You got the promotion. Or you landed the fellowship. Or you finally started the role at the agency you spent months applying to. And now you are sitting in your apartment in Dupont Circle or your townhouse in Petworth or your rental in Arlington, staring at a to-do list that somehow multiplied overnight. Federal government work moves at a pace that is both maddeningly slow in the bureaucratic sense and relentlessly demanding in the deliverables sense. Policy memos need precision. Clearances require follow-through on paperwork that would bore anyone to tears. Meetings fill your calendar from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the actual work is supposed to happen after that. If you work in D.C.'s growing tech corridor, the expectations look different but feel similar: ship fast, stay organized, juggle multiple stakeholders, and do it all while context-switching between Slack, email, and three different project management tools. If you have ADHD, this is where the gap between what you know you can do and what you actually get done starts to widen.

So you decide to find an ADHD coach. You search online and immediately discover the D.C. version of information overload. Results mix coaches in the District with listings from Bethesda, Silver Spring, Alexandria, McLean, Reston, and Tysons. Some profiles belong to therapists who list coaching as a secondary service. Some belong to general life coaches who recently added ADHD to their keywords. A handful seem genuinely specialized, but their websites all use the same reassuring language, and there is no clear way to separate deep expertise from clever marketing. You have 25 tabs open. You bookmarked three of them last Tuesday and have not looked at them since. The irony of struggling to research help for the exact problems you need help with is painfully familiar.

This guide covers what ADHD coaching actually is, which credentials matter and which do not, how to evaluate methodology, what coaching costs in the D.C. area, and how to make this decision without letting it turn into another abandoned project sitting in your browser.

What makes ADHD coaching different from therapy or psychiatry

Washington is a city that takes mental health more seriously than it used to. Proximity to research institutions like Georgetown, George Washington University, and the National Institutes of Health means clinical resources are relatively accessible. MedStar, GW Hospital, and a dense network of private practices across the metro area offer robust psychiatric and therapeutic services. But coaching, therapy, and psychiatry serve fundamentally different purposes, and understanding the distinction matters before you invest time and money in the wrong one.

ADHD coaching is focused on the present and the future. It is a collaborative working relationship where you and your coach develop practical strategies, systems, and habits for reaching your goals. The work is action-oriented. You identify what you want to accomplish, figure out what keeps getting in the way, and build personalized tools for managing challenges like time awareness, prioritization, task initiation, and follow-through. A good ADHD coach designs systems around how your brain actually functions rather than expecting you to force yourself into structures built 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 beneath the surface. A therapist helps you process past experiences, work through anxiety or depression (both of which frequently co-occur with ADHD), and understand emotional patterns. In a city like D.C., where performance pressure is baked into the culture and the professional stakes feel unusually high, a lot of adults with ADHD carry years of quiet frustration or self-doubt from trying to keep pace without understanding why everything felt so much harder. Therapy is the right space for unpacking that. But therapy alone does not always give you the tactical, day-to-day systems for managing your inbox, hitting deadlines, or getting through a dense policy brief without losing focus halfway through.

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 where to start on the clinical end.

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 decades, and a coach for building the daily systems that hold your professional and personal life together. In D.C., therapy and psychiatry are often at least partially covered by insurance depending on your plan, while coaching generally is not. We will get into cost and workarounds later in this guide.

The core thing to understand about coaching is that it is forward-looking and tactical. You are not unpacking your childhood. You are building a concrete plan for managing your energy, staying on track with projects, and following through on the commitments that matter to you.

What credentials should an ADHD coach actually have

This is the single most important thing to understand before you start evaluating anyone: the title "ADHD coach" is completely unregulated. There is no licensing requirement in the District of Columbia, no required exam, no state board, and no minimum training hours. Anyone can set up a website, list ADHD coaching as a service, and start charging clients. In a metro area as large as D.C., where the professional development and wellness markets are enormous and personal optimization is practically a cultural norm among the policy and tech crowds, that means the quality range is staggering. And from the outside, it is nearly impossible to tell who has deep expertise and who completed a weekend certification.

