An Approach to Navigate Low Capacity
“Ambition” is what I call the things I want to bring to life, the goals I want to achieve, and the impact I want to make.
It feels exciting to have goals and dreams. There is a sense of future-focused productivity and creation that draws a heart forward to live fully and authentically.
It’s like a hot air balloon soaring in the air exploring from differing heights and giving the passenger beautiful views of reality and stirring the imagination of possibility. It also comes with a sense of drive to go on the journey.
The natural next step of ambition is the execution of those ideas, dreams, and goals. This part can feel a little more grounded and weighty.
Determining which ones are worth investing resources in, figuring out the “how”, and doing them takes effort and resources. The amount of and speed at which things are brought to life depends upon our individual capacity.
For me, individual capacity is a combination of internal and external resources.
External resources are things like time, money, relationships, and tangible “stuff”.
Internal or “personal” resources are the physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional energy we contain to live our lives and pour out into the world through action and interaction. It’s the “humanity” part.
Our personal resources are a form of “currency” that I believe when used is more precious than money because it’s literally giving of one’s self in some form. Many things impact our personal resources and need to be considered intentionally in the spending and replenishing process.
Managing our individual capacity is a little like trying to steer a hot air balloon. There is no steering wheel and we use the winds and speed at different altitudes (internal and external resources) to steer where we go.
There is a sense of mindfulness and intentionality needed to navigate our hot air balloon toward our goals and dreams. It’s a matter of knowing your own humanity and ambition and how you want to navigate them.
Recently I found myself dealing with a lot of things I wanted and needed to do and had low personal capacity. My ambition and humanity were out of balance. Some seasons that has felt like my constant reality.
It’s frustrating to want or need to do things and not be able to do them because of a personal limitation. Awareness and prioritization are important in that place. Knowing your capacity and what’s most important to you are key to moving forward.
Coming from that place, I found myself thinking about a financial budgeting method I learned from Dave Ramsey around irregular income budgets.
His process includes making a list of bills and expenses and prioritizing them. When money comes in you apply them to the prioritized list and work your way down it.
Pretty simple right?
This approach allows you to see the correlation between what’s most important and what’s coming in. If you want to be able to do more on the list, then looking for ways to bring more money in would be the way to go about it for the irregular income budget.
I found myself curious about how this concept might apply to my “to-do” list and personal capacity.
At first, there was resistance to actually prioritize my list because they all needed to be done, and fear of what I might need to let go of in this season. I was also a little nervous to see what my current personal capacity was because I was pretty sure it would lower what I needed for the “basics”.
But bravely looking at where you are, what you want/need, and what you’re working with is the beginning of the process. So I did that and the result was a set of questions to help navigate low capacity.
5 questions to help navigate low capacity…
1 - What’s my baseline?
These are the things that are necessary on a basic level to help you live your life and be well. If you’re in crisis, caregiving, or going through a major life transition then this may look very different from your “typical” baseline.
2 - What’s my prioritized list?
These are the things that you want/need to do (beyond your baseline) listed out in a prioritized way so you know what receives extra capacity first.
3 - What do I need to accept?
This could be anything standing in your way of moving forward or a truth that you want to embrace to empower this process for you.
4 - What do I need to let go of?
This is where you get to release what is draining your current capacity and simply let it go. Release it.
5 - How can I let self-compassion (or another value) refresh me?
This is where you accept your humanity as you go after your ambition. You get to give yourself the gift of being refreshed by something that matters deeply to you.
This process is about awareness of your needs, priorities, and resources available. It’s also about giving yourself the compassion and grace to be human as you go after the ambitions of your heart.
The journey to where you want to go can be thriving if you’re intentional with how you support yourself along the journey.
You are worth it and so are your dreams!
If you’d like to navigate your own low capacity there are a couple of ways you can do it.
First, take the questions from this exercise and use them in your journal (or whatever place you “process” in) as you map it out for yourself.
Second, if you’d like, there is a printable version of this exercise available in my Etsy shop.
Either way, I’d love to hear how it works for you and how you're navigating your own seasons or low capacity. If you’d like, share your story with me at hello@latishaleppert.com.