Everybody in Los Angeles is a coach. Scroll through Instagram for five minutes and you'll find breathwork coaches, manifestation coaches, somatic coaches, life coaches who just got certified last month, and at least a dozen people who have worked the phrase "ADHD-friendly" into their bios sometime in the last year. LA's wellness culture runs deep, and that is genuinely great in a lot of ways. But when you're actually trying to find qualified, specialized ADHD support, the sheer volume of wellness practitioners in this city becomes the problem. You can't tell who has real ADHD expertise and who just noticed that neurodivergence is trending.

The challenge gets more specific when you factor in what work actually looks like in LA. If you're in entertainment, production, or any creative field, your schedule changes week to week. One month you're on set fourteen hours a day, the next you're between projects trying to find structure when nobody is imposing it on you. The gig economy runs through this city in ways most people outside of it don't fully appreciate, and that kind of inconsistency hits executive function hard. Project-based work with unpredictable timelines is basically a stress test for every ADHD symptom in the book.

Then there's the geography. LA stretches from the coast through downtown, out to Pasadena, up into the Valley, and beyond. Asking someone in Silver Lake to see a coach in Santa Monica on a regular basis is asking them to build their week around a commute. The concept of "local" in a city this spread out barely applies.

This guide walks through what ADHD coaching actually is, what credentials separate real specialists from the wellness noise, what quality methodology looks like, and how to find a coach who understands how your brain works without spending weeks lost in a research spiral.

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

These three types of support get tangled together all the time, and in a city like LA where therapy is almost a cultural default, it is worth understanding what each one actually does and where coaching fits in.

ADHD coaching is a forward-looking, action-oriented partnership. You work with your coach to build practical strategies, systems, and habits for the things that trip you up day to day. Time management. Prioritization. Following through on plans. Getting started on tasks you've been putting off for weeks. Coaching focuses on what you want to accomplish and what is standing in the way right now. Your coach helps you develop approaches designed for how your brain actually operates, rather than forcing neurotypical productivity frameworks that were never built for you.

Therapy addresses the emotional and psychological layers underneath. A therapist helps you process past experiences, work through anxiety or depression that frequently shows up alongside ADHD, and understand the emotional patterns shaping your daily life. LA has an incredibly strong therapy culture, and a lot of people start there. That makes sense. But therapy on its own doesn't always give you the tactical, hands-on tools for managing executive dysfunction, which is the clinical term for difficulty with planning, organizing, starting tasks, and regulating attention. Therapy helps you understand why things feel hard. Coaching helps you build systems that work anyway.

Psychiatry is the medical piece. A psychiatrist can formally diagnose ADHD, prescribe medication, and manage your treatment over time. If you're exploring whether medication could help or you need an official diagnosis, psychiatry is where that happens.

These aren't competing paths. Plenty of adults with ADHD benefit from a combination of all three. You might see a psychiatrist for medication management, a therapist for processing the emotional weight of going undiagnosed for years, and a coach for the day-to-day systems that keep your work and life on track. In California, therapy and psychiatry visits may be partially covered by insurance depending on your plan, while coaching generally is not. More on the cost side of things later.

The core thing that makes coaching distinct is that it is practical and present-focused. You're not analyzing your childhood. You're figuring out how to stop missing deadlines, build routines that actually hold up, and follow through on the things that matter to you.

What credentials should a real ADHD coach have

This part matters more in LA than almost anywhere else, because the wellness market here is so saturated that it is genuinely difficult to tell who has deep ADHD expertise and who is a general life coach who added a few ADHD talking points to their website. The title "ADHD coach" is not protected. No state license is required. No board exam. No minimum training hours mandated by California or any other state. Anyone can call themselves an ADHD coach tomorrow and start charging for sessions.

So how do you separate the real thing from the noise?

PAAC certification is one of the most meaningful credentials to look for. PAAC stands for the Professional Association of ADHD Coaches. Coaches with this certification have completed ADHD-specific training programs that meet rigorous standards, including supervised coaching hours and demonstrated competency in the specific challenges ADHD creates. This is not a weekend workshop or an online certificate you can knock out in a few days. It represents a serious investment in specialized knowledge.

