Ep. 201: When You've Lost Your Motivation… and Don't Even Recognize Yourself Anymore

Hey friend.

If you feel like you've lost your ability to make a decision of any size, your motivation, or your ability to follow through… you are absolutely not alone.

And if you're sitting there thinking, "I used to be so capable. What happened to me?"—I need you to know that what you're experiencing isn't laziness. It's not a character flaw. And it's not permanent.

But I also know that right now, you might not believe that. Because when you look in the mirror, you don't recognize the woman staring back at you.

You used to be the one who had it together. The one who could juggle everything. The one people counted on.

And now? You can barely decide what's for dinner without feeling overwhelmed. You start things and don't finish them. You make plans and don't follow through. You promise yourself you'll do better tomorrow—and then tomorrow comes and you're right back where you started.

And somewhere along the way, you've started to believe a story about yourself. A story that says you're slipping. That you're failing. That you're the problem.

But friend, you're not the problem.

Your brain is tired. And tired brains don't behave like lazy brains—they behave like overloaded systems shutting down.

Welcome to The Intentional Midlife Mom podcast. I'm Jennifer Roskamp, and today I'm going to show you the real reason you feel stuck, and one shift that brings your capability back online—faster than you expect.

This isn't going to be one of those episodes where I give you a massive action plan or tell you to completely overhaul your life. Because if you're in the place I think you're in, that would just add to the overwhelm.

Instead, I'm going to help you understand what's actually happening in your brain, why the solutions you've tried haven't worked, and how to use tiny, strategic questions to rebuild your clarity and confidence—without another big reset or rigid routine.

Because here's what I've learned after years of coaching midlife women: You don't need motivation. You need direction you can believe in.

So let's dig in.

Get some powerful mantras to inspire, encourage, and life you up when you need as little something intentional to focus on.

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Transcript

Well, okay, so let's talk about what's really going on because until you understand this, nothing else that I say is going to make any sense. You're experiencing what I call system overload. And again, it's probably not what you think. System overload isn't about being lazy or undisciplined. It's about carrying too much for too long without the right support structures. So let me break it down. Too many decisions. Let's talk about that first.

You're making hundreds of micro decisions every single day. What to wear, what to eat, what to cook, who needs to be where when, what bill is due, what errand you forgot, what conversation you need to have, what task comes next. Every single decision, no matter how small, takes energy. And when you're making decisions in this rapid fire way, when you're making decisions all day for yourself, and then everyone else in your household, well, you run out of your decision making.

capacity at some point. And that does not signal, again, that you're lazy or that you're incapable. It's simply decision fatigue. And decision fatigue is real. It's been studied. When your brain makes too many decisions in a row, it starts to shut down slowly. It becomes harder to think clearly. It's kind of like your brain trying to function through molasses. It's harder to choose. It's harder to commit.

And so by the time that you sit down at the end of the day and you try to decide what to do tomorrow or what you need to focus on tomorrow, your decision making capacity has been completely maxed out. And again, this doesn't have anything to do with motivation. It's a bandwidth issue. So that's decisions. Well, another thing you've got too many of is emotional variables. So you're not just managing your own emotions, which in midlife, let's...

Be real, there's a lot there, right? But you're likely managing a bunch of other people's emotions too. Your adult child's mood swings, your spouse's work stress, your aging parent's health concerns, your friend's crisis, the tension at the family gathering. You're reading the room constantly no matter where you are and you're adjusting your energy and your efforts appropriately.

