There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing “too much” in a normal way.

It comes from doing everything right and still feeling like you’re failing.

You know the feeling (or maybe it’s just me?!).

You’re competent.

Capable. 

Reliable. 

The person people count on. 

The one who can always figure it out. 

The one who somehow makes it all work - career, kids, marriage, travel, the house, the friendships, all while looking like you didn’t just sprint through your day holding your breath.

And then something small happens…

Not a dramatic collapse. Not a huge life event.

Just one week that is a little too hard.

One moment where you realize you can’t be in two places at once again.

One night where you’re so tired you can’t even sleep.

And you think, quietly, in a way that scares you:

I can’t keep living like this.

Episode 50 - How I got here: The story behind The Life Management System is me telling you the truth about how that moment happened for me…and what I did next.

Not because my story is the point. (I promise I’m not that vein.)

But because if - like me - you’ve ever felt like you’re the single point of failure in your own life…you deserve to know you’re not alone.

For a long time, I didn’t recognize I was “burned out.”

I was successful, respected, and moving fast. I was building the kind of career most people work their whole lives to earn.

But burnout (real burnout!) doesn’t always look like lying on the floor unable to move like I expected. 

For me, it looked like functioning.

It looked like pulling 80-hour weeks and still showing up to bedtime.

It looked like being the mom with the organized calendar and the travel plans and the “nice house” you worked hard to create.

It looked like being praised for how much I could carry.

But inside, it felt like this:

• Chronic stress that started to feel normal

• Sleep that turned into a battle I dreaded

• A body I didn’t recognize anymore

• A quiet resentment that I couldn’t name because I was “grateful”

I share in the episode what it was like after my second son was born - how life piled on in ways I didn’t anticipate, how the pressure intensified, and how my nervous system never came down.

And here’s the part I want to say directly to you:

 If you’re still functioning, that doesn’t mean you’re fine.

It might just mean you’re skilled at surviving.

Before I ever called it a “life management system”, I had language for something that changed my life:

“Work right to left.”

Meaning: start with the end in mind. Start with the life you’re trying to build, then reverse-engineer your choices.

For me, that looked like getting painfully honest about what I valued.

I wanted a life where my boys “experience the world”, where we travel and exposure them to new culture, because I didn’t have that diversity growing up and I want them to have that experience.

I also wanted to create a home that felt like a soft place to land. “Home” to me has always been a source of safety, pride, and belonging. And “home” is also a way to nurture deep relationships with my kids, my husband, and my people.

That’s not a “vision board.” That’s my compass!

And guess what…once you have a compass, you can stop using guilt as your GPS.

This is what values-based time management really is:

Your values inform your priorities, and your priorities inform how you spend your resources (time, money, energy).

And friend, you know the resource you cannot get more of is time. That’s what we’re solving for. 

If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, you’ve heard me say this in one form or another:

If your life only works because of you (not for you), that’s not a system.

At one point in my life, everything depended on me holding it all in my head and pushing harder. But then I hit a wall. And I swear it wasn’t because I was weak. This is likely familiar to you though…it was because my life was structurally impossible to sustain.

In this podcast episode, I tell a story (my story!) about the week that changed everything: my baby had RSV, it was an 80-hr work week, and I couldn’t show up the way I wanted to for anyone. Then, on top of it, my boss made sure I knew I wasn’t enough and made sure I knew the sacrifices I made were pointless.

That was my disruptor. AND a gift. 

It forced me back to the foundations of what I know to be true professionally through industrial and systems engineering, life as a culture transformation executive, and change management professional:

• If something is breaking repeatedly, the design is the problem

• If the routine isn’t repeatable, it will rely on willpower

• If the household runs on one person’s brain, that person will burn out

Like me, the mental load isn’t evidence you’re doing motherhood wrong. It’s evidence you need a better operating model.

Another part of my story that I share in the episode is that I was let go after 16 years at the company I thought I would grow old in.

I’m not going to dress it up.

 It BROKE MY HEART.

Not only because it was unexpected…

But because my identity had gotten tangled up in being “the loyal one,” “the high performer,” “the safe bet.”

And when that was taken away, I had to face something I think a lot of women carry, especially working moms:

 If I’m not producing…who am I?

But ya know what, that experience created space for me to dream in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to dream before.

AND it clarified what people had been asking me for years: 

“Courtney…how do you do it all?”

That question used to make me laugh. Was it not obvious? Pound harder! (As we say in Panthers Nation, #KeepPounding). But here’s the problem:

I was doing it all, and it wasn’t sustainable.

Here’s what I did have though: I’d been building systems for years - complete with decisions and boundaries - that allowed me to keep moving without losing myself completely. And I needed to amplify that. 

Then, after so many conversations I realized, this isn’t just personal, it’s teachable.

In the episode, I define the phrase that has become the foundation of my work: a “life management system”.

It’s not a trendy planner.

It’s not a prettier to-do list.

It’s not “do more, optimize harder, wake up at 5am.”

It’s a personalized framework built around one thing:

What you personally value.

Because what you value informs what you prioritize.

And what you prioritize determines how you spend your time, money, and energy.

Inside my program (and mirrored in “snack-sized” form on the podcast), I teach working moms how to build sustainable alignment through areas like:

• clarifying values and priorities

• streamlining responsibilities and leveraging support

• reducing the invisible labor and mental load

• building routines the whole family can fit into

• boundaries that protect what matters

• creating time for you again (without guilt)

This obviously isn’t so you can become a “better” version of yourself, but so your life can stop requiring constant sacrifice to function.

I also share something in this episode that I think a lot of high-achieving women need to hear:

There are seasons of life when you cannot be A++.

I say this as a former Valedictorian. This doesn’t mean that you’re failing.

It just means you’re human.

You have to embrace what I call a B- season - a season where “good enough” is the only way forward because you’re building something that matters and living a full life while you do it.

If you’re in a B- season too - where your standards feel impossible, where your bandwidth is thin, where you’re doing your best and it still feels messy - I want you to take a breath.

Your life is allowed to be under construction.

If you’ve ever wondered:

• why I care so much about sustainability

• why I talk about values before tactics

• why boundaries aren’t just a “self-care thing”

• why the mental load is not your personal moral failure

This episode is for you. It’s not a highlight reel, or a shiny origin story.

This episode is my real story of how I got here and why I’m so committed to helping burned out, overwhelmed working moms reclaim their time, their energy, and their sense of self.

Episode 50: How I got here: The story behind The Life Management System

If you’re feeling stretched thin…if your life only works because of you…if you’re scared that slowing down means everything will fall apart…

Start here.

Listen to the episode, and let it be a reminder that you are not broken. Like I was, you’re overextended inside a system that was never designed to support you.

If you want a next step after listening, explore my related resource: my free quiz on how to self-check where you’re leaking energy and the boundaries you have in place to protect it. It’s a simple starting point for reducing overwhelm without overhauling your whole life.

And if nobody’s told you lately…

You’re doing a great job, momma. You’ve got this.