How to Sync your Business with Your Monthly Cycle
If you’re a person with a menstrual cycle, you’re probably familiar with some of the ups and downs you feel around certain phases!
The ebbs and flows in your energy levels, moods, physical experience, and willingness to do certain tasks.
Cycle syncing is about recognizing that all of these phases — even the much-dreaded PMS days — come with opportunities and extra helpings of certain abilities, and organizing your business to take advantage of them!
Let’s dive into each phase and see how you can adjust your schedule to leverage the different types of energy available to you all month long:
Follicular / Spring / “The Maiden”
This is the phase right after your period ends. You may start experiencing renewed energy and motivation to take action. It’s a perfect time to brainstorm, research, explore, and plant the seeds for something new to take root!
Follow your curiosity in this phase; take a course to learn a new skill or add to your expertise, create some content offering your take on it, experiment with your content... Maybe plan a new event that puts you front and center in your industry, or try a new approach to engaging your community.
This is a perfect time to start brainstorming and visualizing a new offer that lets you do what you love in a whole new way. Cast a wide net and explore what lights you up and speaks to your heart!
What to focus on:
Brainstorming & exploring new ideas
Researching your interests & learning new things
Creating content & testing new ideas
Visualizing & designing new offers
Planning events + public appearances to happen in the ovulation phase
Planting new seeds with your community for what’s coming next
Ovulation / Summer / “The Mother”
This is often a period of high confidence, motivation, and energy. It’s generally the time when you’re most magnetic and charismatic, and people flock to your warmth and passion.
This is the perfect time to nurture the seeds you planted in the follicular phase: show up, get visible, sell your offers, promote your services, and welcome in new community members and make them feel at home!
Schedule events and collaborations for this powerful window of time, and trust yourself to show up powerfully and authentically. Embrace projects that require self-trust, confidence, and a deep inner knowing that things will work out if you just take action.
What to focus on:
Nurturing the seeds you planted in the follicular phase
Creating video & audio content
Showing up publicly for events & collaborations
Meeting one-on-one with prospects and clients
Launching new offers & promoting your services
Luteal / Autumn / “The Wild Woman”
This is a season of high creativity, intuition, and subconscious knowing. Your motivation to take action is still high, but your instincts, wisdom, and magical ability to make things happen around you, without excessive effort, is at its peak.
Make high-impact, high-leverage, intuitive choices that disrupt the status quo and open up new possibilities. This is a time to identify what is not working, and cull the weeds so your desired crops can flourish. Identify blocks, trust your gut, and choose what to release, trusting yourself to know what’s best, even if it doesn’t always make logical sense.
Your energy gradually wanes near the end of this period, so be sure to plan any events near the earlier days, and save some time at the end for reflection and slowing down.
What to focus on:
Continuing to show up, leaning into your intuition
Teaching, inspiring, and sharing intuitive ideas and stories
Evaluating progress & identifying blocks and resistance
Releasing what is no longer serving you
Creating space to attract more of what you want
Leaning into what is working and feels aligned
Making high-impact, intuitive choices that will move you forward
Gradually slowing down as the menstrual phase approaches
Menstrual / Winter / “The Sage”
Energy may be low on these days, but intuition is high. Slow down and look inward. Reflect on your progress and inner growth, on the deepest levels.
You might examine tangible progress towards your goals, but the real magic happens even deeper...who are you, and who are you in the process of becoming? What shifts need to happen internally for you to step into your calling? Focus on self-care, inner shifts, and simply being with yourself. Practice journaling or meditation to open up space for deep insights, intuitive hits, and spiritual downloads.
As this phase draws to a close, you can start applying those deeper shifts to refreshing your tangible goals and priorities.
What to focus on:
Slowing down, working fewer hours, fewer engagements
Self-care and tending to your personal & spiritual needs
Simply being with yourself & being open to what surfaces
Journaling to explore your feelings & intuition
Visualizing your next chapter & listening to your heart’s desires
Exploring internal shifts you need to make next
Syncing up!
