You made the decision to find an ADHD coach. That part took long enough on its own. Now you're staring at your screen, searching through results, and the picture is getting muddier instead of clearer. There are executive coaches in the Loop whose websites mention ADHD in passing but seem oriented toward general leadership development. There are therapists in Lincoln Park who offer coaching as an add-on service. There are practitioners out in Naperville and Schaumburg with solid-looking credentials but no way to gauge quality without driving an hour for a consultation. And then there are the life coaches on Instagram who seem to have built their entire practice on having ADHD themselves and posting reels about it.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and that extends to how professional services are distributed. A coach in Wicker Park and a coach in Hyde Park might as well be in different cities for the purpose of getting to an appointment. Toss in the reality that from November through March, the idea of bundling up, scraping ice off your car, and trekking across town for a 45-minute session feels like a genuine barrier. People cancel. Momentum dies. The coaching relationship never gets off the ground.

The Midwestern instinct is to just figure it out yourself. Read a book, watch some videos, try harder. But ADHD doesn't respond well to willpower, and that practical self-reliance can actually delay getting the support that would make the biggest difference.

This guide walks through what to look for in an ADHD coach, how to separate real expertise from marketing, and how to make this decision without burning out on the process itself.

What is the difference between ADHD coaching, therapy, and psychiatry

These three types of support get lumped together constantly, and in Chicago specifically, where mental health awareness has grown significantly but coaching as its own category is still less established than it is on the coasts, the confusion runs deep. A lot of people start with therapy because that's the more familiar path. Therapy is valuable, but it fills a different role than coaching, and understanding the distinction matters before you start your search.

ADHD coaching is a collaborative, forward-focused partnership. You and your coach work together on practical strategies for the challenges that show up in your daily life. Think time management, task prioritization, organization systems, follow-through on commitments. Coaching is built around action. It takes how your brain actually works and builds systems that account for that reality instead of fighting against it. The focus stays on the present and the future, on what you want to accomplish and what keeps getting in the way.

Therapy goes into the emotional and psychological layers underneath. A therapist helps you process past experiences, work through anxiety or depression (both of which commonly co-occur with ADHD), and understand emotional patterns that affect how you show up day to day. Therapy is about the "why" behind your struggles and the healing that comes from exploring that. In Chicago, where the therapy landscape is robust and growing, many adults with ADHD begin here. That's a completely valid starting point. But therapy on its own doesn't always provide the tactical, habit-level tools needed to manage executive dysfunction on a Tuesday afternoon when three deadlines are colliding.

Psychiatry handles the medical side. A psychiatrist can formally diagnose ADHD, prescribe medication, and oversee your treatment from a neurological health perspective. If you're considering medication or still need a clinical diagnosis, psychiatry is where that happens.

These three are not competing services. Many adults with ADHD use a combination of all three. You might work with a psychiatrist to manage medication, see a therapist to process the emotional weight of going undiagnosed through your twenties or thirties, and partner with a coach to build the daily routines and systems that keep your work and personal life on track. In Illinois, therapy and psychiatry are more likely to be partially covered by insurance depending on your plan. Coaching generally is not, though there are workarounds covered later in this guide.

The most important thing to understand about coaching is that it's practical and present-tense. You're not analyzing your childhood. You're building a system so you actually respond to emails, make it to appointments, and stop losing entire afternoons to tasks that should take twenty minutes.

What credentials should an ADHD coach actually have

"ADHD coach" is not a protected title. No state license is required. No board exam exists. Anyone can set up a website tomorrow, call themselves an ADHD coach, and start accepting clients at $250 a session. Illinois has no specific regulation around coaching credentials. That lack of oversight means the quality range hiding behind professional-looking websites is enormous.

So how do you tell who's legitimate?

PAAC certification from the Professional Association of ADHD Coaches is one of the strongest signals. Coaches with PAAC certification have completed ADHD-specific training programs that meet rigorous educational standards, including supervised coaching hours and demonstrated competency in ADHD-related challenges. This is not a weekend workshop. It represents a meaningful investment in specialized education and ongoing professional development.

ICF credentials from the International Coaching Federation are the gold standard in the broader coaching world. An ICF-credentialed coach has completed substantial training, logged a required number of coaching hours, and passed a formal evaluation process. ICF credentials alone don't prove ADHD expertise, but combined with ADHD-specific training, they show someone who takes their profession seriously and has been externally validated.

