You told yourself you would figure this out last month. Maybe it was after another week where the same three tasks sat untouched on your list while you handled everything except the things that actually mattered. Maybe it was the morning you sat in your car in the parking lot at work, staring at your phone, knowing you were already late but unable to make yourself walk inside. You live in Tulsa. You work in aerospace, energy, healthcare, finance, or one of the manufacturing operations that keep this city running. The expectations in those industries are consistent output, reliable follow-through, detailed documentation, showing up on time and staying focused for the full shift or the full meeting. And you can do all of that, sometimes brilliantly, but not reliably. Not the way your coworkers seem to. If you have ADHD, you already know this gap between what you are capable of and what you consistently deliver is not about effort. But knowing that does not make the gap any smaller.

So you search for an ADHD coach in Tulsa, and the results are thin. A handful of listings come up. Some are therapists who mention coaching as a secondary offering. A couple are life coaches who list ADHD among a dozen other specialties. One or two might be genuinely specialized, but there is no obvious way to tell from a brief directory profile. You are not drowning in options the way someone in Dallas or Chicago might be. Instead, you are facing a different problem: a small pool of unclear choices and no good framework for evaluating any of them. You have been meaning to schedule a consultation call for two weeks and have not done it, which feels like a personal failing but is actually the exact kind of executive function challenge that brought you here in the first place.

This guide covers what ADHD coaching actually is, which credentials separate qualified coaches from everyone else, how to evaluate methodology, and how to make this decision without letting it become another stalled project.

What makes ADHD coaching different from therapy or psychiatry

Tulsa has a solid healthcare infrastructure. Saint Francis Health System, Ascension St. John, and OSU Medical Center anchor the clinical landscape, and the University of Tulsa adds a layer of research and clinical psychology resources. Mental health access in general has been improving in the metro area over the past several years. But coaching and therapy serve fundamentally different purposes, and understanding the difference before you spend time and money is important.

ADHD coaching focuses on the present and the future. It is a collaborative partnership where you and your coach develop practical strategies, systems, and habits for reaching your goals. Coaching is about action. You identify what you want to accomplish, figure out what keeps getting in the way, and build personalized tools for managing challenges like time management, prioritization, task initiation, and follow-through. A good ADHD coach works with the way your brain actually functions rather than expecting you to force yourself into systems designed for neurotypical people. Neurotypical is a term that simply means someone whose brain processes attention and information in the way considered standard or typical.

Therapy addresses the emotional and psychological layers underneath. A therapist helps you process past experiences, work through anxiety or depression (both of which show up alongside ADHD at very high rates), and understand emotional patterns. In a city like Tulsa, where the professional culture in aerospace, energy, and manufacturing rewards consistency and precision, a lot of adults with ADHD carry years of quiet frustration from trying to meet those standards without understanding why it felt so much harder than it seemed to be for everyone else. Therapy is the right space for that work. But therapy alone does not typically give you the concrete, tactical systems for managing your inbox, breaking the cycle of missed deadlines, or structuring your workday around how your attention actually operates.

Psychiatry handles the medical side. A psychiatrist can formally diagnose ADHD, prescribe medication, and manage your treatment plan over time. If you are exploring whether medication might help or need an official diagnosis, that is the clinical starting point.

These three types of support work alongside each other, not in competition. Many adults with ADHD benefit from a combination. You might see a psychiatrist for medication management, a therapist for processing the emotional weight of living undiagnosed for years, and a coach for building the daily systems that hold your professional and personal life together. In Oklahoma, therapy and psychiatry are often at least partially covered by insurance depending on your plan, while coaching generally is not. We will talk more about cost and workarounds later.

The essential thing to understand about coaching is that it is forward-looking and tactical. You are not unpacking your past. You are building a concrete plan for how to manage your energy, stop losing track of projects, and follow through on the things that matter to you.

What credentials should an ADHD coach actually have

Here is the single most important thing to know before you start evaluating coaches: the title "ADHD coach" is completely unregulated. Oklahoma has no licensing requirement, no state board, no required exam, and no minimum training hours. Anyone can set up a website, list ADHD coaching as a service, and start charging for sessions this week. In a mid-size market like Tulsa, where the pool of coaches is already small, that lack of regulation makes vetting even more critical. With fewer options to choose from, the stakes of picking someone without real training are higher because you have fewer alternatives if it does not work out.

So how do you protect yourself?

PAAC certification is one of the most reliable signals. PAAC stands for the Professional Association of ADHD Coaches. Coaches who hold PAAC certification have completed rigorous ADHD-specific training programs, logged supervised coaching hours, and demonstrated genuine competency in working with ADHD-related challenges. This is not a weekend course or a short online module. It represents a serious commitment to specialized education.

