Ep. 194: You're Not Lazy—You're Misdiagnosed: Why Your Fixes Keep Falling Apart

Let me ask you something. Have you ever said this to yourself?

"I know what to do. I just don't do it."

Yeah. Me too. And pretty much every woman I've ever coached has said some version of this.

And here's what I need you to hear right up front: That sentence right there? It's not laziness. It's not inconsistency. It's not a character flaw.

It's a misdiagnosis.

Today, we're pulling back the curtain on why every fix you've tried—every planner, every reset, every new routine—keeps falling apart. Not because you're broken. Not because you're not trying hard enough. But because you're trying to fix overload with the wrong tools.

By the end of this episode, you'll finally understand why your past attempts at change didn't stick. You'll learn how to treat the root instead of the symptom. And you'll know what real, sustainable follow-through actually looks like for overloaded women.

Let's go.

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Transcript

Well, hey there, I am Jennifer Roskamp, also known as the intentional mom or the intentional midlife mom, on what phase of my iterations you are joining us with. So what we're gonna do first is we're gonna really jump in to some of the scripts that you've probably had running on repeat in your head. You've probably been saying things like, I start strong, but I can't finish, or I just need more motivation, or I guess I'm not disciplined enough.

Do these sound familiar? Here's the truth bomb. None of those are actually true. You're not undisciplined. You're not lazy. You're not unmotivated. And you're not a chronic quitter either. You're just treating symptoms instead of solving the real problem. And when you treat symptoms, you get temporary relief, not lasting change. So think about it. When you have a headache, you can take something for it. You can take Tylenol. You can take ibuprofen.

And sure, it helps for a few hours, but that headache that keeps coming back every single day, the problem isn't that you need more Tylenol or more ibuprofen. The reason that recurring headache is probably coming back day after day after day is because there's something else going on. It's dehydration, it's stress, it's poor sleep, it's eye strain, it's something. And the same thing happens when you try to fix your life with surface level solutions.

I try surface level solutions. I call these treating the symptoms. So you declutter the kitchen, but the mental chaos is still there. You buy the planner, but you don't use it. You don't follow through. And you set the routine. You get it all figured out. You figure out exactly what you're gonna do, but it crumbles the second that life gets loud or messy. And then you tell yourself it's your fault, that you just can't stick with anything or that maybe you're the problem.

Here's the reframe though that you need to hang on to. It's not failure that's happening. It's a mismatch between what's actually wrong and how you're trying to fix it. You're again not broken or failing. You're just misdiagnosed. And once you see that, everything can change. So let's talk about then what treating the symptoms actually looks like. So let me walk you through some real life.

I know that you'll see yourself in at least one of these. example one. You declutter your kitchen. You spend hours clearing the counters, organizing the pantry, putting everything in its place. And it feels amazing for about a day. But then the next morning you wake up and your brain is still swirling. The to-do list is still overwhelming. The guilt, it's still there. And within a week, the clutter creeps back. Why?

It's because the clutter wasn't actually the problem. The mental overload was the problem. So example two, you create a meal plan. You buy all the groceries, you prep the food, and you tell yourself, this is the week that you're actually gonna cook healthy meals and stop ordering takeout. But by Wednesday, you are emotionally fried. You've had three hard conversations, one sleepless night.

and a kid crisis. And suddenly standing in the kitchen feels impossible and so you order pizza again. And you beat yourself up for it. But the real issue wasn't the meal plan. It was the emotional overload. You were running on empty and had no, you had nothing left to do anything with the meal that you'd already prepped. Example three, you buy the planner. You know, the pretty one.

The one that promises to organize your whole life and you fill it out with color-coded schedules and ambitious goals. But two weeks later, you've stopped using it. And it's not because you're lazy, but because the woman who bought the planner isn't the same woman you were today. Your identity is shifting, your season is changing, and the old tools just don't fit anymore. Example four, you build a new routine. You wake up early, you set your intentions, you commit to your morning ritual.

and it works until it doesn't, until something disrupts it, a sick kid, a rough night, a work crisis. And because you have zero capacity margin, you have no margin built into anything, the whole thing collapses. And it collapses today and then tomorrow and then the next day. And before you know it, you're back to square one. So do you see the pattern here? These are real efforts. You're not sitting around doing nothing. You're trying and you're trying hard.

but you're aiming at the wrong target. You're treating the symptom. You're treating the clutter. You're treating the meals. You're figuring out the schedule when the real problem is overload. But here's the thing about overload. Number one, it's not the same as overwhelm. It's a critical distinction that really you need to understand. Overwhelm is the feeling, but overload is the system. And most of us, most...

coaches like me, most experts, most self-help content that you'll find out there, it all treats overwhelm like it's the problem. They tell you to meditate, to practice gratitude, to take more time off, to reframe your thoughts, to manage your time better. And sure, those things can help temporarily and in a surface level sort of way. But if the system underneath all of that is still overloaded, you're just

putting a bandaid on a broken bone. So let me give you an analogy. Imagine you have a leaky faucet, water's dripping everywhere. It's annoying, it's making a mess. And so you grab a towel and you start mopping up the water. And that's gonna work for about a minute. But the water keeps coming and so you keep mopping and mopping and mopping. And you're working really hard at all the mopping and you're doing something, you're making progress. But you're not fixing the problem because

The real issue isn't the water on the floor. The real issue is the busted pipe in the wall. And that's what happens when you misdiagnose overload. You keep mopping up the mess, decluttering, planning, organizing, trying harder, but you never fix the leak. And then you wonder why nothing ever changes. So what actually works then? Because...

