The Coaching Process: Stages and Barriers to Change with ADHD
Oct 23, 2023
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In this episode, the hosts discuss the coaching process and how it mirrors the barriers of ADHD. They emphasize the importance of creating awareness, learning from success and setbacks, and encouraging curiosity and reflection. They also tease future episodes where they will explore each barrier in more detail and how coaching can support informed change.
Meeting clients where they are and acknowledging their experience allows for better coaching by guiding clients towards more productive approaches to change.
Active engagement and familiarity with coaching concepts and language enable more efficient coaching experiences, enhancing group dynamics and enabling significant progress to be made within coaching programs.
Deep dives
The importance of meeting clients where they are
When working as a coach, it is crucial to meet clients where they are and acknowledge their experience. This allows for a better understanding of their mindset and enables effective coaching. For example, clients who come with a sense of urgency and pressure may have destination thinking, expecting immediate relief from their ADHD dilemma. By recognizing their mindset and being in the process with them, coaches can guide clients towards more productive approaches to change.
The value of client readiness in coaching
Podcast listeners, who actively engage in the coaching process, often come to coaching groups well-prepared and ready to delve into the work. Their familiarity with the concepts and language of journey thinking, curiosity, and self-reflection allows for a more efficient coaching experience. This readiness enhances group dynamics and enables significant progress to be made within the course of the coaching program. The collective understanding and alignment among the participants create a powerful and supportive environment for personal growth.
Struggling with urgency and immediacy in coaching
Coaches sometimes find it challenging to navigate through urgency and immediacy present in their clients' mindset. ADHD clients, used to relying on adrenaline responses, often come to coaching with a sense of pressure and a long to-do list. Coaches may struggle with interrupting this hyper-focus on action and finding a balance between guiding clients and allowing them to explore awareness and learning. This learning curve in managing urgency and coaching can be addressed by focusing on overarching goals, values, and needs, rather than immediate actions, fostering awareness and reflection, and creating a supportive environment for clients to navigate these barriers.
In this episode of Translating ADHD, Ash and Cam discuss the coaching process, focusing on how this process actually mirrors the three barriers of ADHD: awareness, action, and learning. This can quickly become a friction point in the coaching engagement for both client and coach. Ash and Cam emphasize the importance of creating awareness around the challenges clients face and how coaching can help individuals overcome these barriers.
The conversation also delves into the significance of learning from both success and setbacks and how coaching encourages curiosity and reflection. They share a number of client scenarios to illustrate the dilemma and how clients overcome the challenges. They tease future episodes where they will explore each barrier in more detail and how the coaching process can support informed change.