Accountability and ADHD: what works?
“Do you offer accountability?” This is something I hear often in my ADHD coaching service.
My answer? Yes, and also, no. If you want, I’ll offer to help you decide what you want to do between sessions, and write this down, and ask about this when we next meet. I may offer to send check in emails in between if it seems like it would help. But I won’t ‘hold you accountable’ in the classic sense of the word. No sir. In my experience, that actually won’t help you much to get things done.
ADHDers dream of accountability
Wouldn’t it be great if I could tell someone I’d do something, and then that in itself would motivate me to do it? This is the dream of many people with ADHD-type brains.
I offer a free introductory chat to people curious about coaching (or more usually, desperate for help). In the form to sign up for it, I invite people to tell me a bit about what they hope to get out of coaching. What do you think they say?
They say all sorts of things - help with executive functions; help make sense of my life story; give me strategies till I get on meds; help with organisation, planning/prioritising, time management, regulating my emotions, and keeping my job; and even: I have no idea where to start. And sometimes they say: I want accountability.
Now, this is fascinating to me. Why? Because A. in our culture we believe that adding in accountability is an obvious way to get things done. And meanwhile B. people with ADHD-type brains are often the very last ones to be motivated by being told what to do and being told off. Quite the opposite, in fact.
People with ADHD-type brains often have a complex reaction to accountability. In your life, there have probably been times and situations where it seems to work wonders. But at other times, it has no effect, or makes things worse by setting off task paralysis and procrastination. It feels random - but it’s not really.
My personal experience of accountability is pretty typical for people with ADHD-type brains. I optimistically hope and believe that if I ask someone to hold me accountable to agreed-on actions, that will make me do them. But then I immediately forget about what I said I’d do, or if I do remember, I soon plunge into guilt, dread and procrastination. The pressure evaporates my motivation.
It does work occasionally. For me, these are the situations in which it works:
Someone is relying on me and it will make their life harder if I don’t do it
There is an exciting deadline and I get competitive about it
I was obsessed with the project and going to do it anyway
The person who is holding me accountable doesn’t think that I can do it
The person holding me accountable has the power to fire or fail me
What is accountability?
Accountability is a major part of many kinds of coaching. Here’s a dictionary definition:
/əˌkaʊntəˈbɪləti/ - the fact of being responsible for your decisions or actions and expected to explain them when you are asked
I think accountability is appropriate and effective for a boss or manager to offer to an employee. I do believe that managers having more coaching skills would give structure and clarity to so many workers. I think that aims and milestones and deadlines and check-ins are great for many of us.
In leadership coaching, or in workplace coaching, the person being coached would agree to goals and the steps towards achieving them. They would agree to do certain things by certain dates. Then they would go off and roll up their sleeves and get things done!
Can you see the problem in this for many adult ADHDers? Most people I work with can see clearly what they aim to do and when by. They just can’t seem to reliably do it.
Expecting people to simply ‘take responsibility’ in this way isn’t my coaching philosophy at all. My approach is all about setting things up so that it’s easy to do what we want to do. Yes, there are points at which we make choices, but often these are more to do with cooling down or amping up our nervous systems, and happen long before the thing you want to change.
You may have at some point had the experience of being motivated by things we connect with the idea of accountability: by fear, by a deadline, by the feeling of being part of something that matters, or by knowing that someone is waiting on you. If we look back to our definition, I don’t know if that’s the same as ‘accountability’.
An example of what works for adult ADHDers
Let’s say you want to go to a yoga class on a Monday night, but you never actually end up going. In the ‘accountability’ framework, you can tell me that you want to go, and ask me to hold you accountable, and I can agree to ask you about it next time we meet. If you don’t do it, I’m going to ask you why, and remind you of your stated aims.
Does this work? Occasionally, yes, that’s enough. But what works way more often is a process more like this:
Check that this activity at this time is actually a good fit for you right now
Work out what gets in the way of you just popping out to a yoga class on Monday night
Make sure you have the right objects
Make sure you have a prompt - maybe the night before, morning and then 30 minutes before the class
Reframe your goal - eg to make it to the room the class is in by 5 minutes before the class starts
Connect with vision - of you enjoying the class or feeling good afterwards or feeling good in the rest of your week
Connect with values - with the core of “I choose to…”
Get excited by the challenge of actually going to class - can you find a way to do it?
Then, and only then, would I offer to check in with you about going to the class. To take the pressure off, I let people know that checking in looks like this: Would you like me to ask next time about how getting to the yoga class went? I’m so interested to hear how you go. If you don’t do it, that’s okay too. When we talk, you can tell me what worked and what didn’t.
Sometimes when the next session rolls around, people don’t want to talk about that thing at all - there’s something else on their mind. That’s fine. I hold their intention, and may bring it up in the next session when it feels right. Often there’s been some progress without them having noticed. Isn’t that curious?
Accountability isn’t usually enough on its own to help people to actually do the things they want to do. Here are the things that this process adds in:
The feeling that someone else cares whether you do it or not
Getting to talk it through in more detail than your friends and family can tolerate (this seems to work wonders for many ADHD-type brains)
Problem-solving that anticipates the kind of obstacles an ADHD-type brain is likely to face, along with those specific to your unique life
Helping you to visualise all the steps clearly
Getting you intrigued by the challenge, which wakes up your beautiful brain
There is a deadline and urgency, which is motivating for many of us
What have I got against accountability for ADHD?
