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Tag: executive burnout

  • Diagnosed With ADHD at 54: Why Late-Diagnosed ADHD in Women Shows Up in Midlife

    I was diagnosed with ADHD at 54.

    Fifty. Four.

    By then I’d built two multi-million-dollar consulting practices at two different firms. Earned a PhD. Sold multi-million dollar deals. Worked in the intelligence community. Wrote speeches for Admirals, Generals, and rocket scientists. Was a behavioral-health counselor and taught cognitive psychology.

    Yes. I taught other people how the brain works while mine ran an entirely different operating system in the background.

    (Please – nobody tell those students.)

    So when people ask how it got missed for that long, here’s the candid answer:

    I was very good at masking it. And didn’t know to look for it.

    That’s the pattern for a lot of women with late-diagnosed ADHD. Especially high-performing, successful, Type A+ overachieving women. Symptoms so well covered nobody went looking, including us. Then we hit our 40s and 50s, hormones shift, and the mask stops working.

    It’s ADHD Awareness Month. Here’s what I wish someone had told me in my 30s instead of 54:

    • Why ADHD in women gets missed for decades
    • What masking actually looks like in a high performer
    • Why it so often falls apart in perimenopause
    • What to do when the coping strategies quit at work

    Why is ADHD diagnosed so late in women?

    Short answer: ADHD in women is often missed because it looks different than the hyperactive-boy picture the diagnosis was built on, and because capable women compensate. Good grades, big careers, and elaborate workarounds hide the struggle until something, often midlife hormone changes, pulls the workarounds out from under them.

    The research has been saying this for a while. Girls and women are underdiagnosed, more often show inattentive symptoms than disruptive ones, and are more likely to get treated for the anxiety or depression sitting on top of the ADHD instead of the ADHD itself (Hinshaw et al., 2022; Quinn & Madhoo, 2014).

    Translation: if you weren’t bouncing off the classroom walls, nobody checked.

    And if you were succeeding? Forget it.

    High performance is the best camouflage there is. Nobody refers the woman running the department for an evaluation. They give her more work!

    The takeaway: a late diagnosis doesn’t mean you didn’t have it. It means you were compensating so well that nobody, you included, thought to call “chronic stress” or “burnout” or “success” something else..

    What does ADHD masking look like in high-performing women?

    Short answer: ADHD masking is the set of workarounds you build to look like everything’s fine: over-preparing, perfectionism, panic-powered deadlines, backup systems for your backup systems. It works. That’s the trap. From the outside it looks like competence. From the inside it costs a fortune in energy.

    I call mine the duct tape.

    Here’s what it looked like:

    • Deadlines met at 2 a.m. on pure adrenaline…and kinda loving it (it was the dopamine chase)
    • Three backup systems for the one system that kept failing.
    • A Post-it stuck right in front of my face. Staring straight at it. Still forgot the meeting I scheduled.
    • Keys locked in the Jeep. (Once. Okay. More than once. Okay, stop counting.)

    Here’s the thing.

    It worked.

    For decades, it worked.

    Success held together by duct tape still looks like success from the outside. Nobody checks the duct tape. Including the woman holding the roll.

    In fact – you get called “quirky” or “eccentric” and people start to compensate for you.

    My doctoral research was on women leaders navigating chronic pain in gendered environments and found deliberate masking is a key tactic to survival and success. I found the exact thing I was doing. And still didn’t see it in my own mirror.

    Seriously people – that’s not a lack of intelligence. I’m smart. That’s a “yeah, but that’s not me.” Masking is designed to be invisible. If you could see it easily, it wouldn’t be a “mask”

    The takeaway: masking is armor. The problem isn’t that you have the armor…but that you wear it every day and it costs you.

    Why do ADHD symptoms get worse in perimenopause?

    Short answer: Estrogen helps regulate dopamine, the brain chemical ADHD already runs short on. In perimenopause, estrogen swings and drops even more than normal, and dopamine signaling swings with it. Sometimes radically. Focus, working memory, and follow-through get harder, and coping strategies that worked for decades can stop working fairly suddenly.

