fbpx

Executive Functioning Coaching in Bristol

Executive Functioning Coaching in Bristol and online

Executive functioning coaching is practical, personalised support to help you function more effectively, build on your strengths and develop approaches that fit your individual needs and preferences.

You may know what needs to be done and have the skills to do it but find that those abilities are not always equally accessible. Starting, organising, remembering, focusing, following through or adapting can vary depending on the task, your energy, emotions, motivation, environment and the demands around you.

Sometimes the difficulty is not simply having or lacking a skill. Your attention and mental capacity may be being used elsewhere: by competing demands, uncertainty, emotions, other people’s needs or things that feel particularly urgent or difficult to leave unresolved.

Executive functioning support helps you understand what is affecting your access to your abilities and explore practical ways of working with those patterns.

On this page you’ll find more information on the following topics:

Who can benefit from executive functioning coaching

How the coaching works

How the sessions can help with a real life project or task 

Who can benefit?

Executive functioning support can be useful for children, young people, adults, parents, educators and professionals.

It may be particularly helpful if you:

  • Know what you need to do but struggle to get started or follow through
  • Find planning, organisation, focus or working memory difficult
  • Experience a gap between what you can do and what you can consistently access
  • Find that your abilities change depending on the situation
  • Notice that your attention or energy is repeatedly pulled towards other demands
  • Find uncertainty, competing priorities or unfinished problems difficult to leave alone
  • Want to develop greater understanding, confidence, flexibility or independence
  • Want practical ways to support a child or young person
  • Are neurodivergent including ADHD, autism and dyslexia, with or without a formal diagnosis

The approach to understanding and improving executive functioning

The work falls into two parts. The first is to better understand executive functioning and the second is support and coaching to find ways to work differently. You can focus on understanding, practical coaching, or combine both. You do not need to know exactly what you need before you start.

  1. Understand Executive Functioning

You can learn more about executive functioning, what influences it and why the ability to plan, focus, organise or follow through can change from one situation to another.

We can explore how attention, motivation, emotions, energy, environment and competing demands affect access to your abilities.

This can be particularly useful for adults, parents, educators and professionals, and can include accessible explanations, visual models and personalised exploration.

The focus is on developing a clearer picture without assuming that difficulty means a lack of ability.

2. Executive Functioning Coaching & Support

For when you want to explore what could work differently, we can work together on executive coaching and support.

Coaching to develop new ways of working

Coaching takes understanding into practical situations. We explore your goals, strengths, needs, preferences and circumstances, and experiment with different ways of approaching things.

You might work on:

Getting things started and done

  • Starting and completing tasks
  • Managing motivation and engagement
  • Following through

Thinking and organising

  • Planning and organisation
  • Focus and attention
  • Working memory
  • Flexibility and problem-solving

Managing demands

  • Managing competing demands
  • Study and learning
  • Building confidence and independence

Co-working support through real-life tasks

This is practical support through a real life project or task, In the session, I work alongside you to provide insight, prompts and accountability. Rather than simply discussing strategies, this can help you take the next step in a real life scenario and follow through with it.

This might include:

Everyday work

  • Planning and organisation
  • Getting started and following through
  • Priorities
  • Reminders and routines
  • Breaking tasks down
  • Working independently

‘Study’ skills at work focus 

  • Memory and memory techniques
  • Language-learning memory strategies
  • Revision

For children and young people, this can happen through age-appropriate activities, learning and real-life situations. You can find more information about study skills support for children and young people here.

How the executive functioning coaching works

Rather than starting with a prescribed system, we will look at you as a person, the task and the situation.

Sometimes the things affecting functioning are not immediately obvious. We can unpack what is happening and what you are dealing with, so that the next steps make sense.

Find the right fit for you

The aim is not to make you fit an existing system, it is to help you discover and develop approaches that fit you.

We’ll work towards small, realistic experiences of success that can help build self-efficacy and  confidence based on experience rather than reassurance alone.

We look not only at whether something helps you complete a task, but also at what it costs in attention, energy, motivation and effort, and whether it can realistically be maintained. Sometimes the first step is simply understanding the load you are carrying. Once we have a clearer picture of what is affecting your capacity, it becomes easier to identify the right next step.

The aim is to build a growing understanding of:

  • What helps you function well
  • What affects your capacity
  • What draws your attention and energy
  • What deserves your resources
  • What you can do independently
  • When you need support

The important part is not finding a perfect strategy,it is learning how to recognise what helps and make informed adjustments.

Sometimes a skill needs strengthening. Sometimes an existing ability needs a different route of access. Sometimes reducing competing demands makes the biggest difference.

Take the next step

Whether you want to understand executive functioning, explore what fits you, or develop practical skills and confidence, an initial conversation can help identify what would be most useful.

Out of the Box Teaching offers personalised executive functioning support in Bristol and online.

Telephone: 07786 628820

Email: info@outoftheboxteaching.co.uk

Book an initial conversation:

https://katerinalatalova.youcanbook.me

You don’t need to arrive with a diagnosis, a fixed goal or a strategy. We can start by understanding what you need, what is affecting your capacity and what might help.