Now that you know the phases, it’s time to track your cycle and sync up your business tasks accordingly!
This isn’t about creating a rigid set of rules, or do’s and don’ts for each phase… you can do anything you want, at any point in your cycle you please.
This is about knowing and understanding your energy ebbs and flows, so you can design your schedule to fit your natural energy rhythms, and work with your energy — instead of against it!
Step 1: Track your cycle
Spend a few months getting familiar with your cycle, if you aren’t already (I wasn’t, when I started this process!)
There’s no need to overcomplicate things; just record the start date for your most recent period on your calendar (if you know it) or wait and record your next one.
Then make your best guess about how many days away your next start date will be, and add that to your calendar too — typically around 26-30 days, but yours could be longer, shorter, or irregular.
Get into this habit, and as you figure out how long your cycle generally is, you can start scheduling out a few months in advance when you estimate each period is going to arrive.
Mine is about every 26 days, so I have a meeting on my calendar that repeats every 26 days (and if my period arrives early or late, I just move the meeting invite accordingly, so the subsequent meetings update).
What if I’m on the pill, IUD, or the ring?
If you’re using a hormonal contraceptive, it works by influencing your natural hormones, making cycle syncing a little more challenging; but you can still monitor your own energy ebbs and flows with some self-reflection and care!
Start by keeping a journal with dates listed, your mood/energy levels for that day, and which tasks feel easy and which ones feel challenging. This is a simple way to see how your energy fluctuates from week to week, and get a sense of when each phase of your cycle is likely happening.
Step 2: Monitor your energy ebbs and flows
The descriptions above are typical, but your energy rhythm may be different! Maybe you actually feel a burst of energy and motivation in the days leading up to your period, instead of a desire to slow down.
Just keep a simple Word doc to take notes on how you feel each week or day, what your mood is like (without judgment or filtering your true feelings) and what tasks or activities come easily to you, and which ones don’t.
Step 3: Create a checklist for each phase
I learned this trick (and much of what I know about this topic) from my dear friend Ali Cranmer, who I consulted for my own cycle syncing process!
Just create a simple checklist of activities to do in each phase of your cycle.
For example, if you feel inspired and full of new ideas during your Follicular phase, your checklist might look like this:
Brainstorm new projects and ideas for the month ahead
Schedule and plan for new projects and initiatives
Brainstorm and schedule new content topics + ideas for the next few weeks
Reach out to 3 biz friends to ask about what they’re working on, and look for overlap / changes to collaborate
Then, add this checklist as a private meeting invite lasting a few hours on your calendar around the time you think your Follicular phase will begin!
Do the same for your other phases, adding each one to your calendar (you can always move them later if your cycle begins sooner or later, or you feel the energy shift between phases sooner or later, from what you originally estimated!)
Pro Tip: Ali also has a free flow tracker you can use to get started tracking your own rhythms — and everything she does is beautiful, so it’s totally fun and enjoyable to use! https://alibcranmer.com/freebie
Recap
I hope this inspires you to consider your own cyclic rhythms and start organizing your high-priority tasks around the times when you have the ideal energy for them!
Just remember, your cycle is unique to you, and no one phase is worse than another — each comes with its own unique influx of useful energy and insight that you can leverage in your business, and your life!
So one more time, here are the phases to know about and keep in mind as you design your business schedule:
Follicular / Spring / “The Maiden” – Creativity, Exploration, Ideas, Planting Seeds
Ovulation / Summer / “The Mother” – Connection, Relationship, Visibility, Selling
Luteal / Fall / “The Wild Woman” – Teaching, Inspiring, Releasing, Decision-Making
Menstrual / Winter / “The Sage” – Slowing down, Reflecting, Self-Care & -Listening
Which phase are you currently in, and what’s one way you’ll honor this phase today?
my gift for you:
Elevate & Align
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Always in your corner,
ashley