You're absorbing everyone else's emotional state, and you're just trying to keep the peace. And all of that emotional labor, it's invisible work that you don't even realize you're doing. But it's also exhausting work. You're carrying the emotional weight of yourself and so many people around you. And most of the time, you don't even realize you're doing it because it's just what you've always done. But your nervous system, now that knows what's going on. Your body knows. And eventually,

these two things start to shut down to protect itself. Again, this is not a weakness issue. This is your system doing what it's supposed to do, which is keep you surviving. So the third thing that you've got too many of is too many invisible responsibilities. You're the one who remembers everything, who anticipates the problems before they even start to surface, who coordinates all the schedules, who makes sure that there's enough toilet paper in the house.

and that you don't run out of food in the fridge, leaving everyone hungry. And you're doing it before you even run out of stuff most times. You're doing the invisible labor that keeps everything running smoothly. Again, the kind of work that no one notices until there's no one there to do it. And here's the thing about invisible work. It doesn't get acknowledged. It doesn't get appreciated. But it absolutely still drains your energy. You're the household project manager, the emotional intelligence officer.

the logistics coordinator, and the fallback plan all rolled into one. And you do it all while pretending it's not hard to do, while smiling and saying that you're fine, while wondering why everyone else seems to handle it better than you do. But they don't. They just don't talk about it either. So another thing that you have too many of is too many rules held all at one time. You're a mom, maybe. You're a wife, maybe. You're a daughter. You're a friend.

You're an employee, you're a business owner, maybe you're a caregiver. And each one of these roles, they all come with their own set of expectations, their own set of responsibilities, their own mental load, their own problems. You're not just managing one life, you're managing multiple lives. And you're trying to show up consistently and fully in every single one of those roles. You wanna be the mom who shows up, you wanna be the wife who's present, you wanna be the daughter who helps.

the friend who's there, the professional who delivers. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you've completely lost track of who you are outside of all of those things that you do for everyone else. Now, add all of that up, layer it on top of each other, and then ask yourself, is it realistic to expect your brain to be able to keep functioning at peak capacity indefinitely? And I think the answer that we'd all come to is no, no, it's actually not.

And so here's what's happened. Here's what happens when a system is overloaded. It doesn't just, it can't just keep pushing harder. At some point it's going to shut down. And again, it's not because anything's wrong or broken, but because it's in that protecting mode. Your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do when it's been running at maximum capacity for too long. It starts conserving energy. It's going into survival mode. It's shutting down these non-essential functions to protect the core.

And what gets labeled as non-essential by your overloaded brain, motivation, follow through, decision making, clarity, those all can go out the window. And so when those go out the window, because again, your brain is focused on just the essentials, then you end up thinking, I'm lazy. But what's actually true is I'm depleted, I'm out of gas, I'm out of bandwidth. When you think I should be able to handle this, what's actually true is my system isn't meant to run at this setting.

at this speed for 24-7. And here's kind of an anchor phrase that I want you to kind of sit and marinate on for a minute. It's, I want you to remember fog, when you have this fogginess in your brain, fog isn't failure, it's actually a signal. Fog isn't failure, it's feedback. When your brain is foggy, when you can't think clearly, when you can't make decisions.

That's not evidence that there's anything wrong with you or that you are incapable in any way. It's evidence that your brain in your system is on overload. And once you understand that, once you stop interpreting this fogginess and this inability to make a decision as a character flaw and start seeing it as a capacity issue, well, then everything can shift. But then we have these misdiagnosis. Again, we misdiagnose ourselves all the time.

So the misdiagnosis is, diagnoses? This is the reason why you haven't been able to change this mental fog that you feel like you're in. Because again, I'm guessing that you've tried. I'm guessing you've given yourself pep talks about how you're just gonna try harder. You've promised yourself you're gonna do better. You've downloaded some apps and maybe you've bought some planners and it still didn't really help clear the fog that's always there. Well, here's why. It's because you've been operating from.

a misdiagnosis and when you misdiagnose the problem, you apply the wrong solution. So misdiagnosis number one is I'm just lazy. This is the story that you tell yourself when you can't follow through, when you don't do the thing that you said you do, when you scroll instead of going to organize the kitchen. But here's the reframe that is necessary. Here's what you need to understand. Lazy people, they don't feel ashamed for not doing things. Exhausted women do.