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 quick online module or a weekend workshop. It represents a serious investment in specialized education and practice.

ICF credentials are another strong indicator. The ICF, or International Coaching Federation, is the most widely recognized credentialing body in the coaching profession overall. An ICF-credentialed coach has completed extensive training hours, accumulated a minimum number of client coaching hours, and passed a formal evaluation. ICF credentials on their own do not guarantee ADHD expertise, but when paired with ADHD-specific training, they tell you the person 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 that indicates 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 to the work. But lived experience without professional training and a structured methodology is not enough on its own. You want both personal understanding and evidence-based frameworks working together.

Red flags to watch for:

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

• The only stated qualification is personal experience with ADHD

• Promises of guaranteed outcomes like eliminating procrastination or fixing distractibility permanently

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

• A vague 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 glad to walk you through it. If someone becomes evasive or defensive when you ask about their training, treat that as a clear signal.

Why does virtual coaching work well for ADHD in Washington, D.C.

D.C. is a compact city with a deceptively large metro footprint. The District itself covers just 68 square miles, but the functional metro area extends deep into Maryland and Virginia. A coach with an office in Georgetown is not a realistic option for someone living in Silver Spring, Reston, or Woodbridge. The Metro rail system helps, but anyone who relies on it daily knows the delays, weekend track work, and rush-hour crowding that come with it. Driving across the metro area during any weekday is an exercise in patience that most people with ADHD do not have to spare. Filtering coaches by geographic proximity in this region is a losing strategy before you even begin.

Virtual coaching removes geography from the equation entirely. You can work with your coach from your apartment in Adams Morgan, your home office in Falls Church, your desk at a federal building in Southwest, or your kitchen table in College Park. Sessions fit into the natural rhythm of your day rather than requiring you to carve out an extra hour for Metro rides or traffic on the Beltway.

But the more meaningful advantage is about quality of match, not just convenience. When you are no longer limited to coaches who happen to have an office within a 20-minute commute, you can match based on what actually matters: their experience with your specific challenges, their coaching style, their understanding of your industry or life stage. A coach who specializes in working with federal employees managing cognitive overload in high-clearance environments might be a dramatically better fit than a generalist who happens to rent space near Dupont Circle. Someone with deep experience supporting tech professionals dealing with executive function challenges at defense contractors or growing startups in Northern Virginia might be exactly what you need, even if that coach is based somewhere else entirely.

Virtual coaching also helps with consistency, which is one of the hardest things to maintain when you have ADHD. Every logistical barrier 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 significantly. You show up more reliably. The coaching relationship builds momentum. Progress compounds instead of stalling out every time your schedule gets complicated or the Metro is running single-track on your line.

And if a coaching match turns out not to be the right fit, pivoting is simple. You are not restarting a geographic search or committing to someone because they happen to be conveniently located off a Metro stop. 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 pleasant conversation you forget about by the next morning. Two coaches can have similar websites, similar pricing, and similar professional bios, but their underlying approaches might be completely different.

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 offering 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 the policy brief this week," an implementation intention sounds like "When I sit down at my desk after my 10 a.m. meeting on Tuesday, I will open the document and draft the executive summary for 30 minutes 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 over each session with whatever feels most pressing. Open-ended conversation can feel supportive in the moment, but without structure, 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, quick accountability check-ins, or access to a community. That continuity between calls is often what determines whether a new strategy actually sticks and becomes part of your routine.

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 time awareness. Generic coaching techniques often assume a baseline level of executive function that people with ADHD simply do not have on a consistent basis. 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 holding 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 underneath. The only way to distinguish them is to ask the right questions, and now you have those questions.

How much does ADHD coaching typically cost

Cost matters, and it is better to go in with clear expectations than to get 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 depending on coach experience, credentials, session length, and how much support is included between calls.

