041 Blog & Article Graphic

Don’t Let Menopause Derail Your Career

All too often women at the pinnacle of their careers are blindsided by something we just don’t talk about.  Now it’s not that back-stabber of a colleague, nor is it the “Good Ol’ Boys Club” rearing its ugly mug yet again.  This “something” is an open secret.  One that almost everyone is aware of yet we don’t talk about it openly. As a result, some women internalize this silence as shame.  

All in all women are suffering as they do everything in their power to look as if they’ve got it all under control.  That’s how we’ve been conditioned that we must show up in our pursuit of the ever-coveted “success” in business.  To hold a leadership role, more often than not, women have got to embrace the exactingness of the masculine over the balancing energy of feminine flow.

There is no other option when you are a woman at the top of your game.  Especially the way we do business in this country.  The proverbial target is permanently affixed to our backs.  And when a woman is experiencing the powerful transformation of menopause, that target widens.  

That noted, times are changing as more and more women are taking leadership roles and are rejecting the status quo way of doing business.  We have so much more ground to gain, and we are most definitely making progress.

You Cannot Opt Out Of Menopause

You may be one of the millions of women going through some rather difficult life changes all while trying to start, run, expand, or wrap up a business venture. You may have climbed up that corporate ladder, feet firmly planted on one of those top rungs, yet you too are not untouchable.  

Are you the kind of woman who likes to prepare for what she can, or do you fly by the seat of your pants? 

I only ask because what I’m talking about openly today, menopause, is going to happen to you.  At some point the two of you will be face-to-face and she doesn’t mess around, nor does she take a raincheck.  You best show up prepared when she comes calling, for she will call you to the mat at a moment’s notice. She doesn’t care what your title is. You work for her.

Shifts in our hormonal landscape are built into our design.  The shift of all hormonal shifts is our menopause.  Menopause is an event, a moment in time.  The rather long period of time leading up to it is where the proverbial rubber hits the road.  This period in time is called perimenopause, and your mindset going into it or while in the throes of this most powerful metamorphosis is what determines whether your hormones help or hinder you in business.  In life.   

Menopause is designed into our human experience with purpose.  Perimenopause prepares us for it.

Just as in puberty, in perimenopause our hormones make a predictable tempo shift. The kicker on the tail end of the estrogenic haze is that there are other major factors at work and we have unfinished business reminding us of all the “should” and “could” haves we left in our wake.  

Totally Thriving Or Simply Surviving

Perimenopause is an opportunity for us to clear the slate, take up our lives FOR ourselves, and to add our well-earned wisdom to the conversations that need women’s voices and perspectives more now than ever.  

The business climate is crying out for more women who embrace their feminine power in leadership roles.  Leadership starts with self.

Whether a woman thrives or simply survives her perimenopause comes down to how well her mindset bridges the gap between what she’s actually experiencing and what she thought she would experience, her expectations

When it comes to our hormones and the shifts that accompany our menopause before, during and after the dust settles, we’ve been conditioned to think it is going to be awful, unbearable, horrific even.  The images our culture has planted in our collective psyche are heavily weighted to the negative side of the scale.  It is expectations like these which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy when we rely on the “hope and pray” strategy, which is not much of a strategy at all.

#MenopauseMindset

There is so much we just don’t talk about when it comes to being a woman.  The ins-and-outs of the hormonal changes women experience around their menopause is one such topic, and another is the fact that we do not need to “power through them” to be a powerful woman. Sometimes the power play is in not “doing”, more than in the “doing”.  

You see, there is no powering through perimenopause.  In fact, in my experience, the more we try to power through, the more peri- pushes back.  

The better prepared you are as you navigate the pre- /peri- &post- menopausal waters, the better you’ll sail through them, stacking the deck in favor of your hormones helping your business instead of hindering it. If you’ve already sailed past your menopause and are still experiencing menopausal symptoms, you can have a tremendous effect on how you navigate your postmenopausal season by dialing in your #MenopauseMindset.  

There’s one thing that unites all women.  That “thing” is the fact we have a complex hormonal dance underlying every single thing we do.  And it can help or hinder us in all aspects of life.  If you take nothing else away from this post, take this…you do not have to live at the mercy of your hormones.  

We all experience menopause by a certain age, the average is 51. This coincides with the time in many women’s lives that we are hitting our professional stride.  We’ll come by menopause as a natural progression or through surgical or medical intervention.  Either scenario has one commonality, we have no control over the timing, and in many of our situations, it can be a real wrench in the engine of life, not to mention, of business.  

Especially when it coincides with us hitting our professional stride.  Keeping in mind that average of age 51, perimenopause can start in our late 30s.  I’m halfway through my 51st year and haven’t made it to my Day 365 as of yet, but I’m gunning for her with open arms!  I am embracing this period of transformation and reframing the conversation around perimenopause as I make my way. The #MenopauseMindset is in full swing in my ecosystem.

Menopause is something we just don’t talk about and perimenopause is something most have never even heard of, let alone know to talk about it.  

Bridging The Gap

There is a pretty wide knowledge gap to bridge and that is why I’ve been talking about it everywhere I go.  I want to help you bridge the gap through fortifying your mindset around your menopause experience.   

One of the most critical steps for shifting whether we suffer through these natural stages, or grow through them is our mindset.  

Short and sweet, our mindset is how we look at life and our role in it.  A little more in-depth, I define a mindset as the lens through which a person filters their experience and their role in how that experience transpires before, during, and after it occurs.  

What’s your mindset when it comes to your menopause?  


If you crave community, connection and conversation, join us in the Unraveling Together Community.  It’s a free resource hosted off social media on a Mighty Network. You can pop in on the regular from both your desktop and our user-friendly app.  

I am carefully curating this community to ensure it is a place for you to lean into during this powerful time of transition.  As we lean in, we grow in ways we’ve not been able to do just yet.  The alchemy of navigating life in business  with others on a similar path, allows you to tap into this transition and come out the other side at peace with your body, your life, and your business.   

Request to join us at www.UnravelingTogether.com.


Receive A Weekly Email With Highlights