Lazy people are perfectly content with not doing. They're not lying awake at night beating themselves up about what they didn't do. They're not carrying guilt. They're not apologizing to themselves or others for what didn't get done. And that's not you. You're beating yourself up one side and down the other, which is all the proof you need that what I am saying is true, which is that you are not lazy. You're simply out of bandwidth. You're exhausted. And there's a big difference. Laziness is a choice.

exhaustion is a state. Laziness is a choice. Exhaustion is a state. And right now you're in a state of depletion. Not because you're choosing it, but because your system has been running, running, on fumes for far too long. So stop calling yourself lazy. You're not. You're just tired. And the good news is, is tired is actually fixable. Misdiagnosis number two. I just don't have any discipline or I'm just not disciplined enough.

So you look at other women, if this is true for you, you look at other women and you see that they seem to have it all together. You see the ones who stick to their routines, who follow through on their goals, and you think, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do that? But here's the reframe that you need. Discipline is impossible without clarity. Expecting yourself to follow through without a clear target is like assuming that your phone apps can run with 1 % battery.

You can't manufacture discipline when you don't know what you're working toward. You can't follow through when you're drowning in competing priorities and don't know which one actually matters. It's not about discipline, it's about decision clarity. And when you know what matters, when you have a clear target that you actually believe in, discipline can then become easier, not effortless, but certainly possible.

but when you're overwhelmed and everything feels equally urgent, well, discipline doesn't stand a chance because there's no clarity there. So the problem isn't your discipline, it's your clarity or lack thereof. And that also is something we can fix. So misdiagnosis number three, I should be able to handle this or I should be able to handle more. This is the one that really keeps women stuck in shame because you likely used to be able to handle more.

You used to juggle it much more effortlessly. So why can't you do it now? Well, here's the reframe. You were handling more, but at a cost. And now your life has changed. Your capacity has shifted. But your systems haven't. 10 years ago, you could run on adrenaline and willpower. Your body was younger. Your responsibilities were different. Your support likely looked different. You're not handling less because you got weaker. You're handling less because the load

got heavier and your capacity to carry a change. And you're still trying to make these two connect and they're just not going to. Your life isn't the same. Your body isn't the same. Your energy isn't the same. And trying to force yourself to perform like you did in a much different season, in a much different set of circumstances with a much different body, well, that's not realistic. That's simply a recipe for burnout. So stop comparing yourself now to who you used to be.

You're not her anymore, and that's okay. Misdiagnosis number four, I just need to try harder. If I were to think about all of these three that I shared thus far, I think this one, this fourth one is the one that I hear maybe not even directly said from the women I work with, but it certainly is a very dominating thought. I just need to try harder. This is the one that keeps you stuck in the cycle. Every time something doesn't work, you tell yourself just to push harder, to do better.

to be better, to do more. Well, here's the reframe that is necessary. Trying harder is punishment when what you need is a strategy. Effort without direction leads to burnout, not progress. You don't need to try harder. You need to think differently. You need a strategy that actually fits your life instead of fighting against it, your life right now. And when you're exhausted and depleted, try harder is the worst advice.

that anyone can give you because you're already trying, you're already pushing, you're already giving everything that you have. So what you need isn't more effort, it's better direction. And this is where you probably begin thinking, that actually makes sense because for the first time, someone's actually telling you that you're not the problem. The approach is the problem. So what's the alternative in all of this then?

If things like trying harder don't work, what does? Well, this is where I wanna introduce you to a different way of thinking about change. A framework that doesn't require massive overhauls or intense levels of motivation. I call it the four-part rebuild and it's clarity, focus, rhythm, sustain. So let's talk about each one of these pillars. Pillar number one is clarity.

And what this means is that you can't act on what you can't see. Before you can take an action that's gonna take you where you wanna go, you need to know what you're actually dealing with. What's the real problem? What's the actual overload? And most women skip this step. They just go straight to the solutions. They buy the planner, they start the routine, they take the course, they commit to the program, they join the challenge. But if you don't have clarity about what's actually not working, you're gonna waste energy fixing the wrong thing.

