Episode 358-You Do Not Need To Change Yourself To Thrive With ADHD with Zoe Lewis

You can have the right intentions and still feel like your brain will not cooperate and that is exactly where ADHD and executive dysfunction love to hijack school, work, and daily life. We sit down with Zoe Lewis, founder of New Bloom ADHD Coaching, to talk about what actually helps young adults and college students when assignments pile up, deadlines sneak up, and motivation disappears the moment something feels boring or overwhelming. 

We get concrete about ADHD coaching strategies that respect real life: how to start with the struggle someone is feeling and turn it into a goal you can measure, how to build a task management system that fits your patterns, and when tools like Google Calendar, Google Tasks, or study tech like NotebookLM can reduce friction. We also dig into sensory needs and why giving yourself permission to fidget, move, and exist comfortably can make focus easier, not harder. 

Then we zoom out to the stuff that keeps people stuck: shame spirals, all-or-nothing routines, and relying on last-minute urgency to get things done. Zoe shares a flexible “three tier” approach to self-care routines like exercise and sleep hygiene, plus a simple truth many of us forget: fun is fuel for ADHD brains. We unpack the INCUP pillars of ADHD motivation (interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, passion) so you can design support instead of waiting for panic to kick in. 

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs better executive functioning support, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one routine or task you want to make easier this week?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi,

Welcome And Meet Zoe Lewis

SPEAKER_01 0:01

welcome to the SG Child Show. Today I have a wonderful guest, Zoe Lewis, who is from New Bloom ADHD coaching. And, you know, what a big topic we are talking about in society a lot lately. And that is the rise, really not the rise of autism or ADHD, excuse me, but just the fact that more people today are talking about it more than ever. You know, it's kind of funny that I say that it's not like no newly known, but it's definitely more of a hot topic and more, I think, something that adults are kind of more engaging and anticipating to have the conversation to really understand themselves better and help, you know, their children, their peers, and just so many people. Zoe, I'm so glad to have you here today. Thank you so much for being here. Let us know a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself, and we'll go into the conversation from there.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Sounds good. Well, thanks for having me on the show. I'm very excited to be here. As you mentioned, my name is Zoe. I own New Bloom ADHD coaching. And my main focus is on supporting young adults and post-secondary students, so people in college or university with their ADHD or executive dysfunction, and really just helping them discover strategies and tools that are specifically for them and for built around their specific challenges and their life. So that's what I'm doing. I also really have been enjoying making content, and my username is Audi HD with Zoe for like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all the things. Um, and I share tips about ADHD, but I also just talk about like life as someone with autism and ADHD myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much because you know, lived live. Well, this is I'm gonna throw two stories in one thing here. Living experience. One time somebody said to me after they had lost someone, can you please use living experience instead of lived experience? So I'm trying to make a promise to that individual that I will do that because it does make sense that way, right? Um, anywho, side note, there's my ADHD tangent, right? We're on the right track here. So, you know, it's so important that when we are looking for ways to help ourselves to, especially when we're a student or, you know, a young adult, there's so much that we still need to learn. And it gets overwhelming. And that's when a lot of our executive functioning tasks or you know, skills, talents go out the window. And we're left with this kind of overload of how we can better, you know, service our lives. And I'm such a delinquent in that, in that area. I'm always falling into the don't go in the other room. If you do, you won't finish the task that you were just on. So we have a kind of a funny joke about that. But

Turning Struggles Into Clear Goals

SPEAKER_01 3:25

how do you kind of assess or help when somebody comes to you what their main goals might be?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Well, typically they'll have, they'll know what the things are that they're struggling with. And so it usually starts with that because that's where the person is experiencing it the most. So it's like, I mean, in the example of somebody who's in school, it's I'm behind it on my classes. I have all these assignments and exams, and I don't even know when they are. And so it really starts with the problem, but then the goal comes from exploring, okay, what do you actually what do you want it to be like? Like, how do you want to be in school? And so then it's it might be, well, I I just want to get my assignments in on time. There's there's the goal, or like I want to feel I want to know when stuff is due and not be surprised like the night before. So that's kind of where we get to the goal.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Oh, I love that. I think that that could be really useful for so many areas in life, right? Because you you oftentimes are if you're in, you know, just in life living, and and then you find, oh my gosh, look over your shoulder, and you have this thing of piled up things that you haven't gotten to. And what do you how do you advise people to like task manage? Are there certain tools that you use or how do you what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah,

