There's a season that comes for most founders, business owners and high-achieving women that no one really talks about. I call it the Founder's Winter. It's an internal phase where your usual drive disappears, growth stalls and life forces you into stillness whether you like it or not. Today I want to explore what this season really is, why it happens, and how to navigate it without losing yourself in the process.

A founder's winter can be triggered by all sorts of life events: illness, grief, burnout, major transitions. For me, it started after I broke my ankle a few months ago. Up until that point, I genuinely believed I could push through anything but this injury forced a shift I wasn't expecting. My drive just evaporated. I found myself in this strange bubble of introspection and honestly, I didn't know what to do with it.

Some of my friends suggested that it was depression but I knew it wasn’t that. This was a season of going inward, finding stillness and embracing a period of reflection.

Nothing in nature blooms all year round. Winter is when the soil restores its nutrients, when vital work happens beneath the surface that we can't see. For us, this involuntary stillness is crucial for long-term productivity and sustainability. We resist it because we've been conditioned to see productivity as the only measure of success. But the real wisdom is in recognising that these quiet periods are just as necessary as the busy ones.

What season are you in right now, and what might it be trying to teach you?

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