Clarity has to come first, always. And that means asking yourself the hard questions. What's actually draining me? What am I carrying that isn't mine? What am I really saying underneath what's on the surface? What is actually happening underneath all of the chaos and noise in my head? And then start listening to the answer. Not the answer you think you should give, but the real one. Because clarity gives you permission to stop fixing

the wrong thing. So that's pillar one. Pillar two is focus. This is what we mean, what I mean by that is trying to do everything creates failure. But doing the right thing creates momentum. Because once you have clarity, now again that you understand the problem and how to go about fixing it, how to move in the direction, once you have that, now you need focus. Not a list of 20 things to fix, one thing. The right.

Because when you try to change everything all at once, you change nothing. But when you focus on one strategic shift, the thing that will create the most relief or momentum, everything can start to settle and start to line up. Focus gives you a starting point you can actually believe in. It's not about doing everything perfectly. It's about doing the one thing that matters most and doing it consistently enough that it starts to create change.

Maybe that's protecting your mornings. Maybe it's saying no to one recurring commitment. Maybe it's delegating one task that you've been carrying all by yourself, whatever it is. It's one thing, not 10, but one that you're looking for. And that one thing becomes your anchor. It's the proof that you're not broken, that you can still move forward. So that's focus. You're moving forward on one next right thing.

You can worry about what comes next after. So once you are ready with that one thing, now you're ready for rhythm. And what I mean by rhythm is routines that fit your real life, not your ideal life, but routines that fit your real life and help stabilize your days. Because what's so hard is when our days are up and down and up and down and all over the place, and I'm thrown over here and I'm thrown over there. It's impossible to keep your head above water. Is it any wonder you feel like you do, right?

So this really though is where most advice fails because it gives you routines designed for someone else's life, someone with more time or more energy or more help. But you need rhythms that work inside the chaos, that allow you to, that flex when life gets hard, that don't collapse the first time something disrupts them. Real life rhythms, not Pinterest perfect routines. And a rhythm is different from a routine. A routine is rigid.

It happens at the same time, in the same order, every day. And when life disrupts that, well then the whole thing's gonna fall apart, as opposed to a rhythm. A rhythm is flexible. It's about creating your anchor points in your day, things that ground you, even when everything else is chaos. Maybe it's the five minutes in the morning before anyone else wakes up. Maybe it's a walk in the afternoon. Maybe it's 10 minutes at night to reset your space. It doesn't have to be elaborate.

It just has to be consistent enough in a realistic way to create that stability. The whole rest of the day could have been chaos, but you know what? I had that 15 minute walk outside and that is your anchor. This is what rhythms do. They give you something to hold onto when everything else feels like it's out of control. So that's rhythm. That brings us to the fourth pillar, which is sustain. So when life gets loud again, and it will,

You need to learn how to adjust instead of collapse. This is the difference between a reset that lasts three days and a system that holds long-term. You're not building perfection, you're building resilience. The ability to recalibrate when things fall apart, to start again without shame, to adjust without abandoning everything. Sustainability comes from flexibility, not rigidity.

Life is going to get loud again. You're going to get sick. Your kids are gonna need you. Work will get chaotic. Something will disrupt your rhythm. And when that happens, you don't need to start over from scratch. You need to know how to recalibrate. And so you ask yourself, what's one thing I can still do? What's the smallest version of my rhythm that I can maintain right now? And you do that. Not perfectly, just consistently enough to stay anchored. So here's the anchor phrase.

You don't need a full reset. You need a smaller starting point and a better order. This is gonna give you hope because if you really lean into that sentence and you really think about that, there's nothing that's overwhelming about it. It's going to feel doable and it's strategic. And really it proves again that you are not broken. You just need a different approach.

