The 4 Phases of Coaching Revealed

Four Coaching Phases

Coaching is unique to each individual. For professional, creative, smart adults who live with ADHD, coaching can be an essential key to ending the chaos and endeavoring to build the framework you need to live well and thrive. Recognizing your feelings at each stage of Coaching and recognizing it as a learning process can help you to “stick with it” long enough to manage emotional ups and downs, and bear the fruit of the changes that will eventually stick.

Coaching phases or stages represent levels of personal awareness and learning. When you learn new skills, you will experience different emotions at different stages of the learning process. You may move from blissful ignorance about your ADHD to hopeless negative awareness of how the condition has impacted nearly every facet of your life, to a sense of grieving, then eventual acceptance, and then onto optimizing your life for your own unique needs. The phases of coaching are somewhat ephemeral, but are often experienced as less pain by clients moving through each stage.

Change Is A Process

At the beginning of a coaching relationship, clients may not realize how much there is to learn in the first coaching phase. As a result the first thrust of your work will be to actively gather data, information, and experiences to build awareness. During the initial phase of coaching, clients discover what they know and what they don’t know about a subject. And the saying ‘the more I learn, the less I know’ tends to play out for everyone in the first few months of a coaching relationship. During this stage, many clients experience weird emotions, and even a sense of disorientation in themselves. This may lead to them feeling disheartened. Others may even give up. However, the good stuff in coaching evolves over time and tends to unfold and deepen with more sessions.

Because of this ‘unfolding’ – many coaches offer packages that seem like a lot to begin with, but the results have been proven time after time. The first few months set the stage for learning, while the next several help you experiment, adjust and score some wins as you try-on and adapt to new behaviors.

Learning is a cumulative process of building Conscious Competence. In this article we explore how you can understand the coaching phases, and leverage your investment in coaching wisely.

Coaching Phase – Building Awareness

Any true coaching partnership begins with an initial strategy session to align on goals and processes for coaching. In the first coaching phase, you’ll learn to recognize how your ADHD comes to play. We zero in on actions, routines, and accountability pathways to get you on track to meet your goals. Based on your starting point, your first goal will be to build a keen awareness of your symptoms and how they manifest daily. Awareness is not a stopping point, but a lens to develop that will continue to unfold throughout your life.

Coaching Phase – Ideation

Regular weekly sessions keep you on track. By experiencing many different situations over the course of several months, you’ll begin to see both helpful and unhelpful patterns in your life. You’ll learn how to live more successfully with your condition. This will help you to try new routines, build redundancies and devise fail-safe workarounds to keep you motivated and in action. You’ll deepen your awareness and focus on unique strategies that work for you. Typically this stage can take between three to four months. However, some clients begin the Ideation coaching phase and stay in the inquiry journey.

Coaching Phase – Integration

During this coaching phase, coaching continues together until you feel you’re living on purpose and integrating your new awareness ongoingly. Many of your goals will be either in process or achieved. We meet either twice or at least once monthly. During this stage, many clients feel confident, strong, and aware of how they can evoke change, align resources, and get their needs met.

Coaching Phase – Systematization

Although this Coaching Phase is described and pictured as a stage in the infographic, it may be best understood as a ‘STATE’ of being. In fact,  coaching partners with you through many stages of development. You initially enter Coaching in a state of ‘unconscious incompetence’ and through a process of building awareness and curiosity – you will begin to build ‘Conscious Competence’. You will know you’re building competence in areas because you’ll begin to notice things that were once difficult, are now easy.

In Conclusion

If you’re currently living in a time of unconscious incompetence, or a new ADHD Diagnosis has caused you to become consciously incompetent about ADHD and its impact on your life, work, and relationships, it’s a great time to consider coaching as a part of a mental health plan. Coaching phases provide a structured approach to change and can provide guidelines and a framework for your personal development. Coaching can continue until you feel you’re living on purpose and integrating your new awareness ongoingly.

Through each coaching phase, you’ll clearly articulate personalized goals. During your time in coaching, many of your goals will be either in process or achieved. We meet regularly to ensure your success. If you’re interested in learning more about ADHD coaching and how I can help you feel confident, strong, and aware of how to evoke change, align resources, and meet your own needs, please reach out by applying for a complimentary Discovery Call.