What is Executive Function Coaching? The Secret Tool You Didn’t Know You Needed
Have you heard of executive function coaching? If not, you're not alone! It’s one of the most amazing resources many people don’t even know they need. Today, I’m sharing how I found my way into this career, what executive function coaching actually is, and why it could be a game changer for you.
What is Executive Functioning?
Executive functioning refers to a set of cognitive processes that help you navigate daily life. Executive functions play a significant role in your everyday activities: everything from learning how to write computer code to folding and putting away your laundry.
Executive function skills help you get things done.
Executive functions are a set of mental skills that include:
Planning: Creating a realistic roadmap to reach a goal
Organizing: Keeping track of things physically and mentally
Prioritizing: Identifying how to complete tasks in order of importance
Sustained Attention: Focusing on a specific task for a continuous amount of time without becoming distracted
Time Management: Planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities
Working Memory: Holding information in your mind while using it
Self-Regulation: Noticing and controlling thoughts, behaviors, and emotions
Task Initiation: The ability to start a task, activity, or project
Problem solving: Identifying challenges, analyzing possible solutions, and deciding the best course of action
Flexible thinking: Adjusting to new situations or changes in plans
What do challenges with executive functioning look like?
Procrastination and feeling stuck
Difficulty starting projects (even ones you want to do!)
Over or underestimating how long things will take
Having lots of ideas & losing track of thoughts
Difficulty focusing
Physical disorganization
Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and burnout
Who can benefit from Executive Function Coaching?
Everyone uses executive function skills every single day. Anyone can benefit from working with an executive function coach!
We often hear the term executive functioning when talking about children, but adults rely on executive functioning skills, too. I exclusively coach adults!
Everyone occasionally procrastinates, misplaces their keys, and runs late every once in a while, but some people experience extreme & chronic challenges with executive functioning. If you've ever felt like everyone else has their act together while you're just trying to keep up, know this: you're not alone.
Diagnoses such as ADHD, Autism, OCD, learning differences/learning disorders, and depression (along with other diagnoses) impact executive functioning. Life events, stress, change, and health can also impact executive functioning.
Executive function coaching is about more than just managing time or getting organized. It’s about building a toolkit that makes life feel less overwhelming. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, professional, or student, learning how to use your executive function skills can make a world of difference.
Here’s the good news: you can learn new executive functioning strategies that will work for you at any point in time in life.
How do you find an executive function coach?
Executive function coaching is a growing field and there are lots of amazing coaches and resources out there.
It’s important that both you and your coach feel working together is a good fit.
Do your research. Find executive function coaches near you (if you are looking for in person coaching) or search for areas of speciality if you are open to meeting a coach on Zoom. For example, there are coaches who only work with women, entrepreneurs, or students.
Some questions to ask yourself:
Does this seem like someone I would be comfortable talking to? (Follow them on Instagram, listen to their podcast, read their email newsletter)
Do they offer a free discovery call to make sure working together is a good fit?
What's communication with them like? Are they easy to talk to? Do they ask me good questions?
Do we share similar values?
I know the impact of having a great-fit coach – it’s why I want all my clients to feel confident that working with me is the right choice.
If you’re wondering if working with a coach on our team is a good fit, the first step is to submit an application telling me a little about you and your goals. Then we’ll schedule a 45-minute discovery call to make sure working together is the right fit! (And if it’s not the right fit, I’ll share some other resources.)
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Sarah Lovell (00:00)
Have you heard of executive function coaching? It is a game changer for navigating life. Today, I'll share how I found my way into this amazing career and why executive function coaching might just be the resource you didn't know you needed.
have such a cool job that most people have never heard of. So that is what we're going to talk about today. My goal with this podcast is to spread the word that executive function coaching is an amazing resource. So today I'm going to be talking about what executive functioning actually is, what coaches help you with.
and how I became a coach and accidentally started my business. So we're gonna cram quite a bit into this episode today. I'm excited to kind of, to share a little bit of my journey with you. This is something I haven't really talked about a lot on Instagram, like how I became an executive function coach. So it's a windy, fun, fun story.
But before we do that, let's talk about what is executive functioning. So executive functioning skills are basically the mental skills that we all need every single day to navigate daily life and get things done. So if you think about your day, from the minute you wake up until you go to bed, you are constantly
using executive function skills, planning, organizing, prioritizing, time management, flexible thinking, short -term memory, decision -making, problem -solving. All of these things impact every single thing that we do throughout the day. So your morning routine, getting up and deciding how you're going to start your day.
Are you going to jump right in to making coffee and breakfast and sitting down with a book? Or are you stuck doom scrolling? Those are executive functioning skills. And there's no shame on the doom scroll if that's you in the morning. If it's not serving you, we can definitely talk about how to navigate it. But that is, that's part of our executive functioning is what are the decisions that we're making?
What are the actions that we're taking? And having tools in your toolbox is really important. And this is something that not everybody has the right set of tools to help them manage their time or decide the right order of priorities or how to take a big task and break it down. So.