    But you don’t know why.

    Your OBGYN makes offhanded comments like “yeah that’s normal” – but that doesn’t really help. Guess what? OBGYN’s want to birth babies. They are (and yes this is a rant) regulated by insurance to 15 minutes per patient regardless of your issue, so having an educational conversation about your menopause brain and how the neurochemicals work 1) isn’t what they went to school for, 2) isn’t the conversation they want to have, 3) isn’t what insurance reimburses them for. So who makes the connection for you?

    Well Dr. Lisa Mosconi in her book The Menopause Brain – trust me. This neuroscientist is shaking things up and she’s showing what the female brain is all about!

    Heads up: that’s an Amazon affiliate link from my other platform 10PM Somewhere. If you buy through it, I earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra.

    Bottom line – Estrogen is freaking important for dopamine! Dopamine is freaking important for our executive function. Working memory, focus, attention, emotion regulation, finding words, prioritizing, holding a thought long enough to finish it. Without enough we feel foggy…

    I can’t tell you in perimenopause it isn’t dementia, but I can tell you if your in your 30s to 50s and you all of a sudden your brain feels “foggy” it could be hormone’s – not matter what your gaslighting medical professional may say. They may call you a WW (Whining Woman) off-the-record because that’s what they were trained to do (watch this video only if you want to be really pissed

    ADHD already involves dopamine trouble. Then perimenopause shows up, and estrogen doesn’t glide gently downhill. It swings. Hard. For years.

    Every drop takes a little dopamine with it.

    So all that masking machinery you spent a lifetime building – the perfectionism, the hyper-vigilance, the panic-powered deadlines – doesn’t fade out politely.

    It quits. All at once. Usually mid-quarter.

    Researchers have found that women with ADHD report more hormone-related mood symptoms, including heavier symptoms during the menopause transition (Dorani et al., 2021). Which tracks with every woman I’ve talked to who said some version of “my meds just stopped working.”

    They may not have stopped working. The ground under them moved.

    The takeaway: if your brain suddenly got harder to run in your late 30s, 40s or 50s, there’s likely a biological reason worth bringing to your doctor…and not just any doctor. Find a functional doctor that will work with you.

    Is it ADHD, perimenopause, or both?

    Short answer: It can be both, and the symptoms overlap heavily: brain fog, forgetfulness, trouble focusing, irritability, sleep problems. Only a clinician can sort out which is which. You don’t need to have the answer before asking for help. You need data to bring to the appointment.

    I’m doctor but not that kinda doctor. I’m an integrative psychological scientist, not a physician. I can’t tell you which one you’ve got.

    What I can tell you is this: you don’t have to pick one before you’re allowed to ask. Don’t diagnose yourself with dementia before you’ve talked with a trained professional who knows what they are doing.

    A lot of women get bounced between offices. Too smart for ADHD. Too young for perimenopause. Too stressed, have you tried yoga?

    Each specialist treats their slice. Nobody looks at the intersection, which is where you actually live.

    Find a functional practitioner – here’s a link to the

    Institute of Functional Medicine – Find a Practitioner Tool

    That’s why the next section matters.

    The takeaway: walk in with evidence, not just a feeling. Feelings are easy to dismiss. Patterns are not.

    What to do when your ADHD coping strategies stop working at work

    Short answer: Stop treating it as a willpower problem. Start tracking what’s actually happening: when focus shows up, when it doesn’t, how you slept, where you are in your cycle. A written pattern removes the guesswork, gives your doctor real data, and shows you where to put your limited energy at work.

    For most of my life, I had a name for my brain.

    “Chasing shiny things.”

    Said the way great-aunt Hilda says it at Thanksgiving.

    Turns out it was wiring. The same wiring that makes me see patterns other people miss.

    Not a superpower. And not a defect.

