ADHD, perimenopause and the systems that stopped working

Winning with ADHD is an ADHD coaching practice based in Lisbon, working with clients globally.

Winning with ADHD was founded by Angella Newell, late-diagnosed, ADDCA-trained and ICF aligned ADHD Coach.

Angella and Winning with ADHD specialise in working with late-diagnosed adults, in particular, entrepreneurs and founders, women, high achievers and couples affected by ADHD.

ADHD coaching is a structured, forward-looking relationship focused on understanding how your brain works and building systems that work with it, not against it.

A coach is not a therapist, a doctor, or a mentor. Coaching doesn't treat ADHD and it doesn't work through the past. It works with the present: what you're trying to do, what's getting in the way, and how to build around the specific ways your ADHD brain operates.

Sessions are practical. You set the agenda. The coach works with what you bring (a decision, a pattern, a situation, a challenge) and helps you see it clearly, understand what's actually happening, and identify what would genuinely help.

Done well, ADHD coaching produces real change: systems that stick, habits that fit your brain, and a clearer understanding of your own patterns. It's not about trying harder. It's about understanding what you're working with.

Therapy typically works with the past to understand the present. Coaching works with the present to build the future.

A therapist is a clinical professional trained to treat mental health conditions. An ADHD coach is not a clinician, coaching is not a clinical service and it doesn't replace therapeutic support. If what you need is therapy, a good coach will tell you so.

What coaching offers is practical and specific: understanding how your ADHD brain processes information, energy, and motivation; building systems and habits that fit your neurotype; and making real progress on the things that matter to you.

Many people work with a coach and a therapist simultaneously. They serve different purposes and the combination is often more powerful than either alone.

No.

Many coaching clients come with a formal diagnosis. Many do not. They come with a strong sense that ADHD is relevant to how their brain works, and they want support whether or not they have a clinical label.

The coaching doesn't depend on a piece of paper. It depends on what you're experiencing and what you want to change. If the way your brain works around focus, energy, executive function, and consistency is getting in your way. That's what we work with.

If you're unsure whether an ADHD diagnosis is relevant to your situation, a free discovery session is the right place to start. I'll listen to what's going on and give you an honest view. Coaching isn’t an assessment, so if it looks like one would help you, I’ll say so and point you towards how to get one.

Sessions are 50 minutes via Google Meet. You set the agenda. There is no fixed curriculum and no homework I assign you.

You bring what is most alive for you: a decision you've been avoiding, a pattern that keeps showing up, a situation at work or at home, a goal you haven't been able to make progress on. There is no wrong thing to start with.

I listen, for what you're saying and for what's underneath it. I reflect back what I'm hearing, ask questions that open things up rather than narrow them down, and name what I'm noticing. You decide what to do with it.

Most sessions end with something specific: a reframe that changes how you're looking at a situation, a decision that was stuck and is now made, a next step that is specific enough to actually happen.

Within 48 hours you receive a brief written summary. Within 24 hours, a recording if you want it.

That depends on two things: whether you're working with the right coach, and whether you're ready to do the work.

The evidence for ADHD coaching is solid and growing. Studies consistently show improvements in executive function, self-regulation, goal attainment, and quality of life for adults who receive structured ADHD coaching. The outcomes are strongest when the coaching relationship is a good fit and when the client is engaged rather than passive.

What coaching is not is a quick fix, a substitute for medication if medication would help, or something that works on its own if the rest of the picture: sleep, support, clinical input, is not also being addressed.

The honest answer: for the right person at the right time, ADHD coaching is one of the highest-value investments they make in themselves. For the wrong person at the wrong time, it's expensive and frustrating for both parties. A good coach will tell you honestly which category you're in.

This is one of the most underaddressed questions in the ADHD coaching space, and it deserves a direct answer.

Oestrogen plays a significant role in dopamine regulation, the same neurotransmitter most directly implicated in ADHD. As oestrogen levels decline in perimenopause, many women experience a marked worsening of ADHD symptoms: brain fog, difficulty concentrating, emotional dysregulation, and loss of executive function. These symptoms overlap significantly with perimenopause itself, which is why they are so often attributed entirely to hormones and why ADHD is so frequently diagnosed for the first time in women at this life stage.

ADHD coaching doesn't treat perimenopause. But it can address the specific cognitive and executive function challenges that worsen at this stage and help you build systems that work for your brain as it is right now, not as it was ten years ago.

If you're navigating both, it's worth speaking with both an ADHD coach and a menopause specialist. These are not competing conversations.

The first thing to know is that the relief and the grief you're feeling are both appropriate. A late diagnosis is not a simple piece of information, it's a reappraisal of your whole history. That takes time to process, and it deserves more than a productivity hack.

In practical terms: you don't need to act on anything immediately. The most useful thing in the first few weeks is to let the diagnosis land without rushing to fix or change anything.

When you're ready to start building: understanding your specific ADHD profile, identifying which of your existing strategies are working and which are compensations that cost too much, beginning to put systems in place that fit your brain - that's where coaching comes in.

A free discovery session is a low-pressure place to start. It's a 25-minute conversation about where you are and what might actually help. No commitment, no pitch.

It depends on what you're working on and what "working" means to you.

Some clients notice a meaningful shift in a single session. A reframe that changes how they've been approaching a situation, or clarity on a decision that's been stuck. That's real, but it's not the same as lasting change.

Lasting change: building systems that hold, developing a true understanding of your own patterns, shifting the relationship you have with your own brain takes longer. Most clients begin to feel that something is noticeably different after four to six sessions. The change tends to be more durable after eight to twelve.

What I can say with confidence: the clients who get the most from coaching bring real things to sessions, are honest about what isn't working, and don't expect to be fixed from the outside. The coaching works when you do.

Three things that are distinct.

First, lived experience. I am late-diagnosed. I know the specific texture of understanding your ADHD later in life. The relief, the grief, the reappraisal from the inside. That's not a marketing line. It shapes every conversation.

Second, a founder background. Before coaching, I co-founded WERKIN, a career acceleration platform for neurodivergent and diverse professionals. I understand what it is to build something while navigating ADHD without a roadmap, and I coach the entrepreneurs and founders I was.

Third, the sustainability framing. Most ADHD coaching either sits in the clinical/therapeutic space or in the hustle-culture performance space. I'm not in either. The goal is not high performance at any cost. It's building a life and a way of working that fits your brain and is sustainable for the long term. That's a different thing, and it's underserved.

Yes. This is one of the four audiences I work with specifically.

Founders with ADHD have a distinctive profile: extraordinary capacity in certain conditions, significant drag in others, productivity systems that work brilliantly until they don't, and a tendency to attribute the gap between their capability and their output to something other than an un-coached neurodivergent brain.

The Founder Circle is a group coaching cohort specifically for this audience. 1:1 sessions and packs are also available for founders who prefer individual work.

If you're building something and you suspect ADHD is part of the picture, diagnosed or not, a discovery session is the right place to start.

All sessions are online via Google Meet. I coach clients globally.

I'm based in Lisbon, Portugal, and have worked with clients across Europe, the UK, North America, Asia, and Australia. Sessions are available across a range of time zones. This is something we confirm during the discovery session.

There is no in-person option currently.