Why January 5th Was Your Real Quitters Day (And What That Means for HADA Women)
This week marked "Quitters Day."
January 19th. The day Strava's data shows 80% of people have already abandoned their New Year's resolutions.
But here's what their data doesn't capture:
For high-achieving, deeply attuned women, the quitting didn't start on January 19th.
It started on January 5th.
The Invisible Timeline
While everyone else is still riding the New Year motivation wave in early January, you were already:
Overriding your body's exhaustion signals to handle everyone else's crisis
Pushing through warning signs because you "should" be able to do this
Adding self-care to your to-do list and then feeling shame when you couldn't get to it
The gym membership gathering dust? Not a willpower problem.
The abandoned morning routine? Not a character flaw.
It's your nervous system raising a white flag.
Why Traditional Advice Fails HADA Women
Here's what most productivity experts, habit coaches, and New Year's resolution content completely misses:
When you're a high-achieving, deeply attuned woman—someone I call a HADA woman—you're running dual operating systems simultaneously.
System 1: Cognitive excellence. Strategic thinking. High-level execution. Managing complex projects and people with skill.
System 2: Empathetic relational processing. Reading the room. Managing everyone's emotional needs. Anticipating and preventing conflicts.
Most people run one or the other at any given time.
You? You run both. All the time. Simultaneously.
And traditional habit-building advice is designed for people running a single operating system.
That's why it doesn't work for you.
It's not that you're not disciplined enough. It's not that you're not trying hard enough. It's that the advice itself was never designed for someone managing the cognitive and emotional load you carry every single day.
The Real Cycle
If you've been stuck in this pattern, you know it intimately:
→ Set ambitious goals (You're capable! You can handle this!)
→ Push through warning signals (Your body says stop. Your brain says keep going.)
→ Crash and burn (Something has to give. Usually it's you.)
→ Shame spiral (What's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out?)
→ Repeat (Next month. Next quarter. Next year. Same cycle.)
Everyone gets knocked off course.
But for women conditioned to override their body's wisdom while managing everyone else's needs?
The pattern runs deeper than a missed workout.
It runs all the way down to your nervous system.
The Nervous System Truth
Here's what I've learned after more than a decade of coaching high-achieving women:
You can't strategic-plan your way out of nervous system dysregulation.
You can't productivity-hack your way to sustainable energy.
You can't willpower your way through the signals your body is sending.
When your nervous system is in crisis response mode—which it is when you're constantly overriding your body's signals—it will not allow you to prioritize rest.
Not because you lack discipline.
Not because you're not trying hard enough.
But because your biology is doing exactly what it's designed to do: keep you functional through what it perceives as an emergency.
The problem isn't that you're failing at self-care.
The problem is you're trying to add self-care to a system already running at full capacity.
Think about it: When you're in the middle of an actual emergency—a work crisis, a family health scare, a major deadline—your body goes into survival mode. All non-essential functions get deprioritized. Rest, recovery, long-term health maintenance? Those all get pushed aside so you can handle the immediate threat.
The challenge for HADA women is that your nervous system often perceives your entire life as one long emergency.
Because you're not just managing your own cognitive workload. You're also managing everyone else's emotional needs, reading subtle social cues, preventing conflicts before they happen, and ensuring everyone around you feels seen and supported.
That's not sustainable. No matter how capable you are.
A Different Question Entirely
So what's the alternative?
Instead of asking "How do I make myself stick to my goals?"
We need to ask: "What would signal to my nervous system that it's safe enough to come down from crisis mode?"
That's a completely different conversation.
It's not about:
More discipline
Better time management
Stronger willpower
Another productivity framework
One more morning routine
It's about designing a life that works WITH your nervous system instead of against it.
It's about honoring that you're running dual operating systems and building capacity accordingly.
It's about recognizing that your sensitivity, your attunement, your ability to manage both cognitive and relational complexity simultaneously—these aren't bugs in your system.
They're features.
But they require a different operating manual.
Where Are You Right Now?
As we move through the rest of January, which phase of the cycle feels most familiar to you right now?
Are you still in the "pushing through" phase, overriding signals and proving you can do it all?
Are you in the crash, wondering how you got here again?
Are you in the shame spiral, beating yourself up for "failing" at something you never had capacity for?
Or have you just decided not to play the game this year?
There's no judgment in any of these phases. I've been in every single one of them.
But sometimes just naming where we are is the first step to designing something different.
What Actually Works: Living By Design Instead of By Default
The women I work with aren't lacking information, discipline, or willpower.
They're lacking a framework built FOR deeply attuned women running dual operating systems. Not despite their sensitivity. Not in addition to their achievement. But because of who they are.
When we work together in a Living By Design Session, we don't start with what you "should" be doing or what works for other people.
We start with mapping your actual capacity—not what you think you should be able to handle, but what your nervous system can actually sustain right now.
Then we design from there.
In a single 50-minute Living By Design Session, we:
✓ Map your current patterns - Where are you overriding your body's signals? What's triggering your nervous system into crisis mode?
✓ Identify your actual capacity - Not what you "should" be able to handle, but what your unique system can sustain
✓ Design sustainable systems - Create approaches that honor both your ambition AND your humanity, working with your nervous system instead of against it
✓ Create immediate action steps - Leave with clarity on what to do next, designed specifically for how YOU operate
This isn't therapy. It's not another productivity course. It's not a framework you have to implement perfectly or shame yourself for "not following."
It's strategic design work for your life—trauma and nervous-system-aware, and built specifically for women like you.
Ready to Design Something Different?
If you're tired of the cycle—tired of pushing through, crashing, and wondering what's wrong with you—I want you to know: Nothing is wrong with you.
You don't need fixing.
You just need an approach designed for your unique system.
I currently have Living By Design Sessions available. These are stand-alone, 50-minute sessions ($150) where we do exactly this work together.
[Book Your Living By Design Session]
You deserve to build a life that honors both your ambition and your humanity.
Let's design it together.