    Simply different wiring. And wiring I can work with, now that I see it.

    You may not feel it. But I know you can see it.

    What finally helped me wasn’t a new planner. (FYI: I own enough planners to wallpaper a Target.)

    It was writing it down where I couldn’t argue with it.

    • When focus showed up.
    • When it didn’t.
    • What happened the night before.

    Not to fix anything.

    Just to stop lying to myself.

    When you’ve lived in overdrive long enough, your internal gauge breaks. You honestly don’t feel how bad it is. But two weeks of notes on paper? That you can see. And then you can’t ignore the pattern of data.

    A feeling is easy to talk yourself out of. A pattern on paper is data..

    Here’s what the data gets you:

    • At the doctor: a log instead of “I just feel off” is much harder to wave away and ignore. (Remember – I’m a researcher!)
    • At work: you learn when your good hours actually are, and you stop scheduling the hardest thinking into the worst ones.
    • In your own head: the evidence that this is chemistry, not “character” which shuts up the voice saying you’re losing your edge, are lazy, or my personal favorite a “moron.” (such a nice word Shannan, such. a. nice word (sarcasm)

    The takeaway: energy is the finite resource, not time. Track your energy and capacity.

    And a book worth your bandwidth this ADHD Awareness Month

    If you want something to read in short bursts (and let’s be honest, short bursts is the name of the game (not this mammoth blog I wrote to appeal to SEO/AEO!)

    ADHD Field Guide by Cate Osborn, Erik Gude, and Rennie Dyball, with a foreword by KC Davis, LPC.

    Seriously! As someone who loves format, simple, soundbytes, real-talk, getting to the point. These folks do an amazing job.

    Heads up: that’s an Amazon affiliate link from my other platform 10PM Somewhere. If you buy through it, I earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra.

    The bottom line

    Late-diagnosed ADHD in women isn’t a mystery. It’s been working. Then hormones changed, the duct tape let go, and it looked like we were falling apart.

    Not really, the workarounds ran out. But the wiring has been in tact the whole time, it’s just different type of wiring.

    So this month, don’t buy another planner. Don’t white-knuckle it.

    Write down what’s actually happening for two weeks. Take it to someone who’ll read it.

    Happy ADHD Awareness Month.

    Now…go find your keys.

    (Tip: check the freezer or the Jeep ignition.)

    Frequently asked questions

    Can you be diagnosed with ADHD in your 50s?

    Yes. ADHD is present from childhood, but many women aren’t diagnosed until their late 30s, 40s, 50s or even 60s, often when hormone changes make long-standing strategies stop working. I was diagnosed at 54.

    Why does ADHD get worse during perimenopause?

    Estrogen helps regulate dopamine, which affects focus, working memory, and follow-through. As estrogen fluctuates and declines in perimenopause, many women with ADHD notice symptoms getting harder to manage, sometimes suddenly.

    What is ADHD masking?

    ADHD masking is the set of strategies people use to hide ADHD symptoms and appear organized: over-preparing, perfectionism, adrenaline-fueled deadlines, and backup systems. It often works for years, which is one reason ADHD in women is diagnosed late.

    How do I know if it’s ADHD or perimenopause?

    The symptoms overlap, and it can be both. Only a clinician can tell them apart. Tracking focus, sleep, mood, and your cycle for a few weeks gives your doctor concrete data instead of a vague description.

    About the author

    Dr. Shannan Simms is an Integrative Psychological Scientist, a Professor of Business, Psychology of Gender and Cognitive Psychology and a Certified Stress Coach through the American Institute of Stress. She holds a PhD, built and ran two multi-million-dollar consulting practices without ever taking a business class, is a neurodivergent thinker and lives what she teaches, coaches, consults and speaks on.