ICF credentials add another layer of credibility. The ICF, or International Coaching Federation, is the most widely recognized accrediting body in the coaching industry overall. An ICF-credentialed coach has completed extensive training hours, logged a required number of coaching hours with real clients, and passed a formal evaluation. ICF credentials alone don't guarantee someone knows ADHD specifically, but when combined with ADHD-focused training, they signal a coach who takes their practice seriously at every level.

Lived experience with ADHD can be a genuine asset. A coach who personally navigates ADHD may bring a deeper, more intuitive understanding to sessions. But lived experience without professional training is not sufficient on its own. You want someone who pairs personal understanding with structured, evidence-based coaching skills. The strongest coaches bring both.

Red flags to watch for in LA's crowded market:

• No specific training or credentials listed on their website

• The only stated qualification is personal experience with ADHD

• Promises of specific outcomes, like "I'll fix your procrastination"

• No mention of supervision, continuing education, or any structured methodology

• A coaching style that sounds more like friendly conversation than professional support

Questions to ask any coach before you commit:

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

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

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

• What methodology or framework guides your sessions?

• How do you track and measure progress with your clients?

• What does support look like between sessions?

Asking these questions is not confrontational. It is self-advocacy. Any coach who has genuinely invested in their training will be glad to walk you through their credentials and approach. If someone gets vague or defensive when you ask, that tells you everything you need to know.

Does virtual coaching make sense for people in Los Angeles

Even in a metro area with nearly four million people and no shortage of local practitioners, virtual coaching offers something that in-person sessions in LA often cannot deliver: consistency without logistical friction.

LA's geographic reality is that neighborhoods function almost like separate cities. Someone living in Koreatown and seeing a coach in Westwood is looking at a round trip that eats a significant chunk of the day, depending on time and traffic patterns. That in-person session might be 45 minutes, but the total time commitment can stretch well past two hours. When that happens regularly, sessions start competing with work, and eventually something gives. For people in entertainment and creative fields with unpredictable call times, shifting production schedules, or gig-based work, keeping a standing weekly appointment at a fixed location is an even bigger ask.

Virtual coaching sidesteps all of that. A session can happen from your apartment in Echo Park, a quiet corner of a coffee shop in Burbank, or your car between meetings in Culver City. The flexibility to meet wherever you happen to be on a given day makes it far easier to show up consistently, and consistency is what makes coaching actually work.

But the more important advantage goes beyond logistics. When your search is limited to coaches who practice within driving distance, you end up matching based on geography. When geography is no longer a constraint, you can match based on what actually matters: a coach who specializes in your particular challenges, whose communication style fits how you process information, who has experience with your industry or life situation. A coach in another city who has years of experience working with creative professionals on project-based schedules may be a dramatically better match than a generalist practitioner twenty minutes from your house.

Virtual coaching also makes it easier to try a different coach if the first match doesn't feel right. There is no new geographic search, no building a new shortlist from scratch. You simply connect with someone different and keep the momentum going.

For a city as large and spread out as LA, virtual coaching doesn't just add convenience. It fundamentally expands the pool of who you can work with and makes it realistic to prioritize fit and expertise over proximity.

What does quality ADHD coaching methodology actually look like

The difference between structured, evidence-based ADHD coaching and a weekly conversation with someone who means well is significant. Methodology is where that difference lives, and it matters more than most people realize when choosing a coach.

Evidence-based frameworks form the foundation of quality coaching. One widely used approach is the COM-B model, a behavioral science framework that identifies three factors driving any behavior change: Capability (do you have the skills and knowledge), Opportunity (does your environment support the change), and Motivation (do you have the internal and external drive). Instead of generic advice like "just use a planner," a coach working from this framework helps you pinpoint whether the real barrier is that you don't know how to break tasks down (capability), that your workspace is full of distractions (opportunity), or that the task doesn't connect to anything you care about (motivation). Then they target the actual bottleneck. Another research-backed tool is implementation intentions, which are specific if/then plans that bridge the gap between wanting to do something and doing it. Rather than "I need to exercise more," an implementation intention looks like "When I close my laptop at 6pm on Tuesday and Thursday, I will change into running shoes before I do anything else."

Structured sessions versus open-ended conversation is a major dividing line. In structured coaching, your sessions follow a framework. There is a clear thread connecting one session to the next. Goals are tracked over time. Progress gets measured. You build on previous work rather than starting over every week. Open-ended sessions can feel nice in the moment, but they tend to drift, and drift is something most of us with ADHD get enough of already.

