Your Second Chapter Is Not a Step Back, It’s a Power Move
For many women, the second half of their working life arrives quietly. There’s no announcement. No formal handover. No neat transition plan.
But while the career shift can feel subtle, your energy does not go quietly at all.
Peri-menopause tends to arrive waving a very large, very unmissable flag. Usually at 3am, with brain fog, hot flushes or, the sudden realisation that your tolerance for nonsense has completely evaporated.
This is often the moment women realise:
I can’t keep doing this in the same way.
Not because they’re less capable but because the combination of:
Changing hormones
Increasing responsibility
Ageing parents
Dependent children
and leadership roles designed for a 1990s male workforce
…has become unsustainable.
Welcome to your second chapter.
It comes with a disclaimer.
The Second Chapter Disclaimer (Please Read Carefully)
Warning:
This phase of life may include:
Fluctuating energy
Heightened clarity (and reduced patience)
A strong allergic reaction to busywork and bad leadership
A sudden refusal to over-explain, over-deliver, or over-function
Side effects may include:
Questioning your career choices
Redefining success
Wanting work and leadership to actually fit your life
This is not a crisis.
It’s a recalibration.
This Isn’t About “Coping” It’s About Leading Differently
Too often, women are told to treat peri-menopause and menopause as something to manage quietly in the background. Just Power through! The truth is though that your energy is changing at the same time the leadership load is increasing.
And most systems offer:
Little flexibility
No acknowledgement
Zero structural support
Second-chapter leadership isn’t about pretending nothing has changed. It’s about recognising that how you lead now must be different.
Not weaker.
Not smaller.
Different.
(i’VE SAID IT BEFORE, I’LL SAY IT AGAIN) Energy Is Not Self-Care. It’s a Strategic Asset.
When hormones are unpredictable and life is full, energy stops being a “nice to have.”
It becomes the central leadership issue.
Low energy doesn’t just affect how you feel it affects:
Decision-making
Boundary-setting
Confidence
Long-term thinking
This is why so many capable women feel stuck or flat in midlife leadership roles. They’re not failing they’re operating in systems that assume endless capacity, a bit like having kids.
Second-chapter leadership requires:
Designing work around sustainability
Protecting energy like capital
Letting go of roles and expectations that cost more than they return
This isn’t indulgence. It’s strategic self-management in a system that wasn’t built for you.
Agency: The Leadership Skill Peri-Menopause Accidentally Activates
If peri-menopause gives women anything (besides night sweats and a short fuse), it’s clarity.
The clarity to see:
What’s draining
What’s outdated
What you no longer have the energy to tolerate
Agency is the leadership muscle many women were never encouraged to use. They were rewarded for:
Being adaptable
Being agreeable
Holding everything together
Not for:
Choosing differently
Setting limits
Rewriting the rules
Your second chapter invites a different question:
What do I actually choose now, given the life, body and energy I’m living in?
That question is power.
Breaking Rules That Were Never Designed for You (Or Your Hormones)
Let’s be honest about the rules women start quietly breaking in their second chapter:
The rule that leadership requires constant availability
The rule that ambition must come with exhaustion
The rule that ageing is something to hide rather than design around
The rule that work comes before wellbeing, always
Second-chapter women aren’t stepping away from leadership.
They’re refusing leadership models that ignore lived reality.
They are choosing:
Influence over hierarchy
Alignment over optics
Sustainability over burnout
Not because they’re tired but because they’re wise.
Complexity Is Real. And It’s Manageable.
This chapter of life is complex. Just have a conversation with the woman next to you, you’ll hear the same shit just in a different story, just as frustrating as yours.
You’re navigating:
Changing hormones
Family logistics
Career decisions
Financial planning
And a world that feels louder, faster and less stable
That complexity doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you need better tools. With the right frameworks, support and clarity, women don’t just survive this phase they lead through it.
Calmly.
Strategically.
On their own terms.
The Next Five Years Will Reward Women Who Lead Themselves First
The leaders who will thrive over the next five years won’t be the busiest.
They’ll be the ones who:
Manage their energy deliberately
Make clear decisions
Design work that fits their life stage
Use experience, not adrenaline, as fuel
Second-chapter leadership isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters, with intention.
A Question for This Chapter of Your Life
Instead of asking: How do I push through this?
Try:
Where am I leaking energy?
What am I done tolerating?
What would leadership look like if it supported my life, not competed with it?
Then take one small step.
Download a resource that helps you map your future clearly.
Attend a workshop that helps you reconnect with your agency.
Choose a conversation that puts you back in the driver’s seat.
Your second chapter doesn’t need to be quieter.
It needs to be truer.
And yes, slightly better resourced.
Yelling, screaming and crying may also help.