    References

    Barth, C., Villringer, A., & Sacher, J. (2015). Sex hormones affect neurotransmitters and shape the adult female brain during hormonal transition periods. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 9, Article 37. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00037

    Dorani, F., Bijlenga, D., Beekman, A. T. F., van Someren, E. J. W., & Kooij, J. J. S. (2021). Prevalence of hormone-related mood disorder symptoms in women with ADHD. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 133, 10–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.12.005

    Hinshaw, S. P., Nguyen, P. T., O’Grady, S. M., & Rosenthal, E. A. (2022). Annual research review: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in girls and women: Underrepresentation, longitudinal processes, and key directions. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 484–496. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13480

    Quinn, P. O., & Madhoo, M. (2014). A review of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in women and girls: Uncovering this hidden diagnosis. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.4088/PCC.13r01596

    <small>Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no additional cost to you.</small>

    <small>Not medical advice. This article is for education and is based on my own experience and published research. It isn’t a substitute for diagnosis or treatment. Talk with a qualified clinician about your symptoms.</small>

  • The Rung I Chased for Ten Years (and the Flatness at the Top)

    The most expensive mistake I’ve ever made didn’t cost me money.

    I spent years climbing a corporate ladder. One where everyone had pointy elbows, jockeying for the next “opportunity.”

    And when I got the promotion I remember my leader ushering me in by saying “Congratulations! Now you’re part of the problem too.”

    Wait?! What?

    Within weeks I felt like it was bait and switch. I told a mentor and advocate that the process was wrong.

    I’d climbed the goat path. Run the obstacle course. Been invited into the vault. Then the vault door was slammed shut and only then were the lights turned on to show me what I’d been clamoring for.

    I didn’t feel triumph. I felt faint, confusing flatness.

    Something closer to the feeling of showing up to what you were promised would be the best party and experience of your life – like what you imagine champagne and caviar is “supposed” to be like (for the record, I’ve had both and do not like either), but you find yourself standing in the doorway wondering why you’d rather be at a pizza party in someone’s backyard with a cold beer.

    Here’s my point: Some of the “shoulds” in your life that are costing you the most don’t feel like guilt.

    Let me show you how I missed it.

    Some “shoulds” show up as drive or ambition.

    We think we can spot a “should” because it feels bad. It nags. It guilts. *You should call your mother. (probably…yeah ok…maybe) You should answer that text (meh…). You should be further along by now. (argh)

    But the sneakiest ones don’t nag at all. They dress up as want.

    I should want this promotion. I should be scaling my business by now. I should want the big title, the big office, the big life someone sketched out for me before I had opinions about my life.

    That doesn’t feel like an imported order. It feels like your own honest ambition. Which is exactly the disguise.

    I accepted someone else’s ambition.

    And that’s the actual mistake.

    It wasn’t the climb. It was the fact that I didn’t actually want it.

    In fact…I did it out of spite because some guy told me he didn’t believe I could and didn’t support me. Everyone around me agreed that this next step, this next rung was the right one for me except this one guy. I’d been saying “no” for years. Right up until he said he didn’t believe I “could” and then my competitive nature kicked in.

    And I had to prove I could.

    My Autopilot is fast and cheap and confident (we met it in the Intruder Paradox piece). It handed my slower, thinking brain a tidy story… this is the win, go get it. this is how you prove yourself and get people to take you seriously… and my thinking brain, lazy by design, signed on the dotted line without reading the contract.

    Ten years of technically-mine decisions that somehow weren’t mine at all.

    My body sent me the bill.

    Here’s the thing about running someone else’s ambition through your own nervous system. There’s a tax, and your body pays it.

    Mine came due.

    ER visits. Chronic pain. Two surgeries. Medication. Chemotherapy. Two auto-immune disorders. Medically induced and then surgically induced menopause. And everything that comes with it.

    Let me be specific about the chronic pain, because “chronic pain” is a tidy phrase that tells you nothing.

    This was not bad-period pain. Not the cramps you push through with a heating pad, an Advil, and a tight smile at 9am. Because that’s the box everyone tries to file it in – and it’s the wrong box.

