I need to tell you about a moment a while back. I was in a high-stakes meeting, a situation I've been in lots of times. Someone asked me a question about our quarterly growth, a number I knew like the back of my hand. And for a split second, my mind went completely blank.

The number was just... gone.

I recovered, I found the answer, and the meeting moved on. But for the rest of the day, a cold, heavy feeling of dread settled in my stomach. A voice I hadn't heard in years started whispering, "You're losing it. You can't do this anymore. You're a fraud."

That's the thing about perimenopause. It doesn't just mess with your body. It messes with your identity. The brain fog makes you question your intelligence. The fatigue makes you doubt your work ethic. It takes the normal, low-level hum of imposter syndrome that many of us live with and cranks the volume up to a deafening roar.

I tried to "think positive." It was useless. You can't fight a deeply ingrained fear with a fluffy affirmation.

I realized I had to treat this like a business problem. I couldn't fight the feeling, but I could invalidate the premise. I needed to stop arguing with the voice in my head and start presenting it with cold, hard evidence to the contrary.

So, I started what I now call my "Evidence Log." It's a simple, 10-minute practice at the end of each day. It's not a diary for my feelings. It's a dossier of facts to build a case for my own competence.

Here's what I do. I answer three questions in a notebook.

1. "What's one objective thing I did today?"

This has to be a fact. Not "I worked hard," but "I finished the financial model." Not "I had a good meeting," but "I presented the Q3 strategy deck." It can be big or small. The only rule is that it must be an undeniable action that I took and completed. This builds a factual record against the feeling of "I'm not getting anything done."

2. "What's one piece of proof that I'm not failing?"

Imposter syndrome loves to ignore positive feedback. This prompt forces me to find it. It could be a client emailing to say "thank you." It could be a team member laughing at a joke I made. It could be someone in a meeting saying, "That's a good point." I write it down. It's a data point that proves I am not a complete disaster.

3. "What's one thing I handled better than I would have in the past?"

This is about tracking my own growth. Maybe I received critical feedback without getting defensive. Maybe I said "no" to a request that I would have previously accepted out of guilt. Maybe I didn't procrastinate on a difficult phone call. This creates a tangible record of my own evolution, proving that I am still learning and improving.

That's it. At the end of the week, I have a list of facts.

When that voice starts whispering, "You're a fraud," I don't have to fight it with feelings anymore. I have a logbook of evidence. I can literally open the page and say, "The data does not support your conclusion."

It sounds simple, but it has been one of the most powerful tools I have. It's how I'm learning to anchor my confidence in the reality of my actions, not the chaos of my hormones.

All the best,

Sonja Rincón

Founder & CEO, Menotracker