Stop Running on Empty: A Guide for Ambitious Women with Fluctuating Energy Levels
Managing fluctuating energy levels is one of the quieter struggles of being a woman in business.
Most advice on productivity assumes a consistency that many women entrepreneurs simply don't have.
If managing fluctuating energy levels feels like your own private battle, trust that you're not alone, and youâre not broken - you're just working against your own nature.
What if we designed our lives differently?
Last week I sat with a friend at my kitchen table in tears.
She'd been pushing herself relentlessly, squeezing every drop of herself into each day, for years.
Talented, capable and wildly creative, when her child fell ill recently, she was shocked to discover she simply had nothing left to give.
So here she sat with me - empty, exhausted and frightened.
This experience with my friend took me straight back to my days working in social services, when I supported people with chronic health conditions.
Back then, we taught a powerful approach that changed their lives - and later, transformed my own.
The principle was radical: design your life based on your hardest days, so the good days become a gift rather than a necessity.
Why do I have no energy left for whatâs most important?
If you build your life demanding 100% of your energy every single day, you have nothing left when real challenges arise.
Yet that's exactly what most of us do, especially women.
From our earliest years, we're trained to give every last drop of ourselves to everyone and everything day in and day out.
But living constantly at maximum capacity isn't sustainable.
The daily depletion means we donât build precious reserves inside ourselves.
Reserves to draw upon in true emergencies, and more importantly, for the spontaneous moments of delight and creativity that make life worth living!
Designing life around fluctuating energy levels
As someone with ADHD, my energy and capacity is very changeable.
On high capacity days, my focus and creativity surge - I can complete a month's work in hours, ideas flowing effortlessly.
But on low days, even basic tasks like getting dressed feel overwhelming and hard.
For years I battled against these natural rhythms.
I pushed myself relentlessly to maintain consistent high performance, using 100% effort, believing that was the only path to success.
The result? Complete burnout that forced me to stop everything.
In that painful pause, I realised I had to find a different way to live and work in the world.
Rather than fighting my changeable nature, I began working with it, supporting it.
I redesigned my entire life and business to run smoothly even when I only have 10% capacity. This means that on high energy days, rather than desperately catching up, I get to enjoy riding those waves of creativity and inspiration.
I built regular rest into my schedule. I stopped seeing my quieter periods as failure and started treating them as essential recovery. When my energy naturally ebbs, I lean into that too.
I learnt how to prioritise what truly matters and say no to the rest guilt-free.
The result? Because my life and business can function well even on my lowest days, my high-capacity periods feel expansive and abundant.
I experience more creativity, more ease, and yes - more time itself.
Natureâs wisdom
I learned this wisdom first through necessity, managing my ADHD.
But nature reinforces it every year.
Spring, a time of new shoots and growth.
Summer invites us to lean into expansion and creativity.
Autumn, a time to harvest the fruits of our efforts.
And winter - still, spare, unhurried winter - asks us to trust the fallow. The earth isn't failing in winter. It's gathering. Trees stand bare, conserving energy. Soil lies quiet. Everything slows, accumulating the reserves that will make spring's renewal possible.
Aligning with natural cycles
This seasonal rhythm reflects exactly what I discovered in my own life - when I align with natural cycles rather than fighting them, everything flows more easily.
Ideas germinate slowly in the quiet.
Creative possibilities unfold at their own pace.
A richness emerges when I stop forcing, stop rushing, stop demanding peak performance every moment.
This approach isn't theoretical for me - I have to live it daily.
Building my life and business to function on my hardest days has created more space for spontaneity, pleasure and sustainable growth than constant pushing ever did.
What if times of rest and renewal are just as vital as times of vibrant action?
What if we designed our lives to work beautifully at 50% capacity?
Imagine what might become possible when you suddenly find yourself with energy, time and capacity to spare.
What impact would that abundance have on your creativity, your relationships, your life?
Want to go deeper?
If this resonated with you, I'd love to stay connected. Join my email community for thought pieces, honest reflections, and whatever's currently inspiring me, delivered direct to your inbox.
Ready to work with your energy instead of against it? Time Alchemy is a beautiful place to begin. It's a self-paced course to help you realign with your own energy and reclaim your time.