What about lived experience? Having ADHD yourself can make someone a more empathetic and intuitive coach. But lived experience without structured training and a clear methodology isn't sufficient on its own. The best coaches combine personal understanding of how ADHD affects daily life with evidence-based frameworks for actually helping people make progress. You want both.

Red flags to watch for:

• No specific training or credentials listed anywhere on their website

• The only stated qualification is personal experience with ADHD

• Promises of specific outcomes, like "eliminating procrastination" or "curing your focus issues"

• No mention of supervision, continuing education, or a defined methodology

• Sessions that sound like casual conversation with no underlying structure

Questions worth asking any coach you're considering:

• What ADHD-specific training have you completed, and through which program?

• Are you certified through PAAC, ICF, or another recognized professional body?

• Do you receive regular supervision or peer consultation on your coaching practice?

• What methodology or framework guides your coaching sessions?

• How do you measure progress with your clients?

• What does a typical engagement look like, and what kind of support exists between sessions?

A well-trained coach will welcome these questions. They've invested considerable time and money into their education and credentials, and they'll be glad to walk you through it. If someone gets evasive or defensive when you ask about qualifications, that's information worth paying attention to.

Why does virtual coaching make sense in Chicago

The traditional coaching model assumes you'll find someone relatively close to you, coordinate schedules, and show up in person on a consistent basis. In a city like Chicago, that model runs into some real friction points.

Start with geography. Chicago is a sprawling metro. If you live in Lakeview and your coach is in Oak Brook, that's not a quick trip. Even staying within city limits, going from the South Side to the North Side for an afternoon appointment means a real time commitment on the L or in traffic. Your best coaching match might be twenty minutes away in ideal conditions and an hour away in reality. And that's before factoring in the five months of the year when getting anywhere feels like an expedition.

Winter is a genuine logistical factor for in-person coaching consistency in Chicago. When it's 10 degrees with wind chill and the streets are a mess, canceling a coaching session becomes the easiest decision you make all week. One cancellation leads to another, and within a few weeks the habit of showing up for coaching has dissolved. For anyone dealing with ADHD, where building and maintaining consistency is already one of the core challenges, that weather-driven disruption can undermine the entire process.

Virtual coaching removes geography from the equation entirely. You can meet with your coach from your apartment in Pilsen, your office in the Loop, or a quiet room in your house in Evanston. Sessions can fit into natural gaps in your day. A 30-minute coaching call during a lunch break or after the kids are down for the night is a fundamentally different commitment than blocking out two hours for travel and a session.

The deeper advantage is about access to specialization. When you're restricted to coaches practicing in the Chicagoland area, you're choosing based on who happens to be nearby. When location doesn't matter, you can match based on what actually makes a difference: expertise in your specific challenges, coaching style that fits how you communicate, experience with your industry or life stage. A coach in another city who specializes in ADHD for software engineers might be a far better fit than a generalist practitioner ten minutes from your house.

Virtual coaching also makes it much easier to switch if a relationship isn't working. You don't have to start a new geographic search. You simply match with a different coach and keep moving forward.

What does quality ADHD coaching methodology actually look like

Methodology is where the real difference between coaches shows up. Two coaches can have similar credentials, similar pricing, and similar bios, but completely different approaches to how they actually work with clients. The gap between structured, evidence-based ADHD coaching and a loose weekly check-in is massive.

Evidence-based frameworks form the foundation of quality coaching. Effective ADHD coaches use approaches grounded in behavioral science. The COM-B model is one widely used framework. COM-B stands for Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation as three interconnected drivers of Behavior change. Instead of defaulting to "just try harder" or "get a planner," a coach using COM-B helps you figure out whether a particular challenge is rooted in skill gaps (capability), environmental barriers (opportunity), or inconsistent drive (motivation), and then targets the real issue. Implementation intentions are another research-backed technique. These are specific if/then plans designed to close the gap between intention and action. Instead of a vague commitment like "I'll be more organized," an implementation intention sounds like "When I finish my morning coffee on weekdays, I'll spend ten minutes reviewing my task list before opening email."

Structured sessions versus open-ended conversation is a major differentiator. In a structured approach, your coach arrives prepared, each session follows a clear framework, and there's a logical thread connecting one week to the next. Goals are tracked. Progress is measured. You're building on previous work rather than starting from scratch every session.