The instinct to look for the cheapest option is understandable, especially in Washington where the cost of living is among the highest in the country. Housing costs in the District and close-in suburbs like Bethesda, Arlington, and Alexandria are significant, and budgets are tighter than they look from the outside even for people earning strong federal or tech salaries. But 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 there is no mandate requiring coaching coverage in D.C.

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. Given the number of federal agencies, defense contractors, tech companies, and large nonprofits in the D.C. area that offer strong benefits packages, this is absolutely worth checking.

When evaluating cost, it helps to weigh it against the cost of not getting support. Stalled career advancement because you cannot consistently deliver on high-visibility projects. Strained relationships from forgotten commitments and missed deadlines. The mental and emotional weight of knowing you are capable of more but not being able to access that capability reliably. Effective coaching pays for itself when it helps you show up consistently in the areas that matter most to you.

How do you find and evaluate coaches in Washington, D.C.

With a solid understanding of what coaching is, which credentials matter, and what strong methodology looks like, the practical search begins. D.C.'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. For community support, there is no dedicated CHADD chapter in Washington, D.C. itself. CHADD stands for Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. The nearest chapters are in Montgomery County, Maryland and Northern Virginia. Virtual CHADD meetings and national support groups are also widely available online. While CHADD does not provide coaching directly, attending a meeting or connecting with the community can be a good way to get firsthand recommendations from people who have worked with coaches in the metro area.

The D.C.-specific challenge:

Washington is a city where professional development spending is normalized and the self-improvement market is enormous. Federal employees, contractors, consultants, and policy professionals are accustomed to investing in career growth. That is generally a positive thing, but it also means the coaching market includes a large number of generalists who have added ADHD to their list of offerings without deep specialization. Directory searches pull results from across the metro, mixing coaches in the District with listings from Bethesda, Silver Spring, McLean, Arlington, Tysons, and Reston. Sorting credentialed ADHD specialists from general executive coaches, wellness coaches, and productivity consultants who all use similar language on their profiles takes real effort.

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 pitching their package

• How clearly they explain their methodology and what a typical engagement looks like

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

• 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 entire search, commit to a coach, and after a few sessions realize the fit is off. Maybe their approach does not align with how you process things. Maybe they lack depth in the specific area where you need the most help. Now you are back at the beginning. New search. New vetting calls. New financial risk. New decision fatigue. 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 significant lift for anyone. It is an especially difficult one when the executive function challenges you are trying to get help with are the exact same ones making sustained research feel exhausting.

Why a Shimmer ADHD coach might be the better option

Every frustration described above is exactly what Shimmer was designed to solve. We built it because we have been through that same draining search ourselves and knew there had to be a better way to connect adults with ADHD to genuinely qualified coaches.

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 are not just hired and left to operate independently. 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 directories 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 entire process from scratch. You match with someone new and keep building momentum. This alone changes the experience fundamentally compared to the traditional model, where a bad fit means repeating the whole process from the beginning.

The methodology extends well 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 disappear 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 simply 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 start. 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 start over with someone else.

Virtual-first means all of D.C. is covered equally. Whether you live in Capitol Hill, work at a federal campus in Southwest, are based in a home office in Bethesda, or split your time between a co-working space in Shaw and your apartment in Silver Spring, you get the same quality of coaching without geography being a factor. No fighting Beltway traffic. No rearranging your afternoon around a Metro ride that might involve a 20-minute delay. Just consistent, expert support that fits into your life where it already is.

Shimmer's coaches work with professionals across every industry that defines the D.C. economy. Federal employees managing dense workloads and navigating bureaucratic systems with rigid deadlines. Defense and aerospace professionals juggling detail-heavy projects with high security requirements. Tech workers at both government contractors and private companies dealing with the cognitive overload of constant context-switching. Policy analysts and nonprofit professionals trying to maintain focus through long research and writing cycles. Graduate students at Georgetown, GW, and Howard balancing academic demands alongside ADHD. 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 bigger decision than it actually is. If you have been researching ADHD coaching for weeks or months without committing to anything, 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 browser tabs and start working with a vetted, expert ADHD coach who genuinely understands how your brain works, Shimmer is a good place to begin.