The truth is there are different types of overload and each one requires a different strategy. You can't fix mental overload the same way that you fix physical overload. You can't fix emotional overload with the same tools that you'd use for identity overload. So let me break it down for you. First, we've got mental overload.

If you are mentally overloaded, your brain is carrying too much. There's too much information, there's too many decisions, there's too many open loops. And so the fix isn't a planner. The fix is less input and clearer boundaries. You need to stop consuming so much content. Stop saying yes to every request. Stop keeping a mental to-do list that never ends. You need to close some loops. You need to finish things. You need to...

Say no, you need to simplify. That's how you reduce mental overload. Well, what about emotional overload? If you're emotionally overloaded, you're carrying weight that doesn't belong to you. You're absorbing everyone else's stress. You're managing everyone else's emotions. You're holding space for every problem, every crisis, every meltdown. And the fix isn't a motivation boost. The fix is to stop absorbing everything that isn't yours.

You need boundaries. You need to recognize what's your responsibility and what's not. You need to stop rescuing everyone and start protecting your own piece. That's how you reduce emotional overload. And then we have physical overload. If you're physically overloaded, your environment is too full. There's too much stuff, too much clutter, too many commitments on the calendar. And the fix isn't to organize those things better. The fix is to eliminate and create margins.

You need to get rid of things, not just move them around, not just make them prettier, actually let them go. And you need white space in your calendar, in your home, in your day. That's how you reduce physical overload. And then there's identity overload. So if you're experiencing identity overload, you're trying to force yourself into a version of you that doesn't exist, whether it doesn't exist anymore or you're not there yet.

Maybe you're a mom whose kids are growing up. Maybe you're navigating menopause. Maybe your career is shifting. Maybe your marriage looks different than it did 10 years ago. And you're trying to use the same tools, the same routines, the same thought patterns, the same strategies that worked for that different version of you. But they don't work anymore because you've changed. And the fix isn't to go back to who you were. The fix is to meet who you are now.

You need permission to let go of old expectations and to redefine what success looks like now, to build a life that fits this season, not the one that you've left behind. That's how you reduce identity overload. And then there's system overload. Finally, if you're experiencing system overload, your life is built for a version of you that had more capacity, more than you do right now.

Your systems, your routines, your rhythms, your schedules, your structures. They're asking more of you than you can currently give. And the fix isn't to just try harder. The fix is to build something that fits this season. You need flexible systems, not rigid ones. You need routines that bend without breaking. You need structure that supports you and that doesn't suffocate you. That's how you reduce system overload.

So do you see the difference now? Each type of overload requires a different solution. And when you misdiagnose which one you're dealing with, you waste time and energy and effort on fixes that were never gonna work in the first place. And so here's what I've learned after years of strategizing with women on these very same things. Most women stack their efforts backwards. They try to fix the systems

before getting clear on the problem. They try to fix their emotions without first stabilizing their capacity. They try to organize their homes when what they really need is to organize their thoughts first. And when you do things out of order, you burn out, you give up, you start over again and again and again. But when you do it in the right order, decisions feel easier because you're not making them from a place of chaos or misalignment.

Energy can stabilize because you're not constantly pouring from an empty cup. You stop starting over because the changes you make actually stick. And you begin to feel like yourself again, not a perfect version, not a Pinterest version, just you, grounded, clear, in control. And here's the best part, you don't have to throw everything out and start over to get there. You really just have to start with the right diagnosis.

So let me ask you some questions. As a strategist and a coach for women, I always ask a lot of questions because that's how we identify what's actually going on, right? So here are some questions and I want you just to really sit with these. I'm gonna rattle these off pretty fast, but it probably would be to your advantage to listen to one and then hit pause and actually think about it for a second or two. So here are the questions. What have you been trying to fix? Is it the clutter?

Is it the schedule? Is it the weight? Is it the chaos? What is it? Now, go one layer deeper. Once you know the answer to what you've been trying to fix, the question to ask next is what's the actual overload behind it? Is it mental? Is it emotional? Is it physical? Is it identity? Or is it system? And if you're not sure, go back and listen to that part of the segment again where I describe

what each one of those is. Okay, so what's the actual overload beneath it? Then the third question to ask, and this really is the one that changes everything, where do you need to stop doing and start diagnosing instead? Stop charging forward with what you think is the solution and actually diagnose the problem. Because here's the truth, you can't fix what you haven't correctly identified. And once you see what's actually going on,

then the path forward can become clear. So let's tie all of this together. You are not lazy and you are not the problem. You are not broken. You are not inconsistent or incapable of change. But you've probably been fighting overload with the wrong strategy. And when that happens, it doesn't matter how hard you try. It doesn't matter how many planners you buy or how many times you start over. Nothing is going to stick.

But when women learn to work with their overload and not against it, they can finally stop spinning. They find clarity. They build stability. And they create follow through that doesn't require force and white knuckling effort that eventually fades. go one, here's your move. right, here's what you need to do. Ask yourself, am I treating the symptom or the system?

and then go one layer deeper. Get curious about what's really going on underneath the chaos because once you see it, you can finally fix it. And if you want help diagnosing your overload and fixing it, that's exactly what we do here. You're in the right place. Pay attention, keep tuning in. You will see the difference that it can make when you have actually diagnosed the actual problem.

and you're treating the symptoms correctly. So that's where we're headed next. So thanks for being here and thanks for listening. And thanks for giving yourself permission to look a little bit deeper. And until we talk again, make it an intentional day.