Building A Personal Task System

SPEAKER_00 5:05

well, that's the thing I really like about coaching is that it's really like figuring out what is gonna work for that person specifically. So I typically don't, you know, it's not a prescription kind of thing. Like they don't come to me and be like, I'm struggling with tasks, and I'm like, okay, here's your apps that I'm subscribed that prescribing to you, and like that kind of thing. It's really looking at like their their life and their patterns and how they go about things and what they gravitate towards and like setting up a system. So I can tell you what I do that's been working for myself. I really like the Google Suite. So I have Google Calendar with all my stuff in there, and then I really like on the side is Google tasks, and you can have different lists. So I'll have like an urgent list, a kind of whenever list, or if there's a specific project I'm working on, I can make a list for that. And then it's just on the side there, and you can drag tasks on to specific days. And so I find that has been working for me, and I've been using that for about a year.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, yeah, I love that. No, thank you for giving us real like tangible things to do too, because I think that it's so important that we line those out as much as possible, the resources that people can use. And

Tech Tools Students Can Actually Use

SPEAKER_01 6:30

you know, someone showed me this thing the other day um called uh and you might really enjoy this because I think it's more like school class centered kind of a thing, but here we are. Google, we're not getting paid for this, but please do send us a sponsorship. Um but um I think it was called Notebook LM. Oh, yeah, I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I actually had a client, yeah, yeah. She wow found it really helpful. Um, I've been meaning to kind of look into it myself because it does seem really cool. Like, I think it can turn if you add content that you want to be studying, it can like turn it into a podcast, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

So neat. And I made a kind of a pitch pitch deck video, if you will, about how I'm going to pitch this bit of technology. I just thought it was so fascinating that I threw all of this in and it made like this seven-minute video. I'm like, what? I just wanted a two-minute video. This is great.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah, yeah. I think for for students and things, just wow, that's probably amazing. And researchers, I think it's probably really good for researchers. But anyways, that's not our task.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, and like Google is cool because it's free and it's pretty accessible. But I mean, if if you're the kind of person who is like always forgetting to go to websites and check things and like you need something that's more in your face, it's probably not gonna work for you. Or like if you can't get on Google without hopping on YouTube and like going down a rabbit hole, also probably not gonna work for you. So, like, while this has been working for me and I think they're really great tools, like it's not gonna be for everyone, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, definitely. You know, I I was talking to someone the other day that does like student admissions, and I'm not quite sure where she's on the East Coast, but she was telling me about specifically like the learning styles and how I I don't know if it's just recently or whatever, how that theory, if you will, has been debunked and that it really comes down to sensory, it's all about people's sensory needs and sensory issues, and I think ADHD and sensory are cousins, but you know, twin twin sisters, if you will, but there's so much that overlaps.

Sensory Support And Permission To Fidget

SPEAKER_01 8:57

What type of kind of sensory accommodations do you tell people like they should offer themselves?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