ICF credentials are another strong indicator. The ICF, or International Coaching Federation, is the most widely recognized credentialing body in the coaching profession globally. An ICF-credentialed coach has completed extensive training hours, accumulated a minimum number of client coaching hours, and passed a formal evaluation. ICF credentials alone do not guarantee ADHD expertise, but when you see them paired with ADHD-specific training, you are looking at someone who takes their professional development seriously.

NBC-HWC certification is also worth knowing about. NBC-HWC stands for National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. This is a board certification indicating training in evidence-based coaching techniques. When combined with ADHD specialization, it adds another verified layer of competence.

Lived experience with ADHD can make a coach more intuitive and empathetic. Many excellent coaches have ADHD themselves and bring personal understanding of the struggles you face. But lived experience without professional training and a structured methodology is not enough on its own. You want someone who brings both personal understanding and evidence-based frameworks.

Red flags to watch for:

• No specific credentials or training programs listed anywhere on their website

• The only stated qualification is personal experience with ADHD

• Promises of guaranteed outcomes like eliminating procrastination or fixing distractibility

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

• An approach that sounds more like friendly conversation than structured support

Questions to ask any coach you are considering:

• 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 participate in peer consultation?

• What methodology or framework guides your coaching sessions?

• How do you track and measure client progress?

• What does support look like between sessions?

A qualified coach will welcome every one of these questions. They have invested real time and money in building their expertise and will be happy to walk you through it. If someone gets evasive or defensive when you ask about their training, take that seriously.

Why does virtual coaching work well for ADHD in Tulsa

Tulsa is a mid-size metro that sprawls across multiple counties. Getting around by car is straightforward most of the time, and commute times average 20 to 25 minutes, which is manageable compared to what people deal with in bigger metros. But the real issue for coaching in Tulsa is not traffic. It is the limited number of specialized ADHD coaches with offices in the metro area. When the local pool is small, geographic proximity becomes a constraint that actively works against finding the right fit.

Virtual coaching removes that constraint entirely. Instead of choosing from the handful of coaches who happen to practice within driving distance, you gain access to ADHD-specialized coaches across the country. You can work with someone from your home in Midtown, your office near the BOK Center, your desk at a manufacturing campus in Broken Arrow, or your kitchen table in Owasso. Sessions fit into the natural rhythm of your day rather than requiring you to block out extra time for a round trip across town.

But the bigger benefit is about quality of match. When geography is no longer the filter, you can match based on what actually determines whether coaching works: their experience with your specific type of challenge, their coaching style, their familiarity with your industry or life stage. A coach who specializes in supporting engineers navigating executive function challenges in technical environments might be a dramatically better fit than a generalist who happens to have an office near 71st and Memorial. Someone with deep experience working with energy sector professionals managing high-stakes, detail-heavy projects might be exactly what you need, even if that coach is based in another state entirely.

Virtual coaching also helps with consistency, which is one of the hardest things to maintain when you have ADHD. Every logistical barrier between you and your session becomes one more reason to reschedule. When your session is a video call you can take from wherever you happen to be, the friction drops. You show up more often. The coaching relationship builds momentum. Progress compounds over time instead of stalling out every time your schedule gets busy.

And if a coaching match turns out not to be the right fit, pivoting is simple. You are not restarting a geographic search in a market that already has limited options. You match with a different coach and keep moving forward.

What does a strong ADHD coaching methodology look like

Methodology is the invisible difference between coaching that creates lasting change and coaching that feels like a supportive conversation you forget about by the next morning. Two coaches can have similar websites, similar pricing, and similar professional bios, but their actual approaches might be fundamentally different underneath.

Evidence-based frameworks form the backbone of quality coaching. One widely used model is the COM-B framework, which breaks behavior change into three components: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation. Rather than giving you generic advice like "just use a planner" or "set more reminders," a coach using COM-B helps you identify whether a particular challenge comes from a skill gap (capability), an environmental barrier (opportunity), or a drive issue (motivation), and then addresses the actual root cause. Another evidence-based tool is implementation intentions, which are specific if/then plans designed to bridge the gap between wanting to do something and actually doing it. Instead of "I will work on that report this week," an implementation intention sounds like "When I get back to my desk after my Monday morning meeting, I will open the project file and write the first section before checking email."

Structured sessions versus open conversation is one of the biggest dividing lines between quality coaching and everything else. In a structured approach, each session follows a framework. Your coach prepares. Goals carry forward from previous conversations. Progress is tracked over time. You are building on a foundation week after week rather than starting fresh each session with whatever feels most urgent. Unstructured conversation can feel supportive in the moment, but without that continuity, it rarely produces consistent behavior change.

Between-session support matters more than most people realize. ADHD does not pause between your weekly coaching calls. New habits are fragile. Motivation fluctuates constantly. Quality coaching includes some form of ongoing connection between sessions, whether that is messaging support, accountability check-ins, or access to a community of people working through similar challenges. That continuity between calls is often what determines whether a new strategy actually sticks or fades by Thursday.