    This was pelvic pain that spiked without warning and shot straight up to the base of my skull. The kind that leaves you panting for a second. Nauseated. Shaken. Trembling. Then it would settle back into its baseline… a dull, pulsing, bone-deep ache in my abdomen, my hips, and my lower back.

    All the time. 24/7. Nothing touched it. Always on, always playing in the background.

    This background “noise” takes rent out of your brain and quietly eats the capacity you need to problem-solve, think critically, hold a conversation without a snap or a snark riding shotgun on every sentence. I wasn’t difficult. I was in pain, all day, every day, running a full executive load on whatever cognition the pain hadn’t already spent, popping Vicodin to make it through.

    Opioid medication dulls the pain and quiets the background noise, and dulls those executive functioning skills.

    Here’s what that looked like in the rooms where I was supposed to be the sharpest person present:

    + I’d be mid-point in a meeting, building to my point – the point I’d “practiced” – only to lose the thread. Just gone. I got really good at roundabout ramble phrases to bring myself back to my point and just hoped no one noticed.

    + I’d lose words presenting to leadership. Not obscure ones. Ordinary ones like “proposal” or “pen”. The word right there, close enough to touch, and my brain would hand me static instead.

    + I’d read the same report four times and retain nothing. Blank on a colleague’s name mid-introduction – someone I’d worked beside for ten years – while I was handing them to a client.

    So I built scaffolding to hold it together. Lists for the lists. Alarms on the alarms. The elaborate machinery of a woman spending most of her energy masking and hiding that things weren’t working out of fear.

    And under all of it, a fatigue that sleep didn’t touch. Not tired. Depleted. I’d hit 2pm and feel my thinking wade through wet sand, quietly doing the math on how many hours were left before I could stop performing “fine.” It was always 4 hours until I drove an hour to reset and then got back online to do my administrative work.

    I told myself this was just the cost of the level I was now playing at.

    And that’s the lie that keeps you climbing.

    The strain my body was under wasn’t a sign that I needed more grit. My body was flagging a significant all system failure but I kept overriding it.

    The lesson: I never asked if I was chasing my dream.

    My lesson was when I said yes to the promotion it wasn’t because I really wanted it. Others wanted it for me.

    I hit a point where I couldn’t do it anymore (that’s a whole different story) and I climbed down that ladder in my 40s. Deliberately. Shuffled sideways. Into work that fit me. And I’ve done it twice more in the years that have followed.

    But before I made the decision to climb down I wondered if it was “failing” because you’re supposed to you know, climb up the ladder. Especially as a woman. And as you rise up, you lift others with you.

    The Autopilot told me that going down the ladder was for people who couldn’t hack it; that everyone would see me as a failure. (The Autopilot was very invested in the ladder. The Autopilot also never once asked if I like heights.)

    I overrode the Autopilot with evidence and choices. Deliberately designed my exit and transition.

    Here’s what I know now – walking away from a title that doesn’t fit isn’t a fall. It’s authentic and the truest thing I could have ever done for me to align myself to do work with my values.

    The one question that would have saved me a decade.

    I knew I was proving myself but I never asked whose ambition and dream I was following. I couldn’t see that the room I was in was dictating and driving the decision, and much of that decision was coming out of fear and this longstanding need to be taken seriously.

    I didn’t ask the question did I choose this or am I just going through the motions because it’s what I’m supposed to do. Because it’s the logical next step.

    I’m not anti-ambition. I’m anti-imposed ambition. Want the promotion. Want the title. Want the corner office. Just make sure it’s your true want before you lose a decade and kill your nervous system going after it.

    Next Steps

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    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is “borrowed ambition” and how does it lead to burnout?

    Borrowed ambition occurs when you adopt external expectations, corporate milestones, or a desire to prove someone wrong as your own personal drive. Because this motivation is imported rather than authentic, pursuing it forces your nervous system to operate on stress and fear, eventually leading to severe physical exhaustion, health crises, and cognitive depletion.