Between-session support matters more than people expect. ADHD doesn't operate on a weekly schedule. The challenges that coaching addresses show up constantly, not just during your 45-minute slot on Thursdays. Quality coaching includes some form of ongoing support between sessions, whether that's check-ins, messaging, or access to a community. This continuity helps new strategies actually stick instead of fading by midweek.

Executive dysfunction-specific approaches are essential. Generic coaching techniques frequently assume a baseline level of executive function (the set of mental skills that help you plan, focus, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks) that people with ADHD don't reliably have access to. An ADHD-specific methodology accounts for working memory challenges, time blindness, difficulty with task initiation, and the emotional weight of executive dysfunction. It designs systems around these realities rather than ignoring them.

Community and peer support adds something that isolated one-on-one coaching cannot. Connecting with other adults navigating similar ADHD challenges creates accountability, normalizes the experience, and opens the door to shared learning. Northwestern and the University of Chicago both have notable ADHD research programs, and that academic presence in the Chicago area reinforces why evidence-based, research-grounded approaches matter. A methodology built on the latest behavioral science carries more weight than one built on a single coach's personal opinions.

Coach supervision and ongoing training is a detail most people never think to ask about, but it's important. Coaches who work alone with no external oversight can develop blind spots, drift from current best practices, or continue using outdated techniques long after the field has moved on. Regular supervision means a qualified professional is reviewing their work, offering feedback, and maintaining quality standards.

The challenge is that from the outside, none of this is visible. Two coaching websites can look nearly identical while representing completely different levels of rigor behind the scenes.

How much does ADHD coaching cost

Money matters, and coaching is a real financial commitment, so it's worth being straightforward about what you can expect to pay.

Nationally, individual ADHD coaching sessions typically range from $150 to $300 per session. Monthly arrangements for ongoing coaching fall between $300 and $600 per month, depending on session frequency, length, and the coach's level of experience. In Chicago, pricing tends to land in the middle of those ranges. It's more affordable than what you'd see in New York or San Francisco, but quality coaches with strong credentials and structured programs still charge enough to reflect their expertise and overhead.

The temptation to find the cheapest option is understandable. Budgets are real constraints. But the lowest-cost coaches tend to be the newest to the field, with fewer credentials, less supervision, and less developed methodologies. That's not a statement about their character or intentions. It's simply that coaches who have invested heavily in specialized ADHD training, ICF or PAAC certification, and ongoing professional development charge more because they bring more to the table.

Insurance typically does not cover coaching. This is true across Illinois and most other states. Coaching isn't classified as therapy or as a medical service, so it falls outside what most insurance plans will reimburse.

FSA and HSA funds can often be used for coaching. If your employer offers a Flexible Spending Account or Health Savings Account, ADHD coaching may qualify as an eligible expense. Paying with pre-tax dollars effectively reduces the real cost by 20 to 30 percent depending on your tax bracket. This is one of the more practical ways to make coaching more affordable, and it's worth checking with your benefits administrator.

When evaluating cost, it helps to think about what you're losing without support. Missed promotions because follow-through keeps slipping. Relationships strained by forgotten commitments. The mental tax of feeling like you're constantly operating below your potential. Effective coaching often pays for itself through improvements in the areas that matter most to your career and daily life.

How do you find and vet coaches in Chicago

With a clear sense of what coaching is, what credentials matter, and what good methodology looks like, the practical search can begin. The process gets tedious even for people who enjoy research.

Where to search:

The PAAC directory (Professional Association of ADHD Coaches) is the most targeted starting point. Every listed coach has met specific ADHD training requirements. The ICF directory is broader but useful for independently verifying that someone holds the credentials they claim. CHADD Chicago North Shore, which is part of the CHADD Midwest Region covering Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and surrounding states, is a solid local resource. CHADD chapters can be helpful for recommendations, community support, and firsthand experiences from other adults with ADHD in the Chicago area.

The vetting process:

Once you've built a shortlist, the real work starts. You'll want to review each coach's website carefully, verify their credentials independently rather than just trusting what they list online, schedule consultation calls, and try to assess fit from a brief conversation. Most coaches offer a free or low-cost introductory call, and that's your window to ask the credential and methodology questions from earlier in this guide.

During a consultation call, pay attention to:

• Whether they ask about your specific situation and challenges, or immediately pivot to selling their package

• How clearly they can explain their methodology and framework

• Whether they mention supervision or continuing education

• How the conversation feels. Is it comfortable and natural, or pressured and rehearsed?