Between-session support is where a lot of coaching relationships succeed or fall apart. ADHD does not take a break between your weekly calls. The insights from Tuesday's session can feel completely abstract by Friday if nothing bridges that gap. Quality coaching includes some form of ongoing check-in or support between sessions, whether that is messaging, community access, or structured accountability touchpoints. This continuity helps new strategies actually take root instead of fading within days.

Executive dysfunction-specific approaches are non-negotiable. Generic coaching techniques often assume a baseline level of executive function that people with ADHD don't reliably have. Executive dysfunction means difficulty with working memory, time perception (sometimes called time blindness), task initiation, and emotional regulation around tasks. A methodology built for ADHD accounts for all of this. It builds systems around these realities rather than ignoring them.

Community and peer support brings something that isolated one-on-one coaching cannot. Connecting with other adults working through similar challenges creates shared accountability, normalization, and practical learning from people who genuinely understand your experience. Hearing that someone in a similar situation tried a strategy and it actually worked carries weight that no amount of theoretical advice can match.

Coach supervision and ongoing training is the piece most people never think to ask about. Coaches who work alone with no oversight can develop blind spots, fall behind on current research, or drift into habits that don't serve their clients well. Regular supervision means a qualified professional is reviewing their work, giving feedback, and ensuring quality stays high. Most independent coaches have no such system in place.

From the outside, two coaches can have nearly identical websites and similar pricing, but one is using a rigorous, structured methodology with supervision, and the other is improvising based on personal experience. Knowing what questions to ask is the only way to tell them apart.

How much does ADHD coaching cost

Money matters, so it is worth being direct about what the numbers look like.

Nationally, individual ADHD coaching sessions typically fall between $150 and $300 per session. Monthly coaching arrangements generally range from $300 to $600 per month, depending on session frequency, length, and the coach's experience level. In Los Angeles specifically, pricing tends to land at the higher end of those ranges. LA's cost of living and the density of the wellness market both push prices up.

The instinct to find the most affordable option is completely understandable. Budgets are real. But the lowest-cost coaches tend to be the least experienced, with fewer credentials and less structured approaches. Coaches who have invested significantly in ADHD-specific training, ICF certification, and ongoing supervision typically charge more because their expertise and overhead are both higher. That doesn't mean expensive automatically equals good, but unusually low pricing is worth questioning.

Insurance typically does not cover coaching. This is true across most states, including California. Coaching is not classified as therapy or a medical service, and most insurance plans don't recognize it as a covered benefit.

FSA and HSA funds can often be used for coaching. If your employer offers a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Savings Account (HSA), ADHD coaching may qualify as an eligible expense. This lets you pay with pre-tax dollars, which can effectively reduce the cost by 20 to 30 percent depending on your tax bracket. It is worth checking your specific plan details.

When evaluating the investment, think about what it costs to keep going without support. Missed opportunities because you couldn't consistently follow through. Relationships strained by forgotten commitments and chronic disorganization. The mental toll of feeling like you're constantly underperforming relative to what you know you're capable of. Effective coaching pays for itself when it helps you show up reliably in the areas of life that matter most to you.

How do you find and vet coaches in Los Angeles

With a clear understanding of what coaching is, what credentials matter, and what quality methodology looks like, the actual search begins. In LA's wellness-saturated landscape, the process gets genuinely tedious.

Where to start looking:

The PAAC directory (Professional Association of ADHD Coaches) is the most targeted resource. Every coach listed has met specific ADHD training requirements. The ICF directory is broader but useful for independently verifying coaching credentials. CHADD of Greater Los Angeles is an outstanding local resource. CHADD stands for Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and the Greater LA chapter (which is transitioning to a statewide California model) has won Chapter of the Year honors in both 2019 and 2022. They offer over 30 meetings per month, including adult peer support groups, coworking sessions, and specialty groups. You can find their meetings through Meetup, and they run an active Discord community. These groups are valuable not just for support but for firsthand recommendations from people who have actually worked with local coaches.

The specific challenge in LA:

The city's wellness culture means that the number of people marketing some form of coaching is enormous. Many of them are skilled practitioners in their own areas. But general life coaching, wellness coaching, and ADHD-specific coaching are fundamentally different things. The vetting burden falls on you to separate coaches with deep ADHD expertise and structured methodology from the much larger pool of general wellness practitioners who have added ADHD language to their offerings.