I think getting comfortable with like allowing yourself to fidget. I mean, I'm literally fidgeting right now, like can be really helpful because I think a lot, especially people who are later diagnosed, have really received messaging their whole life that you need to like be still and sit at your chair. Like I'm also right now sitting in my chair in like a pretzel. Like I'm just letting my body exist in the way that it wants to. But yeah, I was saying like people have really been trained throughout their life that they need to like exist and make their body in one specific way, which can honestly be distracting. Yeah. Um, and like I feel like just fiting really helps to get out some of that energy and really allow you to stay in your active brain. So I think, yeah, just getting in tune with like how you want your body to exist in this space and like letting it do that is really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Isn't that the case? Cause I so many people live throughout their lives, you know, in fight or flight, especially like you said, probably a lot of late diagnosed individuals who then are able to, you know, decide, wait a second, like I'm in this constant state of awareness, but I can let that go sometimes and and try to relax a little here or there. I think I've tried to practice that since getting my diagnosis about four or five years ago. So in and I can attest to how much even my husband said, like you exist in another like way. You're not always in fight or flight, like I'm not always going into the room and scaring you at every moment because I was uh still a lot like that, but not as bad. And I think it really like, like you said, just being really comfortable in your state of existence and allowing yourself to. I'm like a thumb twiddler, I guess you would, you know, and I usually do have some sort of fuzzy something or something I can also fidget with, but I in it wasn't until I was, you know, seeing my children struggle with that exact thing and realizing I need to buy fidget toys for everyone, you know, kind of boxes of fidgets for everyone, that I really started to enjoy and embrace like it's okay, like the human experience, it shows up differently for everyone. And I don't think that in overall society that has been, you know, the the case. And I really hope that nowadays, especially with you know, coaches like you who are out there providing kind of like a stability for who you are. You don't, you know, it's it's not about well, you need to change this. No, it's about how do you work with what you have and who you are to be the best that you can be, to and if that's your goal, right? I'm assuming you don't want to be the worst. You can be you just no.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, it's never about changing the person, it's always about changing their environment or their supports to support them to becoming the or like allowing that best version of themselves to flourish.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Exactly. And I love when you give people permission to do that too. I just have a 16-year-old that I kind of have to remind, you know, doing the lawn or like hard work, all of that. It doesn't provide your value, like your value and worth come from you just showing up and smiling first thing in the morning, uh, or not, or being grouchy. It doesn't matter, like that's not the case. It's not about the tasks. That's not what provides your personal value and worth and things. So I think that also reminding them only because I literally am emerged in teen life right now. So it's like my ever-living experience, but really reminding them how to take mistakes that they're making right now as wonderful blessings of learning experience and how exciting that you made that. Now you know that doesn't work and you don't have to do it again next time. And we're trying to remind them of those things. How do

Curiosity As An Antidote To Shame

SPEAKER_01 13:47

you help people when they get into that like like frustrating or kind of past the point where they're like, this isn't working anymore? How do you help them kind of get to the other side of that?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Hmm. I don't know if this is directly answering your question, but it's just kind of reminding me of my philosophy surrounding homework in coaching. And I know a lot of people do handout like worksheets and all of this stuff, but I make sure that everyone I work with understands that we're never doing homework, it's just experiments. And I try, and just in general, like bringing up helping people spark their curiosity with things and just like really everything in life is an experiment. And so if we've kind of worked out a plan of something that they've said that they're gonna go do the this week, and then it doesn't happen, that's not failure. Like, let's just get curious about that, and like, because if you didn't do it, then it's just clearly not the right thing for you. So let's take a step back and like dissect what went on here. Where did it fall apart? Like, what were you thinking when you were gonna like kind of thinking about doing it, or did you just completely forget about it? Like maybe you need better reminder systems. So I think just trying to shift into like curious, genuine curiosity is a good antidote to frustration.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, uh, it's my favorite word of all of all life, curiosity. I think that if we stay curious up until the day we are no longer, we'll never stop learning and we'll always be yearning to discover more and thing. I think it's what keeps us youthful, to be honest with you. I'll be 50 in just two months. And I don't feel like it. I feel like, oh my gosh, how have I already how I do that? Two dec like two decades, five decades? I like how has that already happened, you know? It but I I think it also I'm I've been so curious. Like, I want to continue to learn more about all of the things, so I I I really advise that for everyone. What do you think about kind of uh sorry, I was losing my train of thought here and choking at the same time. There we go.

