About Sam

I spent many years knowing that something was not quite right, without
understanding why.

Before receiving my ADHD diagnosis, I struggled across different areas of life, including school,
relationships, emotional regulation and my ability to manage my thoughts and behaviour.
I experienced a constantly active mind, racing thoughts, restlessness, impulsivity and a strong need
for stimulation. I often found it difficult to switch off, slow down or understand why certain situations
affected me so intensely.
Like many people who go through life without understanding their ADHD, I developed ways of coping
with experiences I could not explain. Some of these became unhealthy coping mechanisms and, over
time, contributed to addiction and a pattern of self-medication.
I did not understand at the time that I was attempting to manage an ADHD brain that had never been
identified. I simply knew that I wanted the noise in my head to stop, that I wanted relief and that
certain behaviours gave me temporary escape.
My ADHD diagnosis gave me a framework for understanding experiences that had previously felt
disconnected. It did not excuse the choices I had made, but it gave me context and allowed me to
look at my past through a different lens.
One of the most important changes was learning to distinguish between self-medication, unhealthy
coping mechanisms and addiction. Understanding the function a behaviour can serve is different
from excusing the behaviour itself.
For me, understanding came before meaningful change.
Through therapy, personal development, recovery and learning more about ADHD, I began to
understand myself rather than simply judging myself. That process ultimately led me towards ADHD
coaching and a desire to help others do the same.

My Coaching Philosophy

My coaching is centered around understanding rather than trying to fix the person.

I do not believe that adults with ADHD simply need more discipline, another rigid routine or an
endless list of productivity strategies.
Instead, I focus on helping clients understand what is happening beneath the behaviour, identify the
patterns that are affecting their lives and develop a more accurate and compassionate understanding
of themselves.
The aim is not to remove responsibility. It is to replace unnecessary shame and self-blame with
context, awareness and understanding.
When you understand the why, you can begin to change the what.
Practical strategies can be valuable, but I do not believe in overwhelming clients with a large number
of techniques that are difficult to sustain. Strategies are most useful when they are built around an
individual’s understanding of themselves, their ADHD and their circumstances.

Understanding Patterns

A significant part of my coaching involves looking beyond the behaviour itself and exploring how patterns have developed throughout a person’s life.

We can look at experiences from childhood, school, friendships, family relationships, work, intimate
relationships and adulthood, and consider how those experiences may have influenced the way a
person sees themselves and responds to the world.
Many adults with ADHD have spent years carrying labels such as lazy, difficult, disruptive, emotional,
unreliable or too much. Repeated criticism, rejection, exclusion or feeling different can also influence
beliefs about self-worth and belonging.
These experiences can contribute to patterns that continue into adult life, including overthinking,
people-pleasing, avoidance, emotional reactivity, difficulty trusting yourself, sensitivity to rejection and
persistent self-blame.
We do not simply ask, “What are you doing?” We also ask, “Where might this
pattern have come from?”
Understanding the development of a pattern is not about remaining stuck in the past. It is about
understanding what has been carried into the present so that it can be approached differently.

Reframing

Reframing is a central part of my coaching.
Rather than automatically accepting the most critical explanation for a behaviour, we explore what
else may be happening underneath it.
“I am lazy” → “I am struggling with initiation, structure or regulation.”
“I am too emotional” → “I experience emotions intensely and can learn to
understand what happens before I react.”
“I keep ruining relationships” → “There may be patterns in how I respond to
uncertainty, rejection and emotional triggers.”
“I lack discipline” → “The way I have been trying to function may not be
compatible with how my brain works.”
Reframing does not mean avoiding accountability. It means moving away from an inaccurate or
overly critical interpretation and towards one that provides useful context.
Understanding your past is not about living in it. It is about understanding what
you have carried into the present.

ADHD, Self-Medication & Addiction

My own experience has given me a strong personal understanding of the relationship between
ADHD, coping mechanisms, self-medication and addiction.
Before I knew I had ADHD, I used unhealthy coping mechanisms to manage experiences such as
racing thoughts, restlessness, emotional intensity and the desire to switch my mind off.
Over time, some of those coping mechanisms developed into addiction. Looking back, I can
recognise that self-medication was part of the picture, while also recognising that self-medication and
addiction are not interchangeable terms.
This distinction is important in my coaching. Understanding that a behaviour may have served a
coping or self-medication function does not remove responsibility for the consequences of that
behaviour.
The goal is not to excuse behaviour. The goal is to understand what sits
underneath it.
Where appropriate within the scope of coaching, we can explore patterns such as using stimulation,
avoidance, distraction or other behaviours to regulate emotions, escape difficult thoughts or switch off
an overwhelmed mind.
My coaching is not addiction treatment and is not a replacement for clinical, medical or specialist
addiction support. Where a client’s needs fall outside the scope of coaching, appropriate professional
support should be considered.

Areas My Coaching Can Explore

• Understanding ADHD
  Making sense of how ADHD can influence thoughts, emotions, behaviour, relationships
  and everyday experiences.
• Emotional Regulation
  Understanding emotional reactions, identifying triggers and creating space between an
  emotional response and the action that follows.
• Overthinking
  Exploring repetitive thought patterns, uncertainty, rumination and the tendency to search
  for certainty.
• Relationships
  Understanding relationship patterns, communication, emotional reactions, rejection sensitivity and
  how previous experiences can influence current relationships.
•  Self-Worth & Confidence
  Challenging long-standing beliefs that have developed through years of criticism,
  comparison, misunderstanding or self-blame.
• Identity
  Exploring who you have become through your experiences and separating your identity
  from the labels you may have carried.
• Unhealthy Coping Patterns
  Understanding the function of behaviours used to manage overwhelm, stimulation,
  emotional discomfort or the need to switch off.
• Building a Life That Works With Your ADHD
  Moving towards approaches, structures and strategies that are realistic for the individual rather than
  forcing yourself into systems that continually fail.

How I Work With Clients

My approach is collaborative, individual and focused on understanding.
I want clients to leave coaching with a clearer understanding of themselves, not simply a longer list of
things they should be doing.
We explore what is happening, where patterns may have developed, how ADHD may interact with
those patterns and what meaningful change could look like.
Practical strategies can form part of the process, but they are introduced with purpose rather than as
an overwhelming collection of ADHD hacks.
The aim is sustainable understanding and meaningful change, not temporary
motivation.

The Message Behind My Coaching

You do not need to become a different person.
You may need to understand why you have become the person you are.
ADHD can affect far more than attention. It can influence how we experience ourselves, relationships,
emotions, rejection, motivation and the world around us.
My aim is to help clients move from self-blame towards understanding, from confusion towards
clarity, and from simply managing behaviours towards understanding the patterns underneath them.
Less shame. Less self-blame. More understanding. More choice.