage each other internally to get things done and to know that sometimes we'll fail, but that then we just use that as the learning opportunity that it is. How did we miss that deadline? Oh, okay. Well, I d uh yeah, I totally thought I had an extra week, or you know, it it w I had the stuff on my now list, and then I had the stuff on my not now list, and that had stayed on my not now list, so it hadn't got to the now list. So I was never gonna look at it this week. What can I do next time? What can we do differently next time? Or yeah, reminders in my phone were working, except now you know I always liken tools to a glow-in-the-dark ball with my clients. So when you get it shiny, okay? The glow-in-the-dark bounty ball is shiny, it's exciting, we can see it. And then as we use it, its energy wears off. Historically, when something stopped working, when we become blind to something, that's it, we we throw it out because we think it's done and it'll never work for us, it gets dead to us. You know, you may as well put it in a drawer, you're not going to remember it. If we can then metaphorically put that glow-in-the-dark ball out into the sun to recharge, well, we use a different tool or strategy, when that tool or saty is less effective, we bring the shiny one back in and we put that and we put the second ball back out to glow. And so it's knowing that we can get solutions in, but then we might have to tweak them, we might have to change them, we might have to recharge them. And that's where we can then get into what have you done in the past? Because clients, you know, newly diagnosed clients or late diagnosed clients will come in. Well, I know this works and I know that works, and I've always done that. I didn't realise it was coping strategy, but it turns out it was. Brilliant. And then I want to dig. What have you done in the past that stopped working? And can we bring it back? Can we recharge it? And I love working with neurodivergent um individuals because often I'll ask the question, and I I work mostly on Zoom or Teams, but I'll ask the question, like, oh, should we try this, this tool? And then the face will tell me that they think that's a shit idea. They're not quite ready to tell me because maybe we were early on, and I'll be like, Oh, there was there was a face there. What what are you feeling? Oh, yeah, well, I've, you know, that's a dead obvious one, and I've done it and it doesn't work. Okay. Did it never work? Or did it work until it didn't? Oh, it worked until it didn't. Okay, well, let's get this glow-in-the-dark idea in. Let's play with this, let's experiment with this, let's see if we can do something differently. And that's where you start to then see this kind of feeling of, oh, well, I didn't think I could bring it back. And that's hugely helpful. Um that's often the kind of the precursor then to the next step where maybe someone has had the confidence to um to share their diagnosis in the workplace. And so maybe they've got one of these unicorn brilliant managers and they do exist, who goes, Great, well, how do we help you? For an ADHD or or an iradivent individual, that's kind of the best and worst question. Because I then see the clients go, Well, I my manager's just said, What do I need? And I don't know. I don't know how to work this out. And that's where we can start to experiment then with, well, let's bring in things that used to work. Let's look at some new things, and then let's start to create a list of things that we think might work for now. And then let's go out and let's play with it and let's fail. Let's test it to failure, like we would in the gym, like we would anywhere else. Let's test it to failure and see what we can learn from that.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

That's actually a really good analogy. So if you've been lifting the weights, you've been lifting the weights, lifting the weights, and then it's just like you do it until you fail, because that's one of the it's like a thing of reps, isn't it? And it's just like, and then you can't do it anymore. Does that mean you don't go back and do it another time? Of course you do. You put it in your repertoire, things or your toolkit, as we tend to refer to it in in coaching, so that it's available for you for another time and you do it until it's no longer the thing for you. I had a client um say to me today, actually, how do I get to be consistent? And I was just like because she was struggling with the fact that she she clearly needs variety, and I was just like, You've got to put variety along with your consistency and your variety. Well, that's not possible. And I'm like, Yes, it is, but she was looking for a magic bullet, and I've had that conversation with her about four times now. It's just like there is no magic bullet, it's not it's it's it's um incredibly difficult because she's at she's she's outraged, she's looking for a uh a full-on, one-off solution. It's just like, if that was available, you'd have already been given it. It would be available on prescription, and it's not, there is no magic bullet. And so I talk about variety and consistency and the fact that you need to be consistent about planning your week, but you can have varieties of ways in which you plan your week and you switch between them based on what's going on for you. But I think that's a really hard concept for somebody who's looking for a bullet.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It is incredibly, and and I think also because in most workplaces we want this nice straight line where you you achieve you achieve the same thing each day, but we're spiky. So, you know, we can get the consistency alongside the variety, where I'll always say to me, you know, if you've got a particularly heavy social day, so you've got lots of meetings, your social battery is likely to be really drained on that day, then you want to be planning in a quiet-desk based day the next day. Oh my gosh, yes. You know, that balance. If you know that Monday is actually the day where you work from home or you work in a quiet space in the office and you get the work of ten people done, then you need to know that Tuesday or Wednesday are probably going to be a write-off.