So let me tell you about a woman that I worked with recently. We'll call her Sarah, that's not her name, but her story is like this. She was the kind of woman who used to carry everything effortlessly. She was the organized mom, the reliable friend, the one who always had it together, but somewhere along the way, life shifted. Her kids got older and needed her in a different way. Her aging parents started needing more support. Her marriage hit a very long, rough patch. Her body changed and it didn't respond the way that it used to. And the systems that didn't work, of course,

They stopped working. And she started calling herself lazy. She stopped trusting her ability to follow through, so she didn't even try. And she felt ashamed of how far gone she let herself slip. And when she came to me, she said, I don't even recognize myself anymore. I used to be so strong and capable. What happened? What's wrong with me? And I told her, of course, nothing's wrong with you. Your life has changed. But the way you do things hasn't changed. And you've been beating yourself up for not being able to make

All of the ways that you used to do things weren't anymore in a completely different season of life. And so here's what we did. First, we separated the noise from the needs. We looked at everything on her plate and we identified what was actually hers to carry right now versus what she picked up out of habit or obligation. And as it turns out, at least 40 % of what she had identified was actually hers to carry and 60 % was not.

She was just doing it because she always had. So we started there. We named what could be delegated, what could be eliminated, or what could be pushed to another time. And immediately, once we started separating things out and took them all from the here and now and placed them elsewhere, immediately, of course, she began to feel lighter. Not because the tasks disappeared, but because she gave herself permission to redistribute them, to stop carrying them. Second, we gave her one

clear starting point. Not a list of 12 things to fix, one thing. The thing that would create the most immediate relief. And for Sarah, that was protecting her mornings, creating just 30 minutes of space before everyone else's needs crashed into her day. She didn't use that time to be productive. She used it to be present, to drink her coffee without interruption, to think without noise, to remember what it felt like to just sit for a minute. And that time, that 30 minutes, it was

the catalyst in a lot of change. Third, we removed a ton of what I call the mental static. We kind of decided kind of in rapid fire order, the things that she was deciding daily. We thought about all of the things she's deciding, meals, morning routines, what was she saying yes to, what was she saying no to, when would she start this, when would she end this? And we built decision filters so that she didn't have to deliberate every single choice in the moment.

Instead of deciding what was for dinner every night, we created a simple meal rotation. Instead of deciding whether to say yes to every request, we created a little bit of a flow chart. Does it align with my priorities and values right now? Does it align with the season I'm in? Does it energize me or does it drain me? And the way that all of those were answered, they're simple filters, but they freed up so much mental energy because she wasn't having to decide anymore. We decided on what...

The flow chart of filters would be one time, and then everything just had to run through it after there, and it would spit out her answer. So she was no longer spending all day in this constant in and out of deliberating. She was deciding once on many of these things and then just executing. Fourth, we gave her a tiny rhythm to stabilize the day. Now again, this was not a rigid routine, a flexible rhythm.

Three anchor points that helped her feel grounded even when everything else felt chaotic. It was a morning space, a midday reset, and an evening wind down. And it wasn't anything elaborate, nothing time consuming. Just three small pockets of time in her day that reminded her that she was still in control. And here's what happened. Her capability, it started coming back shockingly fast.

Again, not because she changed, but because her strategy changed. She didn't need motivation. She needed direction that she could believe in. And within just a couple of weeks, she was making decisions again with confidence. She was following through. She was feeling like herself. It wasn't perfect, and she did have setbacks, but consistently enough that she started to trust herself again. That's the shift. That's what changed everything for her.

So now I wanna give you something practical, something you can use today right now to prove to yourself that you're not broken. And I call it the three question reset. This is one of my kind of foundational frameworks. So it only takes 90 seconds and it works because it restores capability through clarity, not force. So here are the three questions. What actually, question number one, what actually matters today? Not everything on your list.