    Is stepping down from a senior corporate role a sign of failure?

    No. Stepping down or moving laterally off a traditional career ladder is an act of intentional realignment, not defeat. Choosing to leave a title that actively damages your health or conflicts with your core values requires overriding default cultural conditioning (“Autopilot”) that falsely equates endless upward mobility with personal worth.

    How does chronic stress and physical pain affect executive functioning?

    Continuous physical strain and chronic pain consume immense cognitive bandwidth. This ongoing “background noise” drains the exact mental resources required for working memory, focus, and decision-making. When your brain is constantly processing physical distress, simple cognitive tasks feel exhausting, forcing you to rely on elaborate masking strategies just to perform routine work.

  • The Tyranny of the “Should”

    A psychologist named it in 1950. And it’s still running your Tuesday.

    I started a newsletter on Substack…and it almost didn’t get a name.

    Not because I couldn’t think of one.

    Because I thought of plenty, and then I “should-ed” them out of existence.

    Every. Single. One.

    → It should be more professional.

    → It should signal the credentials.

    → It should be searchable, strategic, polished, defensible to a committee that exists only inside my own head and meets, apparently, around the clock…. (argh!)

    (I do this for a living, by the way.)

    I’m a behavioral scientist. I’ve spent (ahem) 20+ years explaining to very smart people why they keep doing the exact thing they swore they’d stop. (Sidebar: Did you know the internet says you “shouldn’t” lead with how many years of expertise you have if it’s over 15 because… ageism? Cool. So we’re breaking that one right out of the gate, too.)

    But back to the story about should…

    …There I was, narrating the play-by-play of my own stuck-ness in real time, completely unable to move.

    (Cool. Great. Very on brand!)

    So let me introduce the thing that almost ate me alive, because there’s a decent chance it’s been snacking on you too.

    Here’s the thing about a “should.”

    It doesn’t feel like an opinion. It feels like a fact.

    + I should answer that email tonight. (why?)

    + I should host Thanksgiving. (because of what?)

    + I should be further along by now. (according to who?)

    + I should want this promotion. (but do you?)

    The word shows up wearing the costume of obvious, neutral truth, and we obey it before we’ve had a chance to ask a single question. Like do “we” want it.

    A psychologist named Karen Horney clocked this back in 1950. She called it “the tyranny of the should”… the way a life quietly fills up with internal commands about who you’re supposed to be, none of which you remember agreeing to (Horney, 1950).

    Decades later, cognitive therapists put “should statements” on the official list of distorted thinking, right next to “catastrophizing” and “all-or-nothing” thinking (Burns, 1980)…(for the record, I’ve been known to do all three, sometimes in rapid-fire succession).

    You can want things. That isn’t bad. But the “should” is actually a standard you didn’t set. This standard was imposed on you, and then punishes you when you don’t meet the expectation.

    And that’s the part nobody mentions. The “should” comes with a tax.

    Two of them, actually: guilt and permission.

    There’s the guilt trip, on the inside.

    + The low hum or whisper that says you’re behind, you’re selfish, you’re not doing enough, you dropped a ball you never agreed to carry.

    And then there’s the permission slip, on the outside.

    + The sense that before you get to choose the thing you actually want, somebody has to sign off. A boss. A mother. Your neighbor’s best-friend’s Aunt Frida –

    + A culture, that decided a long time ago what a competent woman’s day is supposed to look like, a masculine man’s day is supposed to consist of, whether non-binary or transgender are even allowed to have a ‘day’

    So, a “should” is really two things at once. Something installed in you, and something still being broadcast at you, meeting in the exact second you decide what to do next.

    That’s why willpower doesn’t touch it. You can’t out-discipline an instruction you didn’t know you were following.

    To be fair, you can’t delete the reflex either. I’m not going to try to sell you that. The should is going to keep showing up, fast (so fast – like 200 miliseconds fast!) before you can think… that’s just our brain and how our brain works.

    But here’s where it gets interesting.

