Why “just push through” stops working in midlife
And something for you if you are the one holding things together all the time...
So many of us are programmed to do things the “right way”.
We have planners. We follow the time management gurus. We read the books to help us be more productive.
And yet we still feel exhausted at the end of the day.
Then we often question (or are told) that we just need to be more disciplined, or are lacking motivation, or need too figure out our habits (I love James Clear and Atomic Habits and all, but a midlife woman he is not:))
It did take me a beat to understand that it isn’t any of those things.
It really is a capacity problem.
Your nervous system has a limit, and most of us were never taught to work with it. We were taught to push past it.
That’s what this week’s Building Resilience episode is about.
It’s part two of a short series on managing your energy, and while it builds on the last one, you can listen to this one on its own and still get a lot out of it.
You see, when you’re younger, pushing through has a cost, but you often don’t feel it right away.
But in midlife, your nervous system is already managing hormonal shifts and years of accumulated stress. So the same load lands differently.
You don’t bounce back as fast.
Things that used to feel manageable start to feel like too much.
That isn’t you getting weaker. The load is genuinely different now, and I think your body is asking for a different approach.
In this episode I take two tools you’ve probably seen before, Stephen Covey’s important and urgent matrix (based on the Eisenhower matrix) and the 4 Ds, and I look at them through a nervous system lens, instead of productivity hacks they they are usually lumped in with.
When you view them through this nervous system lens, you can then see how these tools and strategies are really about giving yourself a pause before you react, so that what comes next is a choice.
In the episode, I also walk through a few of the patterns I see most often. The overwhelm where you have a thousand things to do and somehow do none of them. The push-through-and-crash cycle. The inability to let anything go. If any of those sound familiar, that section is for you.
You can watch and listen here:
Lastly, if you’ve spent your life as the one people lean on, the helper, the caregiver, the leader, the one who holds it together, this next part might also be for you.
I’m running a free live event called The Nervous System Resilience Experience LIVE, July 13 to 16 and the 20th at 2pm EST, (replays available).
It’s where I get into why people can know exactly what to do and still not do it, and why the nervous system might be the missing piece in understanding stress, burnout, and real change. Not just for the people you care for. For you too.
It’s free to join. You can register here.
xox
This resonates so deeply. The whole 'just push through' mindset is a one-way ticket to burnout, but it's a really hard habit to break when you're used to measuring your day by how much you get done.
I hit that exact wall a while ago, which is what actually drove me to build a simple mobile app called Quadrant AI (https://quadrant-ai.app/). I wanted a tool that didn't feel like a rigid boss forcing me into a tight schedule.
Instead, it just gives you a clean, visual way to sort tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix and block out your time. My favorite part—and what keeps me sane—is that you can sketch a quick base plan in the morning but freely tweak it as your energy levels change during the day. It lets you compare what you planned versus what actually happened, not to judge yourself, but to finally understand your real capacity without the guilt.
Thank you for this beautiful reminder. Learning to listen to our limits instead of just pushing through is so necessary.