unknown 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

You know, that's the that's the rising the wave and then the ebb of it all, isn't it? We are generally speaking, not just managing time, we're also managing capacity and energy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Yeah. And where does again, where does our cognitive load sit? If we're overwhelmed, our cognitive load's going up, so our ability to use our executive functions is dropping again. That overwhelm might be that there is a job on my list that has been there for three months. And in our in my heart of hearts, I know it's going to take me ten minutes, but I don't know where to start. And so that tiny bit is making everything back up behind it. Or there's lots of things that do actually have to happen this week because I've been saying yes, or because I'm a bit behind, whatever it is, but we then literally can't see the wood for the trees, as it were, because we don't know where to start. And so it's helping clients to be exploring them. What do I genuinely have to do now? And then we would deal with the whole, well, I have to do everything, everything's equally important. And probably it is for that individual. So we go, okay, well, then let's look at dates, or let's look at you know what are the individual steps, what's the first step? Let's help us to break it down into chunks. Because we can't sit here for the next three days without popping to the loom, without having a drink, without having anything to eat, without sleeping. Really? Even though hyper focus would encourage us to. So knowing that we can't do that, let's break it down. And so just taking the time literally to hold one another's hand, as it were, and go, what's the first step? And can we do that? What can we do today? And and I think potentially this is where a more traditional coach who is not neuroaffirmative might struggle because of this the concept of that all the answers come from the client. Well, yes, they do, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're just going to ask the same powerful question in four different ways till they give us something. Sometimes we've got to give them the first step.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yeah, well, ultimately the we have this this wisdom, and there's always a care in terms of uh passing information on, but it's like, you know, can we talk about something? And then you can decide to what extent it's useful, and sharing a bit of information and then stepping back and letting the penny drop for them, giving them a metaphor and saying, What's your metaphor for this? Because actually then you're then you're making it theirs and then they will stick. Whereas as a coach, if you have just handed over, that's not actually coaching. It is that whole thing of give what you need to do so that they can pick it up, mould it, and make it theirs. Um, it seems to be sort of like where well it is, it's where the magic is because then it's just like like you said earlier, we are only holding space for them so they can do the work themselves. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

There's no superhero capes here other than the ones we help people to find for themselves, because we don't need one. We are literally there to help them to find their own their own cape, their own their own uh a superhero is probably not the right thing to use in this context because I don't do superpower narratives for ADHD and neurodiversity in general speaking, but it's like it's like in terms of rescuing people, what my point was that we don't rescue them, they rescue themselves.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Oh, totally. And and and we don't even give them the roadmap. They're right, they're drawing that themselves as they go along. I mean, none of us would be terribly good at following the roadmap anyway. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

I fancy it's like I didn't mean to take this detour, but I made I was gonna say that it's just just just gone. Yeah, that happens all the time for us, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

I so it is just it's such a privilege to be able to just help people to tease that out and to see it. I mean, I also, and again, I'm completely open and honest in in the first session with with clients where I love working with neurodivergent individuals because actually the a you know a good proportion are going to overshare anyway. So I've just got to stay quiet for an extra second or two. You know, and then the and and sometimes you can even see the surprise on the face. They're kind of like, oh well, well that came out sooner than I thought it might, or I didn't even know that was coming out, and it's and that just the fact that we can create that safe space nice and quickly, and then utilise it with the power of silence to bring things out. But maybe they've been trying to get that out for years, maybe they didn't even realise that that was in there, but it comes out and then and then they can play with it, they can try it on, and then they can start to work with it. And that those moments are just so powerful, so powerful, especially when you've been there yourself. Especially when you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, I remember those moments. And that you know, sometimes we're still having them, you know, we've all communities of practice, and you know, we take regular supervision. Things still come out sometimes, and it's great to see that. It's like, oh, okay, that's interesting. What can I do with that? How can I play with this now? What does it mean for me? What do I need to tweak then? And that's just yeah, just brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

It's the best of the it's the best of the work, isn't it? Right, so the question of this podcast for every episode is what is your North Star? What is the thing that people need to know from you right now?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Again, coaching is not a silver bullet, but it could give you some massive, hugely valuable tools. It is a space where there is or they should be. I can only talk about my coaching room. There is no shame in my coaching room because I would have been there, done that, got the t-shirt, put the t-shirt in a drawer, forgotten I got it, and then gone and got it again. And if it's a particularly chemical t-shirt, I'll have it in every colour. And so, you know, coaching is a space, neuroaffirmative coaching is a space to just really learn about yourself and to learn how to fail. Okay, and and I I really stand by that. I don't know if that's a strap-blind, come to me and learn to fail. Come to me and fail. But I I it's about that acceptance.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

You know, it's about learning to accept that we will fail and we should have been allowed to fail before now without worrying about it, because that's where we learn and that's where we make the difference.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Oh, I could go off onto a tangent about our schooling system right now, but I'm not going to, I'm gonna hold it all the sea. Good facts. So anybody who has been listening to this podcast series Evolve will know that there's uh an episode on unmasking, which we've topped up on today, and there is another one on um coaching and another one on time blindness, a whole episode on time blindness. So I'm just gonna say to you, I hope you can see why I particularly wanted to speak to Anita, because you can tell we we are the kind of people who will challenge each other, and when you're picking your coach, you want someone who's got something to say about stuff and to challenge themselves. Um, you don't have to pick me, you don't have to pick Anita. You pick whoever you want to pick, but you want to pick somebody who is not passive in terms of working out what's what's right and what's what's not right. So um, and you can see why Anita is is somebody that I would stop and listen to because you want somebody who's there to stop and listen and question their own practice because that's kind of the point. So um okay, Anita, thank you so much. I would really like if we could do this another time a bit further down the line. I think we are this must be episode 16. So um yeah, a little bit further down the line, it'd be lovely to have a another conversation with you. We will put Anita's details in the assets for the podcast and the shorts. Um so if you want to reach out to Anita, that's fantastic. And if you want to reach out to me, that's also fantastic. Um, for everyone listening, I hope you have found this valuable and um good luck with everything and hopefully speak to you. Thanks so much. Bye. Thank you, Anita. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to ADHD Wise Podcast. ADHD Wise exists to help bridge understanding and support for people exploring ADHD and broader neurodiversity. If you would like to know more about us and our services, please visit www.adhdwise.uk. Follow ADHDwise UK on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Take care and we'll see you next time.