You won’t know if coaching can work for you until you try, so I urge you to make the effort.

Partnership, process, and structure are three vital ingredients that make self-coaching work for you. Understanding that coaching is a journey – that it is a process, the antithesis of instant gratification – can help you adhere to your commitment to take control of your life, even during those inevitable moments of frustration when you’re tempted to turn away.

The A-N-S-W-E-R self-coaching strategy can help provide the structure for steps you can take to make progress. Look to the A-N-S-W-E-R as a guide to steps toward new habits and strategies to keep you committed.

To help you with your self-coaching journey, you may also want to create outside accountability partners, trusted advisors with whom you can touch base and who are willing and able to commit to you.

The answer “yes” to the following questions could suggest that a diagnosis is recommended. A diagnosis might reveal that therapy or medication is also warranted and if you ignore that aspect of your struggle you could sabotage even your best efforts at coaching yourself.

• Do you frequently feel stuck, unable to “get your act together,” or unable to meet your goals?
• Do you find yourself with too many projects at once, so many that you can’t follow through with any of them?
• Are you easily distracted or unable to focus?
• Is it difficult for you to get organized?
• Do you frequently procrastinate, resisting the idea of beginning your work?
• Are you frequently impulsive?
• Do you frequently speak without thinking about the consequences of your words?
• Do you forget the consequences of past actions, thereby repeating mistakes?
• Do you have problems with self-acceptance and self-esteem?
• Are you too easily bored, too easily attracted to some new stimulus?
• Do you frequently begin projects enthusiastically, only to lose interest

There are many well-used strategies for procrastination. However, it’s up to you to discover strategies that WORK for you. One way to identify a strategy is to ask yourself some significant what and how questions:

• What is the issue?
• What can I do about it?
• What strategies that are effective “there” can I use ‘here”?
• How can I maintain progress?
• How can I set up accountability?

Another approach to finding a strategy for procrastination is as follows:

Start the day by writing down your primary goal. At the end of the day, list as many things as you remember doing that day and put a check next to each one that was connected to your goal. It will give you a clear picture of the relationship of your goals to your actions. It will also show you the kinds of things that pull you off course, so you can learn to identify barriers.

Here are just a few strategies from the more extensive list in the book.

• Chunking
• Creating accountability partners
• Engineering the environment
• Identifying barriers
• Keep the goal in mind
• Co-coach your way forward
• Separate the setup from the task
• Establish and meet the minimal goal

Coaching can benefit individuals with ADHD, when the individual with ADHD is basically healthy, has an idea of what his/her issues are, is ready to devote the time to work on the issues, only needing a coach to draw them out.

The basic premise behind self-coaching and ADHD Coaching is the same. The real difference is the person to whom you will be accountable.