Do I Need a Coach?

Originally posted on Themestream
Hire a personal coach? How ridiculous is that? Coaches help teams get better on the field. Coaches teach health class. Coaches become color commentators on network sports broadcasts. This isn’t a game, this is life. There is no instant replay, no do-overs, no time outs. I need help figuring out how to manage, understanding how to use the tools I have, learning and retaining new information and new ways of thinking. I don’t need some dude on the sidelines telling me how wonderful I am, and how I’ll get ‘em next time.
Actually, personal coaches don’t do that.

Well, they do some of that, but that’s not all. A personal coach does use some of the basic ideas of sports coaching, absolutely. For example, a coach works with a client to make them better at what they want to do, much like a football coach helps his players become better wide receivers. Coaches also help people use the skills they’ve learned throughout their lives, and explore their own goals and dreams. Coaches can help a person become a better dentist, or even help a person realize they really don’t want to be an accountant.

Coaching is not therapy. Coaching and therapy work quite well together, however, since one helps the client figure out why (therapy) and the other lets the client figure out how (coaching). Coaches cannot help you understand why you and your sister Fanny fought like cats and dogs when Uncle Nestor was around. A coach can, however, help you use the skills you learned in those fights to advance your own life.

For an ADD Coach, the line between coaching and therapy can be a bit fuzzy. A person who has been told he’s lazy his entire life is bound to be affected negatively, particularly when there is no clear reason for the apparent laziness. An ADD coach can help a person better understand the roadblocks in front of her, and find a way to use the information she already has to get by them, or demolish them altogether.

One of my online friends was studying to be an ADD coach. She shared a great deal of information with me about her classes and her future work. I had an imperfect understanding of what a coach was, and figured it wasn’t something that would be of any help to me. Rather than waste the money on something I didn’t think I needed, I just let it go, listening to her go on and on about how wonderful coaching was. Essentially, I humored her.

As time wore on, the idea of having a personal coach began to interest me. I asked more questions and got better answers, answers that made sense, that made coaching seem relevant to my situation. In June of this year, I joined my friend at a coaching seminar. At that seminar, I saw the light. I hired a coach in July of this year.

The plan was to try it out and see if anything worked. I knew it would take some time to see any progress, and I knew that it was pretty dependent on me, rather than the coach. Frankly, that scared me. For a week, I obsessed over what I would say to my new coach in that first conversation. I knew the question of what I wanted to accomplish would come up, and I just wasn’t really sure. Fortunately for me, we spent the bulk of that time talking about him. We discussed how he works as a coach, and about his expectations of me as a client. He clarified his policies for me, and gave me a clearer picture of the way our coaching relationship would work.

He also gave me a homework assignment.

One of the things that drove me to coaching was that I just didn’t seem to know how to start…anything! Whatever I set out to do, if it was on a grand scale, I could readily see the overall picture. Breaking it down into manageable chunks, however, was virtually impossible. He asked about my plans, about things going on in my life that were giving me grief, and selected the less-threatening issue. My assignment – to write a list, not prioritized, of things I thought I needed to do to attain that goal. He reinforced that the list was mine to write as I needed, with as much or as little detail as I could manage, and that the list was to be essentially a brainstorm, nothing concrete. I was a little concerned. List writing and goal setting has never been a strength for me, another issue I wanted to fix.

Through our phone sessions, there were no gut-wrenching revelations, no miraculous discoveries, nothing that brought anyone to tears. There was exploration of my mindset, understanding of what the real issue is, and clarification of the difference between therapy and coaching. There has also been an overall improvement in the quality of my life. My coach has shown me that I have the skills to do the things I want to do, and he has helped me explore ways to adapt skills I have in one area for use in other areas.

This past week, I drew up an extensive list, categorized and prioritized, showing the steps I need to take to attain one of my goals. I included a rough timeline, and even broke down the list further into smaller components.

I couldn’t do that before I started working with a coach.

My coach hasn’t done any work for me, I’ve done it all myself. What he has done is shown me a new way of looking at things, something I thought I already had a grip on. What I didn’t get was the negative messages I’ve heard all my life were affecting me more strongly than I thought. This is one of the places where the coaching/therapy line gets fuzzy. The messages and their aftereffects are a very large part of ADD. The repercussions that affect emotion need to be handled by a therapist. Those that affect life in general can be worked on with a coach.
Do you need a coach? Might be worth a try.

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Learn More About It
What is Coaching All About? – From Coach U
The Personal ADD Coach – Jan 1999 feature from ADD on About
The Optimal Functioning Institute – Training specifically for ADD Coaches