9 Things I Learned My First Year as a Coach

Although I technically only recently graduated ADDCA’s Basic program and finished training back in March, I consider myself to be a 1 year old coach. My teleclass leaders encouraged all of us to see ourselves as coaches as soon as we possibly could, even before we were “ready”. We weren't going to be coaches, we already were coaches. Here are just some of the things I've learned in that time.

1. Not everyone is ready for change

I firmly believe there is hope for every person to one day achieve the life they want. However, the truth is that, for some, that day has yet to dawn. Many, many factors go into a person being able and willing to create positive change. Timing can often be a huge one. I have found this fact assists me to have greater patience when I see those around me suffering, but not yet ready to change.

2. Unsolicited advice is useless

I wrote a whole post on this topic and every time I'm tempted and break this new rule I've made for myself I rediscover how utterly futile this behavior is.

3. Customized solutions

It is often said that everybody is different and it naturally follows that what works for one person won't work for another. This has been brought home to me over and over again as I work with clients. Things that make perfect sense to me are not meant to work for someone else. If they did, there would be no need for coaches, we co-explorers of the new and untried paths to success.

4. Don't fight your brain

So many people try and force things that simply are not the direction their brains are meant to go. One of the things I do as a coach is to assist people to look at the ways in which their brains naturally go and work with instead of against that flow.

5. Stages of ability

Even when a person is 80% whole (the assumption I was taught to make every time I meet with a client) there are levels or stages of ability that exist at any given time and in a vast range of areas. The most fantastic thing is that when a person is ready to change, it is possible to build on whatever levels they are currently on and rise higher, infinitely. We are all works in progress.

6. Legacies

I have struggled to simply function for most of my life. All the clutter associated with that pre-diagnosis fight concealed a miraculous fact from me: some people are actively working on what they will leave behind for future generations. This incredible concept stunned me when I was introduced to it late in my coach training. It is my ultimate goal to become a person like that someday.

7. Needs support productivity

I’d assumed most of my life that the things I wanted/needed (the definition was much fuzzier then) were nice bonuses of life. If I worked hard I'd earn the ability to relax and that the two came exclusively in that order. I have recently discovered that attending to needs (like play) are not only helpful for productivity but, when you have ADHD, essential. If I don't get proper sleep, play, and a number of other needs met, I am unable to be productive.

8. Follow your passion; It is not a pipe dream

Someone once told me that following what you love to make a living was nothing more than a Disney fantasy. I have a theory this belief may be unintentionally propagated by the movie industry. To make something normal it helps to include it in entertainment, however is it also communicating the idea that you can only follow your dreams if you are in a movie?

It definitely portrays the journey as shorter than it really is and sometimes as more comfortable. That montage set to Katy Perry’s Firework is actually representative of months, years, or even decades of living as no one is willing to live so you can live as no one is able to live.

I have come to know that this is not a fantasy, at least not for me.

9. The client does the work

If you had asked me a year ago who, in the coaching partnership, did the work, I'm not sure what I would have answered. I know the answer now, however. In the style of coaching I was taught, the coach doing the work for the client is as useful as a personal trainer hopping on a treadmill in the hopes that their client will lose weight. To be successful, the client does the work, both in sessions and between, and I am simply a facilitator.

What a fascinating journey 2016 was for me as a coach. I can't wait to find out what new revelations 2017 holds for me.

What did 2016 help you learn?

Why I Gave Up Advice

Any time we have a problem there are always scads of people lining up to give us advice on how to solve it. Even if we didn't ask, even if we don't even really agree we have a problem, even if we are really quite happy, thank you very much, and really do not understand what the supposed problem is. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of advice.

When I went through ADHD coach training, I came to realize just how useless this practice really is. I know from personal experience that this unsolicited advice can range from mildly irritating to downright harmful, in certain instances.

I believe one reason it is so pointless is that any one of us cannot possibly fully grasp the experience of another. However well we know that other person, there is no way we can completely know what is in their head and heart. Therefore, any solution we come up with for their problem has a random chance of being useful because it came out of our own experience, not theirs.

In coaching, I strive to assist in clarifying, as fully as possible, all the facets and features of any given challenge. This can allow the person facing the challenge to create their own solution, making it as unique as they are. And this solution is almost always far more effective than any suggestion of anyone else’s (even mine) because it originated in the person who truly knows best.

An exception, naturally, is the topic of ADHD and its various symptoms. When it comes to working with our ADHD, a lot of us feel helpless and struggling in vain to find anything that will work. In these instances seeking the advice of a book on ADHD, a resource website such as TotallyADD.com, or a trained ADHD coach can be very valuable. However even these proffered strategies will increase in value once they are tailored and tweaked to fit the unique ADHD life.

So this is why I decided I would cease giving unsolicited advice, to anyone, not just my clients. I was wasting my breath and possibly annoying the person I intended to help.

And then a very unexpected thing happened. As soon as I made this promise to myself, friends and family started asking for my advice on specific topics. It was like the universe was having a great chuckle at my expense. And what can you really do at that point? So I laughed along.

One person asked me how I personally handle a specific situation, and I said “Do you mean in a practical sense or an emotional sense?” They told me that question was far more valuable than any of the advice that followed because it helped them explore their own conundrum further. Also the question beginning “How do you handle...” is particularly good for advice because it allows the other to simply consider and learn without there being any implication that it will definitely be helpful or relevant.

Then of course there are those verbal processors. What we need more than anything when facing a challenge is the time to get our thoughts from inside our brains, out our mouths, and to the world. Matt Smith’s Doctor Who once said “I don't know what the plan is yet; I haven't stopped talking.”

What advice do you give?