Executive dysfunction-specific design is non-negotiable for ADHD coaching. Executive dysfunction refers to difficulties with the brain's management system: working memory, planning, task initiation, emotional regulation, and the ability to accurately perceive time. Generic coaching techniques often assume a baseline level of executive function that people with ADHD do not consistently have. A methodology built specifically for ADHD accounts for these realities and designs systems around them rather than pretending they do not exist.

Peer community and shared learning add something that isolated one-on-one sessions cannot replicate. Connecting with other adults who face similar challenges creates accountability, normalizes the experience, and generates practical strategies you might not discover on your own. Hearing that someone in a similar professional situation found a particular approach helpful carries a different weight than hearing it from a coach alone.

Ongoing coach supervision is something most people never think to ask about, but it is a significant quality indicator. Coaches who practice in isolation with no external oversight can develop blind spots or drift into outdated approaches over time. Regular supervision means a qualified professional is reviewing their work, providing feedback, and keeping them accountable to a consistent standard.

The frustrating reality is that none of these methodological differences are visible from a website or directory listing. Two coach profiles can look nearly identical while representing very different levels of rigor. The only way to distinguish them is to ask the right questions, and now you know what those questions are.

How much does ADHD coaching typically cost

Cost matters, and it is better to go in with clear expectations than to be surprised after your first session.

Nationally, individual ADHD coaching sessions range from about $150 to $300 per session. Monthly coaching packages, which typically include regular sessions plus some level of between-session support, tend to fall between $300 and $600 per month. Those ranges vary based on coach experience, credentials, session length, and how much support is included between calls.

One advantage Tulsa offers is a cost of living that sits about 8% below the national average. That means the same coaching investment stretches further here than it would in a coastal metro. But the instinct to look for the cheapest option still deserves caution. Cost and credential depth tend to go together. Coaches who have invested thousands of dollars in ADHD-specific training, ICF certification, supervised hours, and continuing education charge more because their overhead is higher and their expertise runs deeper. That does not mean the most expensive coach is automatically the best. But consistently choosing the lowest price point increases your odds of ending up with someone who has minimal specialized training.

Insurance generally does not cover ADHD coaching. Coaching is not classified as therapy or a medical service under most plans, and Oklahoma does not currently mandate coaching coverage.

FSA and HSA accounts 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. This lets you pay with pre-tax dollars, effectively reducing your real cost by 20 to 30 percent depending on your tax bracket. With major employers in aerospace, energy, healthcare, and finance operating across the Tulsa metro, many workers here have access to benefits packages that include FSA or HSA options. This is absolutely worth checking before you assume coaching is out of reach financially.

When evaluating cost, it helps to weigh it against the cost of not getting support. Stalled career momentum because you cannot consistently deliver. Strained relationships from forgotten commitments. The mental and emotional weight of feeling like you are underperforming despite knowing you are capable of more. Effective coaching pays for itself when it helps you show up reliably in the areas that matter most to you.

How do you find and evaluate coaches in Tulsa

With a solid understanding of what coaching is, which credentials matter, and what strong methodology looks like, the practical search can begin. Tulsa's specific situation creates a few distinct challenges worth knowing about.

Where to look:

The PAAC directory (Professional Association of ADHD Coaches) is the most targeted starting point. Every coach listed there has met specific ADHD training requirements. The ICF directory is broader but useful for independently verifying credentials. Tulsa does not currently have a dedicated CHADD chapter. CHADD stands for Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and it is the leading national organization for ADHD information and support. The nearest in-person CHADD chapters are in Oklahoma City, and virtual CHADD meetings and national resources are available through CHADD.org. Connecting with those virtual communities can be a useful way to get firsthand recommendations from people who have worked with coaches in the region.

The Tulsa-specific challenge:

Tulsa is large enough to have a real professional population that needs ADHD support, but not large enough to have a deep bench of specialized ADHD coaches with local practices. The coaching market here is smaller and less saturated than what you would find in Dallas, Denver, or Austin. That sounds like it should make the search simpler, but in practice it makes it harder in a different way. Fewer options means less competition, which means less pressure on coaches to differentiate on quality or credentials. A directory search might return a mix of therapists who offer some coaching, life coaches who list ADHD among many specialties, and perhaps one or two genuinely specialized practitioners. Without a large pool to compare against, it is difficult to gauge where any individual coach falls on the quality spectrum.

The vetting process:

Once you have a shortlist, go beyond what their website says. Verify credentials independently through the PAAC and ICF directories. Schedule consultation calls, which most coaches offer for free or at a reduced rate. Use that conversation to ask the credential and methodology questions outlined earlier in this guide.