• How transparent they are about pricing, session structure, and what you can expect

When the first match doesn't work:

Nobody talks about this part enough. What happens when you go through the full search process, commit to a coach, pay for a few sessions, and then realize the fit isn't right? You're back at the beginning. New search, new consultation calls, new financial commitment to test another option. For anyone with ADHD, restarting that research cycle feels about as appealing as organizing a garage full of unlabeled boxes.

The whole burden lands on you. Even with good directories and helpful CHADD resources, you're the one doing all the research, making all the calls, verifying all the claims, assessing all the intangibles of fit, and starting over if it doesn't work out. That's a significant ask of anyone, and it's a particularly heavy lift when the executive function challenges you need help with are the same ones making a sustained research project feel overwhelming.

Why a Shimmer ADHD Coach might be the better option

Every frustration described above is exactly why Shimmer exists. We built it because we've been through the same exhausting search ourselves and knew there had to be a better way to connect adults with ADHD to coaches who are actually qualified to help.

The vetting is done before you ever show up. Shimmer's coaches go through a selection process with a 4% acceptance rate. Every coach holds ADHD-specific credentials, whether that's PAAC certification or equivalent specialized training. They don't get hired and left to figure things out independently. Shimmer coaches receive ongoing supervision and continuing education, which means their practice is consistently reviewed and held to a high standard. The methodology is uniform across the platform, grounded in behavioral science frameworks designed specifically for how ADHD brains work.

Matching is built into the system. Instead of spending weeks doing your own research and hoping you pick well, Shimmer matches you with a coach based on your specific needs, goals, and preferences. If the match isn't right, you switch. No awkward conversation. No restarting your search from zero. No financial penalty for trying someone new. You simply match with a different coach and continue where you left off. This is a fundamental departure from the traditional model where changing coaches means beginning the entire process over again.

The methodology extends beyond weekly sessions. Shimmer's coaching approach is rooted in science-backed frameworks for behavior change and executive function support. Sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and connected to each other in a deliberate progression. But the support doesn't vanish between appointments. Shimmer includes community access where you connect with other members working through similar challenges. That combination of expert one-on-one coaching and peer community creates a layer of accountability and shared experience that a single weekly session simply cannot replicate on its own.

The risk is minimal. Shimmer offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Pricing is transparent and clearly communicated before you commit. You know what you're getting and what it costs upfront. Compare that with the traditional approach of paying $250 or more for an initial session with someone you found through a Google search, only to discover after two or three sessions that their approach doesn't work for your brain.

Virtual-first means all of Chicago is covered equally. Whether you're in the Loop, Logan Square, Beverly, the North Shore, or the western suburbs out by Wheaton and Aurora, you get the same access to quality coaching. No L rides across town. No expressway drives in January. No geographic lottery determining whether good coaching happens to exist near you. Just consistent, expert support that fits into your life wherever you are.

Shimmer's coaches work with adults across every industry and background you'd find in Chicago's economy. Finance professionals managing detail-heavy workflows in the Loop. Tech workers dealing with the constant context-switching of engineering roles. Entrepreneurs building businesses while their own executive function goes unmanaged. Healthcare workers navigating demanding schedules with no margin for error. The matching process accounts for these differences so you work with someone who understands your specific world.

How do you get started with ADHD coaching

Taking the first step can feel like a big deal, and that's completely normal. If you've been reading about ADHD coaching for a while without committing, you have plenty of company. Decision paralysis around getting help for ADHD is one of the more common (and, yes, ironic) patterns we see.

Getting started is simpler than the research process suggests. You sign up, get matched with a coach, and have your first session. That initial conversation is focused on your coach understanding you: your goals, your challenges, what you've already tried, what hasn't worked. You don't need to show up with a polished list of objectives or a detailed personal history. Your coach is trained to guide that conversation and help you figure out where to focus first.

The early sessions are about building a foundation. You and your coach will identify what matters most to you right now and start developing strategies tailored to how your brain actually operates. Expect it to feel exploratory at first. You're testing different approaches, learning what sticks, and developing a working relationship with someone who's genuinely in your corner.

Keep your expectations realistic. Coaching is not a quick fix. You won't walk out of your first session with every executive function challenge solved. What you will have is a structured starting point, a coach who understands ADHD at a deep level, and a framework for building consistent progress over time. Most members start noticing meaningful shifts within the first few weeks as new habits and systems begin to take hold.

If you're ready to stop researching and start working with a vetted, expert ADHD coach who actually understands how your brain works, Shimmer is a good place to begin.