Almost anybody can benefit from executive function coaching. You do not need to have ADHD or another diagnosis to benefit from learning new tools and new systems. I think it's super important to acknowledge that some people experience way more chronic and intense challenges with executive functioning. So if you're chronically running late or like
having extremely difficult time getting started on things, feeling physically disorganized, mentally disorganized. Your perception of time is different, where you're over or underestimating how long things take. That can lead to chronic overwhelm, stress, and burnout. And so I want to validate that some people do experience this
daily intense challenge with executive functioning. And those often tend to be the people that I work with, whether it's in one -on -one coaching or in my coaching membership, Stuck to Started. But I also support people who don't experience as intensive challenges, but still want to learn systems to work more efficiently and feel better about how they're getting things done.
and work with their brain instead of using systems that do get the job done, but it feels like you're kind of fighting against yourself a little bit. So literally anybody can benefit from learning about executive functioning skills. Like that is my goal is to shout it from the mountaintops that
executive functioning skills are things that you can learn and evolve and grow and change over time. Because your life will look different as things change, right? And so the systems you use might also look different. So I will definitely do future episodes on what executive functioning looks like in our day -to -day lives and really break it down. But I just want to
for this episode let you know that you are always using executive function skills.
a coach because I wanted to help people learn about themselves, learn about their unique brains, and feel more confident, calmer, excited about how they're getting things done and excited about the goals that they're working on by creating tools and systems that work for their brain. And I accidentally became an executive function
coach.
so, so grateful that this career found me. And I want to share a little bit about my journey of how I became an executive function coach because it truly is what guides my coaching practice and who I am as a person and an executive function coach and a business owner.
So I had never heard of executive function coaching when I entered college. I honestly don't think I'd even heard of executive functioning. It was not a buzzword back in 2009. Or if it was, it was not in my
I started college, I knew I wanted to help people, but I didn't really know in what way. So naturally, I chose psychology as a major, which I'm so grateful for.
so I studied at Endicott College, which is a small liberal arts school in Beverly, Massachusetts. It is a beautiful campus on the ocean. and I have so many amazing, fond memories of my time at
Endicott.
one of the most important pieces of my time at Endicott was that all students are required to do internships. And so I did.
four internships over the course of my time at Endicott. And that really helped me rule in and rule out what I liked doing professionally. And so in addition to doing my internships, I also was an extremely academically motivated student. And I think this is important to talk about. So I really pushed myself at school. Like I thrive.
in a learning environment. And I'm somebody who has very strong executive function
part of the reason why I'm such a good executive function coach is because this is a strength that is just, it's in me and it's something that I've built over the years. And I work with a lot of people who obviously are struggling with that.
And I think it's important to acknowledge that I have not struggled in the same way that my clients have. And that guides my coaching practice. So I do not have ADHD. There are lots of coaches out there who do, and that guides their coaching practice, their lived experience. But the things that guide my coaching practice are my academic background.
that I love learning about the brain. I love learning about new systems. My executive functioning strengths that I have lots of tools to share with people and help you mold or adjust or try out to see what will work for you. I will never say this works for me. So this will work for you, but I'm somebody who has
a very diverse toolbox of strategies that I can share and we can collaboratively like play with to fit your brain and what works for you. Another piece of my background that guides my coaching practice is after I left Endicott, I went to get my master's in social work at Boston University because I, at that point in time,
thought that the way that I wanted to support people was through supporting their mental health and being a therapist or a counselor. so coaching is not therapy or counseling, and that is an extremely important distinction. I once wore the hat of a social worker and worked at a nonprofit organization.
But the coaching that I do now is not therapy. It is not counseling. And my background as a social worker guides my coaching practice. So I am a firm believer that self -talk is the foundation of our executive functioning skills. What you say to yourself matters. And what you say to yourself impacts how you feel and it impacts your ability
to use systems and tools and to take action. And so there is an extremely strong connection between self -talk, stress, anxiety, mental health, and diagnoses and executive functioning.
have a deep understanding of the mental health component of executive functioning. So that,
is a core piece of how I coach and a core thing that impacts the work that I do with clients. I always encourage people to work with a therapist or a counselor if you're looking for mental health support and to learn more about yourself with that lens. But most of my clients come to coaching after
working with a therapist or while currently working with a therapist because they're looking for the concrete tools and strategies. So let me backtrack a little bit. I took myself down a windy path of how I became a coach and what guides my coaching practice. But so basically my educational background really guides how I coach.
Although I do not have ADHD and I'm not coaching from lived experience with executive functioning challenges, I do experience many of the same challenges that I help clients with. And I acknowledge that I'm not experiencing them to the same level of intensity or chronic experience of that. I think it's important to acknowledge everyone procrastinates.
everyone gets stuck. Everyone misses an appointment or messes up their time management every once in a while.
the personal experiences that I've had that guide my coaching practice are definitely navigating challenges of being stuck, challenges with perfectionism, challenges with overloading my plate and having too much, right? Like an unrealistic to -do list. So I think it's important that
to acknowledge that everybody experiences these challenges. And if you're experiencing it on a much more intense level, I want you to know that you're not alone. And the comparison piece of my challenges to your challenges is not there,
I want to validate your experience. want to normalize your experience. And I want to let you know that you're not alone. And that's really important to me.