Flexible Routines For Sleep And Self Care

SPEAKER_01 16:25

What type of tools do you offer for self-care, sleep management, things like that? What kind of uh steps do you have people work on them for themselves? And I mean everybody's individual different needs, but overall, I know it's kind of hard to have like a general conversation about individual needs, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah. Well, I guess what I'm thinking about in terms of that is a common thread among a lot of those self-care things is that they're in a part of a routine, like we have an exercise routine or a sleep hygiene routine, or like a and routines can be really challenging for people with ADHD because typically we think of them as doing the exact same thing every day or on a schedule in the exact same way. So, what I will suggest for people is to figure out what is like the bare minimum that needs to happen to be able to accomplish the goals related to the routine and kind of create like three tiers so that you have options. So, like if it comes down to typically we think of it as binary, like I'm gonna do my exercise routine or I'm not. But when you give yourself those three variants, where one is like the bare minimum, then the middle one's kind of the baseline, and then the top one is like you're really feeling it. So when you have those options, you shift away from am I doing it or not, to which version can I do today? And so it helps you be able to keep it up better so you don't get into that shame spiral where you like miss one day and then it's all over. And it's always better to do a little something than nothing. So, you know, it just keeping up the exercise example, like if your bare minimum is just walk up and down the stairs, that's still better than not doing anything. And now you're staying in your routine, it's a lot easier to keep going when there's momentum.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's so important that I'm really trying to model and teach right now is listening, listening to your body's needs, like and really honoring what those needs are because they're different for everyone. And I think that really clear communication is so helpful within, I mean, I'm a family unit, for example, that's the only one I can give right now. But you know, as long as I am clearly can communicating to my family members, hey, you know, I I have a really overwhelming day, I'm gonna need some help with these tasks. And then later on, like I'm starting to get a headache. Do you guys think you might be able to, you know, take the dog out or something for me instead, or hey, I'm feeling like, you know, extra, let's go get some ice cream or something, you know, and really including and making sure that everyone around me in the space that I'm in is clearly understanding because energy we're all made of energy and we can all feel when something is off or or different or when somebody is not, you know, at their normal baseline, like kind of like you said earlier. I love that that term, then you want to be, you know, you you feel it, you know it, like you want to help or interact or engage in some way, and that can be tricky. So I I really love that communicating clearly with people about your like boundaries and your how you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, especially with ADHD. It's there's a lot of it's not the same every day. Like your ADHD isn't ADHDing the same way every day. Um, and there's a lot of different things that can influence it, like stress or hormones, or if you forgot to take your meds, like just so many things. And so it's unrealistic to expect ourselves to show up the same every day and accomplish the same things every day when we're we are not the same every day, or like capacity is fluctuating, and it's okay that that happens. We just need to create a system for ourselves that allows that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Definitely, and like I don't like you said, uh, there's a lot of us that were taught to be quiet, be still, like deal with it, get over it. All of these crazy phrases, right? And now we're kind of in a in a time and in an era where we're like honoring and being graceful with ourselves and with others and being understanding that those things are necessary, those types of self-cares are needed, and they are the things that will sustain us throughout our lives. Like we can't take them for granted, but we can't we have to like take advantage of them. So I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

For sure.

unknown 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

What kind

Movement Based Self Care That Sticks

SPEAKER_01 21:46

of stuff do you do for yourself? What's your like special self care, you know, time for Zoe?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Well, I went to the exercise routine as an example because that's something that has been Been super life-changing for me. I just find that exercising consistently has really helped my ADHD. And it's just something that I find like really fun. My go-to part of my baseline is jumping on a rebounder, which is like a mini trampoline. And it's just really fun. I'll put on like music videos and watch some music videos and like dance and jump on there. And I also find the repetitive motion and like deep pressure to be really soothing. So that is definitely, and also just like being more in shape and exercising has also just allowed me to feel better and like breathe better and all those things. So that is like that's probably my my best self-care thing that I do.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

I would say my newest like kind of self-care. It's a little bit along that line too, is yoga ball. And like I love to, I'm if I'm not in a backbend when I'm not doing things, I don't know what else I'm doing. I feel like I think it's brought like youthfulness back to me. And like I feel my fine, my spine feels more flexible and like relaxed and not so tight because 50, let's I mean, we're getting up there. We're getting, you know, my body's getting like older and tighter. And it's just it's been so nice. And like just you know, or sitting on the ball when we're watching a movie or something, and just really engaging in a lot of stretching and things like that, I think have been really great for my personal self-care in this last year, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

So yeah, for my yeah, you mentioning the yoga ball has just prompted a memory of when I was a kid and we just had a yoga ball lying around and I would always be bouncing on it. And now I feel like the trampoline is kind of like filling that same gosh, I love input, but now I kind of feel like maybe I need a yoga ball to oh yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

No, I love that when when you were talking about the mini trampoline, I was in envisioning when I was younger, I loved dance, I love to dance, dance, like I was always dancing, and so that I think something in me that was I was always in music, you know, music was always going, I was always moving and dancing, and yeah, that's it's a lot, it's a really big part of our family, too. It's kind of funny because my husband, like, he does not have he's not musically inclined. Like, I don't think I said this to my mom just yesterday. This is so funny. I don't think music has ever moved him. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, going through your life, and you just don't have that experience. Now he has different experiences, he has the talent of like decade foreseeing decades ahead, like he can foreshadow, foresee things from events happening now, like a psychic. Oh my gosh, I've been with him for 22 years now. I have seen things play out, I do not doubt him anymore. Yeah, we have our different talents and skills, right? That we bring to the table. But yeah, it that is fascinating. But you know, most importantly is that especially that we accept and kind of acknowledge that we do have these maybe quirks or or habits or styles that might look different to other families or different than everybody shopping at the store that day, whatever. But it's it's about really allowing yourself, your family, and I'm sure your you know clients to be themselves and like you said, help them change their environment, help them change their perceptions rather than their their selves to have to feel like, oh, I'm not fitting in. Well, you just need to, you know, find a different park to go to, or you know, do we sometimes you like you said, get curious about what's really going on.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah. And