Not what you think you should care about, not what someone else needs, but what actually matters to you today. Or maybe it's this morning, or maybe it's this afternoon, whatever that is. That question cuts through the noise of whatever it is you're trying to analyze. It forces you to prioritize, to get real about what's actually important and not just urgent. And then you answer it honestly. And you'll be surprised how much you can let go of, at least

from what is right directly in front of you. So that's question number one. Question number two, what's one meaningful action? Once you know what actually belongs in front of you, because we've channeled everything else out, what's one meaningful action? Not 10 things, not a complete overhaul, just one thing. What's one action that would move you forward in something that you actually need to do today, or that matters to you, that you wanna put your bandwidth into today?

What is something that perhaps would create relief today? What is something you could do today that will help you feel like you made progress? Know that it doesn't have to be a big thing. It doesn't have to solve everything. It just has to be something. Maybe it's sending one email. Maybe it's making one phone call. Maybe it's taking a 10 minute walk. It's one thing. That's all you need is just one thing. Question number three. What can I let go of guilt free? What can you release today or this morning or this week?

without shame? What expectation can you drop? What standard can you lower? What task can you eliminate or delegate? What can you let go of and still be okay? This is the question that gives you permission to stop carrying everything, to acknowledge that you don't have to do it all to be enough. That's it, three questions, 90 seconds, and here's why it works.

If you give your brain something concrete to focus on instead of spinning and overwhelm, it creates a starting point small enough that you can actually believe in it. It proves to you that you can still take action, that you're not failing or broken, that your capability is still there. It just needs smaller conditions in order to come back. So try it, try it today. Even hit pause right now and try it now. Ask yourself those three questions, write down your answers.

and then do one meaningful action that aligns with what you come up with, just one, and notice what happens. So let me talk for a minute about one specific kind of woman, because not everyone is gonna resonate with this approach, and that's okay. Some women want motivation. They want someone to hype them up and tell them that they can do anything. Some women want checklists. They want the step-by-step instructions and the systems.

But some women, they want someone who can think with them and for them until their clarity comes back. They want strategy. They want to understand the why behind the what. They want someone who respects their intelligence and meets them where they are without either coddling or oversimplifying. And if that's you, if you're nodding right now and thinking, yes, that's exactly what I need, then you're in the right place with this episode. You're right where you belong.

You're not looking for a cheerleader, you're looking for a guide, and that's what I do. Someone who can see what you can't see right now and help you think clearly again. That's exactly what I do. So again, here's what I want you to do as we draw everything to a close today. Try the three question reset. Notice how your thinking shifts. Notice what feels different when you approach your day with clarity instead of chaos. And then if you feel like you're ready to move forward and see,

How can I make this even, how can I bring this even deeper? Then you'll be ready to visit kind of the core of my ecosystem. You can go to jenniferroskamp.com and see what it is that I do, who it is that I serve and how I can help. And you can figure out if I have resources that will help you. But keep listening, keep showing up here. We're gonna keep peeling back the layers of the onion. We're gonna keep helping you figure out, oh.

This is what nobody else has said out loud. That's what we're gonna keep doing here. That's what I do here every time I come here and meet you here. For now, remember this. You're not lazy, you're overloaded. And when you do things like what we talked about today, like this three question reset, when you do things like that, your capability can start to come back. You haven't lost yourself. You're kind of just buried under systems and ways of doing things that don't fit and expectations that just no longer apply.

Once you're able to start clearing some of that away, then you can start building something that actually works for the season that you're in. And that's when you start feeling like yourself again. That's when you stop feeling like you're buried and stuck in the never ending spiral of, can't go anywhere. I can't do anything. Every day is just exhausting as the day before. And then I get up in the morning and I do it again. So I'm so thankful that you are here today. And if you know someone else who needs to hear this, please share it with them.

We would love to hear comments as well. Feel free to leave a comment here. Again, all things that help us know that what I'm sharing is resonating with you. I wanna create more of what you need. So if this is something that resonated with you, let us know down in the comments. All right? And until we talk again, make it a great day, everyone.