So now that I've given you a little bit of background of what guides my coaching practice, let me tell you how I actually found coaching, because this career was not on my radar while I was in Endicott. in between undergrad and grad school, I was living in Boston and I was working full -time as a research assistant and needed to have a side hustle, part -time job on top of my full -time job.
And so I just happened to find a job posting for a nonprofit in Boston that provided what was called life skills coaching to autistic adults. And this was in full alignment with what I wanted to do and how I wanted to work with people. And so I was so fortunate to be able to start my first exposure to coaching through this nonprofit organization.
And even though it was called life skills coaching at the time, what I was really doing was executive functioning coaching. So I worked with clients on all sorts of goals, everything from keeping track of long -term projects at work to managing household chores, laundry, cooking, cleaning, those types of things.
to making plans with friends, right? All of these things require planning, time management, task initiation, right? Getting started. So this was my first exposure to helping people figure out why they were feeling stuck and create tools and strategies that worked for them. And I absolutely loved it. So I started coaching with that agency.
back in 2014. So I have been coaching for 10 years. And when I say that out loud, it sounds wild, 10 years is a very long time, but it's also been such a big part of my life. It is a huge piece of my identity being a coach. So I coached with that nonprofit agency,
for seven years, part -time. I always had a few clients with them throughout grad school, throughout my first full -time job as a social worker, which was my dream job at a nonprofit organization in New Hampshire. So I was living my dream of being a social worker and still coaching on the side.
And I thought that was going to be my career path, honestly, for the rest of my working years. I thought I would always have a social work job and a few coaching clients. And but life, the universe had other plans. So I found myself wanting to do more.
coaching time and so I started asking for more clients through the agency. I also started connecting with private clients, like people who heard that this was work that I did. And so I started working with a wider, wider population of people. I started working with college students and helping them navigate independence for the first time.
figuring out how to use their free time, how to advocate for themselves with professors, and realized that so many more people could benefit from the type of coaching that I was doing. So I had the spark that I could work with more people and impact more people through my coaching.
My silver lining from COVID was that more people were looking for this type of support and executive functions had become more of a buzzword. More people were talking about this. And so during COVID, more people started looking for coaches. And at that time, I think a lot of us were
We're reconsidering our goals, thinking about what we value, like really doing some deep reflecting in what was an extremely challenging time. And so my goal was, okay, I will get some more private clients. I will do this more officially, launch a website and still do it part -time.
And so this is how I accidentally started my business during COVID. basically I spent way too long creating a website because I thought it needed to be perfect. And I'm a recovering perfectionist. This is something I'm constantly working on, but now looking back on it,
I let my website be what kept me stuck from launching my business, when in reality there was definitely fear of failure, imposter syndrome, like lots of things about growing a business and putting myself out there that were causing me to slow down. like, really I was ready to launch that website, but I, know, the tabs needed to be the right
you know, is everything perfectly centered? And do I have a logo? And you don't need a logo, right? So I probably, if COVID hadn't expedited this process, I might still be sitting on the first version of my website. So I'm so glad that there was really this push and like a little bit of urgency to launch my website when I did.
So when I started my business, I had no idea that I was actually starting a business. I really thought I just wanted to get a few more private clients and connect with more people. So I had started my Instagram back in 2020. And yeah, I really didn't have a concrete goal at that time other than I just wanted to get a few more clients. And...
It grew very quickly because people were looking for the support. And I'm so, so, so grateful that the challenges, the way everything lined up just worked out. So when I realized that I was actually growing a business, I had a lot of like shoulds.
in my head. Like I should just be able to figure this out on my own. I should know what I'm doing, which is simply not true. I had never taken a business class. I didn't know the first thing about what I would need to do to make this a legitimate business. And so I hesitantly started asking for help, which now I am much
better at and I actively look for people to help me on things.
at the time, to put myself out and be vulnerable and to say that I don't know something or to say that I was struggling with something
was really uncomfortable. So to hire a business coach, to hire a graphic designer, to reach out to an accountant and say, how do I set up my books and my financial stuff?
was terrifying. And I could talk forever on how I started my business and what I learned from it and what I would do differently. But I think the important piece of this is that, one, it was a lot of executive functioning skills and strategies to be able to pull everything together. Two, it was a lot of self -talk, checking in with myself of
How can I be kinder to myself? How can I ask for help?
And three, starting this business has allowed me to connect with even more people and to grow as a coach, a person, and a business owner. And I am so, so, so grateful for all of that. So my goal with this podcast, with my Instagram, with my business, is to spread the word that executive function coaching exists.
and to let you know that if you are struggling with executive functioning, you are not alone. My goal is to connect with more people. I want to share more tools and strategies and resources. I'll also share more about my story and who I am as a person and as a coach. But today I just wanted to give you a snapshot of how I got here.
and what my journey has looked like and what executive functioning coaching means to me. So if there's someone in your life who you think should know about executive function coaching, please consider sharing this podcast episode with them. And thank you so much for being part of my community.
