Perimenopause Almost Ended Her Career (Here’s What I Want You to Understand)
You’re not burned out because you can’t handle success. You’re burned out because your body has changed and no one gave you a strategy that works for this phase.
If your performance, clarity, or confidence has shifted and you can’t explain why, this is the conversation no one is having, and the one that will change how you lead, earn, and operate.
In this episode of Real Money, I sat down with Tinsley English to talk about something that is not being addressed at the level it needs to be, how personal finances, perimenopause, and leadership intersect for women in midlife.
Perimenopause is the transitional phase before menopause, when hormone levels begin to shift. It typically starts in a woman’s 40s, sometimes earlier, and can last for several years. During this time, fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone can impact energy, cognition, mood, sleep, and cycle regularity. For many women, symptoms such as heavy bleeding, fatigue, brain fog, and emotional volatility are not subtle, and they directly affect how we function day to day, including our ability to perform, lead, and sustain a career. (Source: The North American Menopause Society)
This conversation made one thing very clear: money habits are never just about money. They reflect deeper patterns. And when your body begins to change, those patterns and your capacity get exposed quickly.
We also challenged the idea that grit alone is enough. It’s not. Not in midlife. Not when your physiology is shifting in ways that directly impact how you think, lead, and perform.
What matters now is how you adapt.
Key Takeaways
What I want you to take from this conversation is simple and direct:
You need practical strategies that support both your health and your leadership if you want to sustain momentum.
Your money habits follow patterns and those patterns influence your decisions whether you’re aware of them or not.
Grit alone will not carry you through midlife transitions.
7 Hard Truths About Perimenopause and Your Career
1. Your capacity changes whether you acknowledge it or not
Your energy, focus, and emotional regulation will shift. Ignoring that doesn’t preserve your performance, it erodes it. The sooner you acknowledge it, the faster you can adjust how you work, lead, and make decisions.
2. Grit alone will stop working
What got you here will not carry you through this phase. Pushing harder without adapting will eventually lead to burnout, frustration, and diminishing returns.
3. Your performance may drop before you understand why
Brain fog, fatigue, and inconsistency can show up before you connect them to hormonal changes. Without context, most women make it mean something about their capability instead of recognizing what’s actually happening.
4. Ignoring symptoms delays the solution and increases the cost
Waiting, minimizing, or pushing through often leads to more disruptive interventions later. The earlier you address what’s happening, the more control you have over the outcome.
5. Most workplaces are not designed to support this phase
The expectation of consistent, uninterrupted output doesn’t match reality. Without awareness and advocacy, you will be measured against a system that was not built with you in mind.
6. Your money patterns will intensify under pressure
Stress amplifies your default behavior. Whether that’s avoidance, overspending, or over controlling, it becomes more pronounced when your capacity is compromised.
7. Adapting is not optional if you want to sustain success
This is not about doing less. It’s about doing what actually works now. The women who adjust are the ones who maintain momentum without burning themselves out.
Understanding Money Behavior
I don’t look at money behavior as good or bad. I look at it as predictable.
When you understand your patterns, you stop making your behavior mean something about you, and you start using it as data. That shift alone changes how you make decisions under pressure.
Two common patterns I see are avoidance and short term decision making. Some women delay dealing with reality until something forces them to act. Others prioritize immediate relief over long term stability. Most women operate from a combination of both, depending on the situation.
If you want to change your behavior, you need to get specific. Track what you are actually doing for 30 days. Not what you think you do, what you actually do. Keep it factual. No judgment. That is where real change begins.
Rethinking Grit: The Evolution of Success
Most women have been conditioned to equate grit with pushing harder, but that definition is incomplete. Grit is not just discipline, it is the ability to adapt. It requires you to recognize when reality has changed and respond accordingly. Hustle ignores reality. True grit works with it.
Resilience is not about never breaking, it is about how quickly you recover. Rest is not optional and recovery is not weakness, it is part of a sustainable strategy.
There are phases in life where determination alone is not enough. You cannot override biological changes with willpower or outwork hormonal shifts. If you try, you will burn out. What works instead is having systems, support, and strategies that align with your current capacity.
When It Starts Affecting Your Work
Perimenopause can directly impact performance in ways most women are not prepared for. Energy drops, focus changes, and memory becomes inconsistent. Symptoms like heavy bleeding, fatigue, and brain fog do not wait for a convenient time.
This is where pushing through stops working.
In Tinsley’s case, it escalated quickly into a health crisis that required immediate medical intervention. That moment forced decisions most women delay, getting multiple opinions, choosing the right treatment, and prioritizing recovery.
You cannot compensate for this phase with discipline alone. You have to adjust how you work.
What to Do Instead
If you are in this phase, be direct with yourself:
- Get medical support early
- Track your symptoms and how they impact your work
- Adjust your schedule and delegate where needed
The goal is not to power through. The goal is to stay effective and in control.
Redefining Leadership for Women
You cannot lead effectively if you are ignoring your own capacity. Leadership in this phase requires self-awareness, boundaries, and the willingness to adjust how you operate based on what is real now, not what used to work.
We also need to normalize honest conversations about what women are actually experiencing. Not as a complaint, but as data. When we bring this into the open, we create better decisions, better support, and better outcomes.
At a broader level, this is not just an individual responsibility. Workplaces need to evolve. Systems built around constant output do not reflect reality. If we want women to sustain leadership, flexibility, support, and smarter expectations are no longer optional.
Designing a Vibrant Midlife
Your money habits are not random. When you understand them, you gain control. When you ignore them, they control you.
Success in this phase is not about doing more. It’s about doing what works for where you are now, which includes rest, flexibility, and aligning your decisions with your actual capacity.
You cannot ignore what your body is telling you and expect to sustain performance. Take it seriously, get support, and make the necessary adjustments. That is how you maintain momentum.
Action Steps
If you take anything from this conversation, let it be this:
- Stop trying to push through something that requires a different strategy
- Get medical support early
- Track what’s happening so you can make informed decisions
- Build support around you, personally and professionally
- And most importantly, stop making this mean something about your capability.
It doesn’t. It means you’re in a different phase, and it’s time to lead accordingly.
ABOUT LISA CHASTAIN:
Lisa uses many tools that she used throughout her money journey and invites you to try them as well. As a first step, she recommends reading her book, Girl, Get Your $hit Together in which she helps women tackle their financial story and shares her entire story. After reading the book, she invites listeners to join the Stop Budgeting System– the very method she used to gain financial freedom and clarity.
ABOUT MY NEW BOOK:
I’m beyond excited to share that Stop Budgeting Start Living is officially here! This book is the culmination of years of working with women who are ready to rewrite their money stories and step into financial confidence.
Inside, you’ll find strategies to uncover the roots of your money mindset, break free from limiting financial patterns, and create a new path toward wealth and independence.
This release feels especially powerful as we honor the progress women have made financially—and the bold steps we’re still taking together. I can’t wait for you to dive in, apply these tools, and start building the financial future you deserve.
Your journey to living fully, without the weight of restrictive budgeting, starts now.