It's arse backwards.

Productivity methods that work for 3 weeks.

Morning routines that crumble after a poor night’s sleep.

Frameworks, trackers, courses, coaches, programs and everything in between, all eating metaphorical dirt in your graveyard of discarded systems.

All of them came with evidence; proof that they work for other people. But in your hands they degrade, dying a death and taking another piece of your capacity (and possibly your soul) with them.

The natural conclusion is it’s your fault - you did something wrong or weren’t disciplined enough; didn’t do it consistently or for long enough.

Not enough in every respect.

But it’s not that simple.

For ‘normal’ humans it usually is one of those reasons, but high performing women are not normal.

Meaning it’s not you.

But it’s not the system itself either.

It comes down to a matter of sequence and capacity.

Every system requires 2 things; an engine and fuel.

Ambition, desire, discipline - those are the fuel and you’re rarely lacking in those.

The engine though, that’s your nervous system, and it’s the thing everything else relies on. If the components of the engine don’t work, you can pour as much fuel as you want into it, it still won’t work properly, which means all the systems you want it to power won’t work as expected either.

When you have capacity, the fuel does its job, the engine runs and the systems work.

With your nervous system, it means attention, decision making, focus, energy, recovery, your ability to hold stress are all functioning, which means you can use the systems and get results with them.

But when capacity is low, all of those things drop off and there’s nothing left to run the systems. And if you keep trying to force it, by adding more systems, you only increase the instability.

Those systems, rather than being an asset, become a liability - one that you try to counteract by adding more fuel, which only serves to degrade the whole stack faster because when you lack capacity but still force performance, you compensate.

Your other resources are consumed by the deficit until capacity returns briefly and cycle starts again, with a few more things in the graveyard.

So what’s the answer?

Capacity first. Raise it, maintain it and eventually increase it.

That way the systems can hold, provided you get the sequence right.

The variable is the sequence but the performance industry ignores this. It sells frameworks, systems and discipline to women with dysregulated nervous systems and high drive.

It’s a dangerous combination that keeps the cycle going, selling you mindset work to bridge the gap when really it starts with restoring the component everything else runs on; the nervous system.

Only then can you stack the systems.

If we use the 3C philosophy for reference, you can see the gap.

Chaos

• Overwhelmed
• Survival mode
• Fried nervous system

Clarity

• Nervous system restored
• Think strategically
• Access capacity
• Calm, focused, regulated

Creation

• Career progression
• Confident decisions
• Strategic execution
• High performance

Systems and framework are creation level tools - they work when you’re in the creation phase.

But you’re not there yet - you’re stuck in the chaos phase and driving yourself further in by using the tools you expect to save you instead of focusing on moving towards the clarity phase.

That’s where you have capacity and can sit in a regulated state for long enough to see what’s actually useful to you.

So next time you try to add a new system, take a moment to asses whether you have the capacity for it, and where it sits in your sequence.