Firstly, let’s just acknowledge that I have a strong contrary streak. I do often do most of the actions that coaches mean when they talk about accountability, with my own twist.. But I also can’t help analysing and examining our assumptions to see what’s underneath.
I see a risk from the accountability framework for many adult ADHDers. It’s about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, taking responsibility for your actions, and being disciplined.
So many of the people I work with are already using this kind of philosophy to keep their lives together. But they’re using it to generate anxiety and stress that will help their brains switch on. They’re bullying themselves, or demanding that they be perfect to compensate for what they see as their failings. So many people I talk with are already kicking their own butts, all day, every day. And it’s not really working.
I wonder if accountability is similar to consistency and moderation. We’ve been told so often that all we need is to take responsibility for our actions, and do so consistently and moderately. But doing something you want to do isn’t mostly about Character or Discipline. It’s about supporting yourself to find and follow the thread of action in the moments that action is suitable.
Each ADHD-type brain is a powerhouse of unique possibilities. Let’s support it with everything we’ve got! Otherwise, I’m at risk of setting you up for failure. You’ve probably had enough times of meaning to do something and then not doing it and feeling rubbish about yourself. I don’t want to add to that load.
How accountability works in my ADHD coaching practice
In a series of coaching sessions with me, I always offer to help people to choose something to try out during the time between sessions. From here, things tend to work in one of these ways, with a pretty even spread of numbers:
We talk through things in a big zigzag, and the person says they don’t want me to check in on anything specific
Someone asks me to check in on something we’ve talked through, and then when we meet, they haven’t thought about it again (but usually they’ve done something else useful)
Someone asks me to check in on something we’ve talked through, and they’ve thought about it and tried things out and they report back on what they’ve learnt
So, if someone has a series of sessions, I can pretty much tell by the second session whether the check in (accountability) process is useful for them or not. And if it hasn’t worked immediately, I tend not to suggest it again. I make notes of things to check in on in a more ‘casual’ way instead.
We all work in mysterious ways, and that’s okay. It’s easier to learn how to plan your day than it is to turn yourself into a person who accountability works for.
My clients do regularly do the things they want to do when they have coaching with me. Sometimes it’s things they’ve been putting off for months or years, like completing study, breaking off a relationship, or unpacking the moving boxes.
Sometimes it’s because they said they’d do a specific part of it by the time we next meet, and they’re excited to celebrate this progress with me. This is something I hear often: “I knew I’d be talking with you today and I wanted to be able to tell you that I’d done it!”
Other times, they do the things we talked about, but weeks later. Sometimes it takes time for a specific insight to click and sink in. Autonomy is crucial for people with ADHD-type minds, and people may have to convince themselves of the value and meaningfulness of their new chosen behaviour through repeated experience.
ADHD accountability in action
Do you want to know the real reason I’m writing this? I teach a class for adults with ADHD-type brains. Towards the end of each class, I ask if anyone wants to set an intention or try something out over the week till we see each other again.
I also offer to write down things that people want to aim to do during the week. I tell them that I’ll ask them how it went. I let them know that whatever happens is fine, and that some people find this process motivating. (Sometimes they say they’ll clean their fridge and instead they get motivated to clear out their car…it’s still a win.)
Last week, during this time, there was a cruel twist. One of my magnificent students asked me what I wanted to add to the list. Busted! I was thinking: I don’t want to do anything, ever. (I have a very sulky subconscious.) What did I say out loud? I said: I want to write something and post it on my website. So here I am!
Is this accountability? Yes, kind of. Is it more about encouragement, feeling like others will care if I do it, and be kind to me if I don’t? Yes, definitely. Or, like so many other forms of motivation, is it me hijacking urgency, fun, and emotional rewards to help myself to actually do what I wanted to do anyway? Yes, yes, and yes!
It’s another layer in the matrix of how I’m motivating myself to write this. Other elements include: working in 15 minutes increments, using a timer ap, working at a cafe, knowing the steps of the writing and editing process, sushi, and hoping that my efforts will be useful for somebody else.
ADHD and the wonders of encouragement
Accountability sounds serious and cold and productive. I’m not any of these things. I won’t tell you off, kick your butt, or ‘hold you accountable’ in the classic sense. I will be honest with you, reflect back to you what you told me in the past, and encourage you. I’ll help you improve the supports you put in place that lead to you doing the things you want to do.
I will clap my hands. I will praise you for your efforts and any progress, including learning what doesn’t work. I may find your failures hilariously relatable. I’ll ask questions that lead you to useful answers. I’ll be interested, and this will help you be interested, and that will help you succeed.
So yes, I offer accountability, if that is genuinely what works for you. More importantly, at the same time I offer problem-solving help, someone to share excitement about your efforts, and reminders of the aims you told me about last session. I’ll be kind and support you to be kind to yourself. This, in my experience, is what truly works for most people with ADHD-type brains.
If you’d like to experience this for yourself, you can book a coaching session with me.