For the past few weeks, I’ve found myself returning to one thought over and over again.
Women spend nearly three decades of their lives building an education, a career, a family, a sense of identity, and meaningful lives. Yet very few of us are ever taught how one of the most fundamental rhythms of our own biology intersects with any of it.
We’ve become remarkably good at teaching women how to succeed. We’ve spent far less time helping them understand themselves.
I think that’s where so much unnecessary suffering begins.
We quietly learn to judge ourselves. We criticize ourselves when our creativity changes, when our energy shifts, when we suddenly crave solitude after weeks of loving being around people, when we need more rest, and when our confidence feels different from one week to the next. We assume we’ve become inconsistent. We assume we’ve lost motivation. We assume something is wrong with us.
But what if we’ve simply never been given the framework to understand ourselves?
A couple of weekends ago, I taught the final session of Lead With Your Cycle. The women who joined me had already spent weeks learning about hormones, cycle phases, planning, and working with their biology. But this session was different. I didn’t want them to leave simply knowing more about their cycle. I wanted them to leave knowing themselves.
So instead of another session, I invited them to meet the four leaders that live within every woman. Not personalities. Not labels.
Leaders: the Visionary, the Innovator, the Influencer, and the Analyzer. Each brings her own strengths. Each asks for different kinds of care.
As we moved, rested, breathed, reflected, and journaled together, something beautiful happened. The women weren’t becoming someone new. They were recognizing parts of themselves they had spent years judging.
The woman who needed deep rest wasn’t lazy. The woman overflowing with ideas wasn’t scattered. The woman craving connection wasn’t ‘too much.’ The woman questioning everything wasn’t critical. She was wise.
And perhaps, for the first time, many of them began asking a different question. Not, ‘How do I become the same woman every day?’ But rather, ‘How do I care for the woman who is here today?’
To me, that’s where self-leadership begins. Not in pushing harder. Not in becoming more disciplined. But in understanding ourselves deeply enough to know what each season of us needs.
I don’t believe women are leaving leadership because they lack ambition. I believe too many are trying to sustain extraordinary lives without ever being taught how to work with one of the most fundamental rhythms of their own bodies.
Understanding our biology doesn’t make us less ambitious. It gives us another lens through which to understand ourselves, one that replaces self-judgment with curiosity and helps us stop working against ourselves and start working with ourselves.
Because I don’t believe women need another system that asks them to override themselves. I believe they deserve one that teaches them to understand themselves.