    You can’t stop the “should” from firing. But you can absolutely catch it after.

    That tiny gap, between the should landing and you obeying it, is the whole game. And the move in that gap is one question:

    Whose “should” is this? Is it mine or someone else’s?

    That’s it.

    That’s the verb.

    You look at the should sitting there, dressed up as obvious truth, and you ask whose is this? Sometimes it’s yours, and you keep it, eyes open, on purpose. Often it belongs to a room you walked out of years ago, and you get to hand it back.

    (No thank you sir, I respectfully reject this and hand this toxic nonsense back to you)

    That’s what I mean by “UNshould.”

    Not “stop having standards.”

    Not “quit caring.”

    Just… take the thing apart, find out whose it is, and choose from there. One should at a time. The first few are clumsy. Eventually, they get faster.

    So that’s what this is.

    UNshould is where I’ll bring you the science behind the default. It’s about getting yourself back onto your own priority list – you know, like that swanky nightclub in LA where you say, “I’m on the list,” and they usher you inside in front of everyone else. That kind of priority!

    We’re doing it without the guilt trip, and without waiting for anyone to sign a permission slip.

    Some weeks it’ll be burnout and boundaries. Some weeks I’ll wax poetic about neurodiversity. Some weeks it’ll be the strange thing your brain does in the meeting that matters. But it will always be the research, translated into something you can actually use by Tuesday.

    I’m going to sit next to you and whisper, “This is what’s happening,” with enough of the absurdity named out loud that we can both barely keep a straight face.

    The committee in my head still meets. I just stopped letting them run the place.

    Glad you’re here. Let’s go take some “shoulds” apart.

    Next Step

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    References

    Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. William Morrow.

    Horney, K. (1950). Neurosis and human growth: The struggle toward self-realization. W. W. Norton.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is “the tyranny of the should” in psychology?

    Coined by psychoanalyst Karen Horney in 1950, “the tyranny of the should” describes the rigid, unwritten rules and expectations people impose on themselves. These internalized commands create an impossible standard of perfection, driving chronic guilt, anxiety, and self-criticism whenever you fail to live up to values you never consciously chose.

    How do you stop “shoulding” yourself?

    You can’t eliminate automatic “should” thoughts because the brain fires them in milliseconds, but you can change how you respond to them. The moment you catch yourself saying you “should” do something, ask one core question: “Whose ‘should’ is this—mine or someone else’s?” Pausing to trace the origin of the expectation gives you the choice to keep it or hand it back without the guilt tax.

    Why does willpower fail when trying to break unhelpful habits?

    Willpower fails because “should statements” act as automatic cognitive distortions rather than conscious decisions. Because your brain processes external expectations as objective facts rather than optional opinions, you cannot out-discipline an internal instruction you don’t realize you’re following. Sustainable behavioral change requires questioning the default reflex rather than forcing compliance.

  • How to Find Work-Life Balance for Women Leaders 40+

    If you’ve built a successful career – but feel like it’s running you instead of fueling you this post is for you.

    I’m going to walk you through how to reclaim work-life balance without quitting, starting over, or sacrificing everything you’ve built.

    This is the same approach I use with experienced women leaders over 40 who want more breathing room, more clarity, and a way of working that actually fits their life now not just the version they built 10 years ago.

    Ready to trade survival mode for something more sustainable? Let’s go.

    Key Takeaways:

    1. Work-life balance doesn’t require a dramatic exit – just smarter, more aligned decisions.
    2. Most women don’t need reinvention. They need realignment.
    3. Micro-moves (not massive overhauls) can restore your time, energy, and clarity.

    Why “Balance” Isn’t Working Anymore

    You’ve followed the rules. Built the career. Earned the respect. But somewhere between meetings, milestones, and managing it all – you lost the feeling that your work works for you.

    That’s because the idea of balance keeps everything looking functional, even when you’re running on empty.

    Work-life balance tells you to juggle. Work-life alignment asks you to recalibrate.

