By Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG – September 11, 2023
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Isn’t that what they say? But trying harder is impossible if you are already trying as hard as you can and getting no results. So, what can you do?
Should you keep trying harder, repeating the same action and getting the same outcome? Of course not! According to Albert Einstein, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Continue reading “ADHD: Try Harder? Why Not Try Different?”
Jane, a woman with attention deficit disorder (ADD), came to coaching, wanting help with organization, specifically, getting things done. So, we focused our work on paying attention to what she pays attention to. Now, understand that this means we focused on her natural tendencies and habits, not necessarily on what she was consciously thinking of.
The first written record of the concept of ADHD coaching was in the book, Driven to Distraction, by Dr. Ned Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey in 1994. Little did they know at that time, the entire coaching industry would grow into a new ADHD intervention. In the late 1990s, a handful of individuals became life coaches that had ADHD and began touting the concept. In 2004, we saw the official formation of the ADHD Coaches Organization (ACO) as a means for coaches to come together and share best practices and competencies. 
What is insightful thinking, and why should it be understood as an alternative to methodical thinking or other problem-resolution strategies? Insight, or insightful thinking, is the sudden and immediate comprehension or understanding that takes place without overt trial-and-error testing. 
Self-awareness is an executive function, and success in life is highly correlated with self- awareness. Executive functioning (EF) is a set of mental faculties that enable us to identify, organize, and sequence relevant information over time towards a goal. In short, executive functioning is what we use to engineer a plan to achieve a goal. 
These days, there is so much competition for our attention. At times, it can feel like we are pulled in a hundred directions with all different mediums vying for emotional control of our hearts and minds (and let’s be honest, our wallets). It can feel overwhelming. 
Do you control what you pay attention to? Think about it! On the one hand, we have politicians, marketers, and corporate America all fighting to gain control of what we pay attention to for their own self-serving benefit. On the other hand, we have our pets, friends, parents, kids, and significant others all desperately vying for us to pay attention to them. Let’s face it, paying attention is hard work! It takes effort… and lots of it. 
We are living in a DIY world. It’s convenient for society if we all conform and do it “their way.” More and more, systems are being created to supposedly make things easier through automation and other technologies, but the user experience is usually not considered. Makers of these systems don’t give enough consideration to what the customer experience is like, and as a result, we end up feeling like we must case manage our day-to-day lives. 
Time and again, I have written about attention, and time and again, I have tried to illustrate that whatever seems to be obvious to you is a function of what you are paying attention to. So, if you want to pay attention to the right thing, then you need to pay attention to how things work by focusing on the process, not the result. To demonstrate that I really do practice what I preach, I will share with you an experience of how I put these principles into play a few days ago in my own life.