During a consultation, pay attention to:

• Whether they ask about your specific challenges or move straight into describing their packages

• How clearly they can explain their methodology and framework

• Whether they mention supervision, continuing education, or structured approaches

• How natural and comfortable the conversation feels

• Whether pricing, session structure, and expectations are transparent from the start

When a match does not work out:

This happens more often than anyone talks about. You go through the full search, commit to a coach, attend a few sessions, and realize the fit is off. Maybe their approach does not match how you process things. Maybe they lack depth in the specific area where you need the most help. In a larger market, you could pivot to another option. In Tulsa, you may be looking at starting over with an already limited set of alternatives, or expanding your search to Oklahoma City or beyond. For someone with ADHD, restarting that kind of open-ended research project can feel nearly impossible.

Even with the right directories and a thoughtful approach, the full weight of research, vetting, and risk sits on your shoulders. That is a heavy lift for anyone, and it is an especially difficult one when the executive function challenges you are trying to get help with are the exact same ones making the sustained search feel exhausting.

Why a Shimmer ADHD coach might be the better option

Every frustration described above is why Shimmer exists. We built it because we have been through that same draining search ourselves and knew there had to be a better way.

The vetting is done before you ever show up. Shimmer 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. They do not just get hired and left on their own. Shimmer coaches receive ongoing supervision and continuing education, which means their practice is consistently held to a high standard. The methodology is grounded in behavioral science frameworks designed specifically for how ADHD brains work, and it is consistent across the entire platform.

Matching is built into the system. Instead of spending weeks scrolling through a small set of directory listings and hoping for the best, Shimmer matches you with a coach based on your specific needs, preferences, and goals. If the match is not right, you switch. No awkward conversation. No penalty. No restarting the whole search from scratch. You match with someone new and keep building momentum. In a market like Tulsa, where a bad fit with a local coach could mean running out of local alternatives entirely, that flexibility is especially valuable.

The methodology extends beyond your weekly session. Shimmer's coaching approach is rooted in science-backed frameworks for behavior change and executive function support. Sessions are structured, goal-oriented, and connected from one to the next. But the support does not vanish between calls. 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 learning that a single weekly session on its own cannot provide.

The financial risk is minimal. Shimmer offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Pricing is transparent and published upfront, so you know exactly what you are committing to before you begin. Compare that to the traditional path where you might spend $300 on a first session with a coach you found through a directory, only to realize after two or three sessions that their approach does not work for your brain, and then face the prospect of spending more money to try again with someone else.

Virtual-first means all of Tulsa is covered equally. Whether you live in Midtown, work at an aerospace facility in Broken Arrow, are based in a home office in Bixby, or split your time between downtown and Owasso, you get the same quality of coaching without geography being a factor. No rearranging your afternoon around a drive across the metro. Just consistent, expert support that fits into your life where it already is.

Shimmer's coaches work with professionals across every industry that defines Tulsa's economy. Engineers and technicians in aerospace managing cognitive overload in precision-driven environments. Energy sector professionals navigating high-stakes project management and regulatory detail. Healthcare workers at Saint Francis or Ascension St. John balancing shift schedules and documentation demands. Finance professionals tracking complex portfolios and deadlines. University of Tulsa students and researchers handling academic workloads alongside ADHD. Remote workers who relocated through Tulsa Remote and are managing the unique executive function challenges of working from home without built-in structure. The matching process takes these differences into account so you work with someone who understands your professional and personal context.

Members consistently describe the difference as significant compared to previous coaching experiences. The structured methodology, the ongoing accountability between sessions, and the ability to switch coaches without friction combine to create something that works with ADHD instead of asking you to power through a broken process to get help.

How do you get started with ADHD coaching

Taking the first step can feel like a big decision. If you have been researching ADHD coaching for weeks or months without actually committing, you are in very good company. That kind of decision paralysis is one of the most common ADHD patterns, and there is a real irony in the fact that the challenges you need help with are the same ones making it hard to seek help in the first place.

Getting started is simpler than the research process makes it seem. 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 have already tried, and where you want to focus first. You do not need to arrive with a polished list of objectives or a detailed history of your ADHD journey. Your coach is trained to guide that conversation and help you figure out where to begin.

The first few 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 works. Expect it to feel exploratory at first. You are testing approaches, finding out what sticks, and building trust with someone who is going to be in your corner consistently.

Set realistic expectations. Coaching is not an overnight fix. You will not leave your first session with every executive function challenge resolved. What you will have is a structured starting point, a knowledgeable partner who understands ADHD deeply, and a framework for making steady, compounding progress. Most members start noticing meaningful shifts within the first few weeks as new strategies take hold and small wins begin to build on each other.

If you are ready to stop cycling through open tabs and start working with a vetted, expert ADHD coach who genuinely understands how your brain works, Shimmer is a good place to begin.