    The difference? Balance is a time equation. Alignment is a values decision.

    And when you’re over 40, the calculus changes. The cost of continuing without clarity gets steeper.

    Work-life balance implies a scheduling problem. But for most high-performing women, the issue isn’t time it’s alignment.

    You’re not just managing tasks. You’re carrying unspoken roles, expectations, and the emotional weight of being the one who always holds it together.

    Maybe you’ve internalized beliefs like:

    + “Saying no makes me unreliable.”

    + “My title determines my worth.”

    + “If I step back, everything will fall apart.”

    That’s not strategy. That’s survival. And it’s costing you.

    What Work-Life Alignment Actually Looks Like

    The reality is that “balance” is a myth – it’s a fancy word for juggle.

    Work-life balance asks: How do I juggle everything without dropping the ball?

    Work-life alignment asks: Am I carrying the right things – and do they reflect who I am and what matters to me?

    Work-life alignment means your calendar reflects your priorities – not just your obligations.

    It means saying yes to work that energizes you, and no to things that don’t – even if you’re good at them.

    It means showing up without constantly performing, proving, or pleasing.

    Alignment isn’t about necessarily working less. It’s about working in a way that’s honest, strategic, and sustainable.

    And the best part? You don’t have to do radical things to get there.

    Realignment, Not Reinvention: Lisa’s Story

    Lisa had spent 20 years in healthcare leadership. She was respected, capable, and utterly exhausted.

    She didn’t want to walk away from the career she’d built. But she just couldn’t keep going like this.

    Working with me and using The Career-Life Realignment Reset, Lisa got clear on what mattered to her, reconnected to what mattered most to her, not what looked good on paper and identified the one strategic shift she needed to make. She reclaimed 40% of her work week and gained visibility across the organization.

    No title change. No personal reinvention. Just alignment.

    What Helped? A Career-Life Alignment Audit

    Most high-performing women don’t need a reinvention. They need a realignment.

    When things start to feel off – when the role no longer fits but you can’t name why – it’s not always a sign to quit. It’s a signal to pause and audit what’s working, what’s draining you, and where you’re out of sync with your values.

    Here’s how to start:‍

    STEP 1. Spot the Pattern

    Stop asking, “Why can’t I do it all?” and Start asking, “Whose rules am I still following?” If you’re still playing by inherited rules about what success or leadership should look like, it’s time to disrupt the default. You don’t need more effort. You need more intention.

    STEP 2: Audit Your Alignment

    Use these three lenses to assess your current role:

    + Cancel or renegotiate one meeting that no longer serves you

    + Say out loud what you’re excellent at – without softening or minimizing

    + Choose one obligation you’re done tolerating, and act on it

    “When women shift from performance to values alignment, they see more satisfaction and less burnout.”
    — Forbes Women, 2022Don’t stop at the audit. Clarity only matters if you act on it.
    That leads us to Step 3.

    STEP 3. Shift the Levers

    ‍Once you know what’s misaligned, start making micro-moves with macro impact. You don’t need a dramatic pivot. Small shifts often change everything:

    + Energy: What lights you up? What drains you – even if you’re good at it?

    + Impact: Where are you truly having an impact? And where are you just filling gaps?

    + Values: Does how you spend your time align with what matters to you now?

    This isn’t about burning everything you’ve worked so hard to build to the ground. It’s about taking your power back – one lever at a time.

    So…Now What? Make it Practical.

    Big shifts start with small check-ins. You don’t need a spreadsheet. You need a moment of honest reflection.

    Try this Weekly Alignment Check-In

    Ask yourself these three questions – candidly :

    + Am I putting up with things because it looks impressive?

    + Would I change if I stopped trying not to disappoint anyone?

    + Is there a decision I could make this week that would give me breathing room?

    If your gut just whispered “yes” to any of these…you’re ready to realign.

    References

    American Psychological Association. (2023). Stress in America™: The State of Mental Health in the Workplace.