Making Tasks Fun Without Guilt

SPEAKER_00 26:08

I think another thing is that people seem to feel like it's wrong to make things fun. Like people, I find people think that they just need to do the boring version, like, okay, I need to exercise, I need to go to the gym, or like I just need to sit down and do this work. But I firmly believe that life does not have to be boring, and like doing things in a fun way isn't doing them in a worse way if you're reaching the same outcome. Like, sometimes my workout routine will be playing just dance on my Nintendo Switch, and I'm still getting that cardio, and I'm still like keeping in my routine and feeling good, and it's fun. Like, I'll be listening to music when I'm doing my emails or doing my work. Like, you can just make things fun, right? And that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

I love your attitude and your perspective, and I'm just really grateful we made this connection because I, you know, there's just there's not enough people that want to live that way. And I just told you my kids were at the pool right before I and they told me when they got in the car, you know, there was nobody at the pool. There was one old like like one older senior lady, and they were like in the lazy river, and the lady they were going against the current, and the lady said, You guys just need to go somewhere else. And they said, And you know, she went and she complained to the lifeguard, all these, and what were they doing? They were just having fun. They were just they're just they're they weren't being loud, they weren't being disrespectful, they were just having fun between themselves with each other. That's all. But this, like you just said, someone who couldn't have fun being had around them for some reason or another, like sad. Like, listeners, don't do that, don't turn into that. Like, go, please go have fun as soon as you shut this podcast off.

Motivation Pillars And Procrastination Traps

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Go do something fun, go stick your tongue out at your kid or something, even if it's the ten two-second fun thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah, and like something that I'll I'll say to my clients is like fun is fuel for ADHD brains, so it's it's not optional. Like, when something is so boring, there's nothing that's sparking the motivation in your brain. I've been really loving the in-cup pillars for motivating ADHD brains, which is interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and passion. Oh, wow and so when one of those things is being activated, that's what gets our brain moving. It's not whereas you know, a non-ADHD brain can be uh motivated by this is really important for my workplace, so I gotta do it. Like our brain just doesn't work that way. It needs to be interesting to us, or we have to be passionate about it, or it has to have like some fine element in order for us to actually get motivated. And so many people rely on procrastination because they aren't leaning into those other factors. The only one that comes happens naturally, and that's procrastination, which is the urgency.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Interesting. No, I'm glad you said that because that's a big that's a big uh probably cause for things to go wrong a lot. So yeah, it's hard. I know that it I am really like I like to do things right away, uh, but my husband's a procrastinator, so sometimes we joke that we're like so opposite, we're we're the yin and yang of like the same person, you know. Opposites attract opposites exactly. Oh funny.

Where To Find Zoe And Work Together

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Well, you know, where can people go to support you to find out more about you? Give us all the good stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

So you can find everything through my website, it's newbloomadhcoaching.com, and that will have all the links. I do have a blog on there which has some helpful kind of like tips and stuff like that. And then as I mentioned earlier, the social media is where you can get all the the little videos and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

I love that. And for listeners, that's audio audio with Zoe on socials. Oh, not on that's not it. I'm sorry that I'm just reading here I am, just I can't read and actually understand what I'm doing at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

I'm gonna let you say your social name.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

It's Audi H D with Zoe. So like Audi H D combining autism and ADHD, A U D H D. And yeah, I'm on like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, threads, just just all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Wonderful. Well, thank you so, so much. I'm so glad we made this connection. And I a lot of people reach out to me looking for executive functioning coaches, ADHD coaches. So glad to have someone to refer people to. Um yeah, and I I really glad that we got to make this connection. If you have any resources or uh events or anything that you, you know, have coming up that you want me to share, please reach out and let me know so that I can support you in those things and I'd love to have you back on and we'll have a you know more in depth conversation about some whatever topics we want.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, well, thanks again for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, it's been a pleasure, and I really look forward to staying in touch.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Me too.