Last Tuesday, a client slumped into our Zoom call looking completely wrung out. “I feel like I’m drowning in good things,” she said. Fall had brought an avalanche of invitations, opportunities, and requests. They were all genuinely wonderful on their own, but together? Too freaking much.
She wasn’t complaining about obligations or dreading commitments. She was overwhelmed by abundance. The season had delivered exactly the visibility, connection, and opportunities to contribute that she’d been working so hard for, and now she couldn’t figure out how to handle it all without losing herself in the process.
If you’re in midlife, you might be noticing some capacity shifts, too. Many of us are discovering we need more recovery time between events. That dinner party that used to energize us? Now requires a full day of quiet before and after. The speaking engagement that felt thrilling? Leaves us depleted for days.
So we tried something that felt a little audacious: What if she were a starlet who had a momager as a filter?
Beyoncé and Meryl Streep don’t see every invitation that comes their way. Someone screens them first, applying clear criteria about return on investment, alignment with current priorities, and capacity. Only about 10% of requests actually reach their desk for consideration.
When we framed it that way, my client knew immediately what her automatic “yes” category included. She also identified her flat-out “no” pile without hesitation. The middle ground—those “maybes”—that’s where we needed to build some muscle.
We pulled up her calendar from the past month and went through it together, rating each commitment in retrospect. Would she say yes to it again, knowing what she knows now about how it actually felt? The patterns that emerged surprised her. Some events she’d dreaded turned out to be energizing. Others she’d been excited about left her feeling drained and resentful.
Here’s what we discovered matters most when evaluating those “maybe” invitations:
The full cost accounting of any yes, not just the time on your calendar, but the preparation before, the recovery after, the mental energy of anticipating it, the financial investment if there is one. That “quick coffee” might actually cost you six hours and a surprising amount of money when you factor in travel, parking, getting ready, and the afternoon you’ll need afterward to decompress.
The return on your current priorities—not your general values, but what matters most right now. Your momager wouldn’t book you for projects that made sense five years ago but don’t align with where you’re headed.
The energy exchange—does this typically give you more than it takes, or does it leave you running at a deficit? Your perimenopausal or menopausal body is giving you real information about this, if you’re willing to listen to it.
She’s now practicing being her own fierce manager, protecting her most valuable client: herself.
Ready to try this experiment?
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