The vetting process:

Once you have a shortlist, you will need to review websites, verify credentials independently (don't just take a website's word for it), schedule consultation calls, and assess fit. Most coaches offer a free or low-cost initial conversation.

During a consultation, pay attention to whether the coach:

• Asks about your specific challenges before pitching their program

• Can clearly articulate their methodology and approach

• Mentions supervision, continuing education, or structured quality processes

• Communicates in a style that feels natural and comfortable to you

• Is transparent about pricing, session format, and what to expect

When it doesn't work out:

If you go through this entire process, commit to a coach, and realize after a few sessions that the fit is off, you're essentially back at square one. New research, new calls, new consultations, a new financial commitment to try again. For anyone dealing with the executive function challenges that brought you to this search in the first place, restarting that cycle feels exhausting. Even with great resources like CHADD and the professional directories, the entire burden of researching, vetting, verifying, assessing fit, and starting over if needed sits squarely on your shoulders.

Why did we build Shimmer

That exhausting cycle of searching, vetting, guessing, and starting over is exactly why Shimmer exists. We built it because we've been through that same process and knew there had to be something better.

The quality problem is handled 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 is PAAC certification or equivalent specialized training. And they don't get hired and then left on their own. Shimmer coaches receive ongoing supervision and continuing education, which means they are consistently held to a high standard. The methodology is consistent across the platform, grounded in behavioral science frameworks designed specifically for how ADHD brains work. You're not gambling on whether a coach happens to use a quality approach. The approach is built into the system.

Matching is part of the experience, not something you do yourself. Instead of spending weeks researching coaches and hoping for the best, Shimmer matches you with a coach based on your specific challenges, preferences, and goals. And if the match doesn't feel right, you switch. No awkward conversation. No starting the search over from scratch. No financial penalty. You connect with someone new and keep moving. That alone is a fundamental shift from the traditional model where a bad match means going back to Google and beginning the whole process again.

The methodology goes well beyond a weekly session. Shimmer's coaching framework is rooted in science-backed approaches to behavior change and executive function support. Sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and connected to each other over time. But the support doesn't vanish between sessions. 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 builds accountability and support that a single weekly call, no matter how good, simply cannot replicate on its own.

The risk is minimal. Shimmer offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Pricing is transparent and straightforward, with no hidden fees or surprise costs. You know exactly what you are getting and what it costs before you commit. Compare that to the traditional path where you might spend $300 on an initial session with a coach you found through a search engine, only to realize a few sessions later that their approach doesn't work for the way your brain operates.

Virtual-first means all of LA is covered. Whether you're in Santa Monica, Pasadena, the Valley, or anywhere else across the basin, you get the same access to quality coaching. No commute. No geographic limitations. Just consistent, expert support that fits into your life where you already are. For a city as sprawling as Los Angeles, this matters.

Shimmer's coaches work with adults across the industries and lifestyles that define LA. Creative professionals managing inconsistent production schedules and project-based work. Tech workers navigating fast-paced startup environments. Entrepreneurs juggling a dozen priorities with no external structure. Parents balancing careers and family while their own ADHD goes unaddressed. The matching process accounts for these differences so you work with someone who understands your specific situation, not just ADHD in general.

How do you get started with ADHD coaching

Taking this step feels significant, and that feeling is completely normal. If you've been reading about ADHD coaching for a while and haven't moved forward yet, you're in very familiar company. The irony of decision paralysis around getting help for ADHD is not lost on any of us.

Getting started is simpler than the research process might suggest. You sign up, get matched with a coach, and have your first session. That initial conversation is about your coach getting to know you: your goals, your challenges, what you've already tried, and what hasn't worked. You don't need to show up with a polished list of objectives or a complete history of every strategy you've attempted. Your coach is trained to guide the conversation and help you identify where to focus first.

Early sessions build the foundation. You and your coach will figure out what matters most to you right now and begin developing strategies built around how your brain actually works. Expect the first few weeks to feel exploratory. You're testing approaches, seeing what sticks, and building a relationship with someone who is genuinely in your corner.

Set realistic expectations. Coaching is not a quick fix. You will not walk away from your first session with every executive function challenge resolved. 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 strategies and habits 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.