It was a sunny afternoon in London—which in itself is a rare event to be celebrated. But given I lived here for most of my 30s and hadn’t been back in seven years, just being in London felt like an event.
I was like a kid in a candy store: I could go to that restaurant I remembered, call this friend, stroll through my old neighborhood... The choices were endless.
And instead, I just wandered. I found a coffee shop, sat for a spell, carried on enjoying the streets and the weather.
A younger me would have been zipping across the city—coffee chat here, catch-up lunch there, all while making sure to hit my favorite haunts.
And there was still a voice inside me saying, But you haven’t seen X, Y, and Z.
But this current me has new information: I know now there’s a difference between desire and capacity.
It’s not that I don’t want to do it all—I do. But I’ve learned the cost of cramming. If I tried to see everyone, I wouldn’t really be with anyone. I’d be half-watching the clock, half-catching my breath. And then I’d wonder why I felt off, why everything felt just a little too sharp or too much.
It’s not an age thing—that was true back then, too.
The truth is, I never had the capacity I thought I did. I just powered through the consequences. I collapsed more. I got overwhelmed faster. I didn’t understand what my body was trying to tell me: that it wasn’t sustainable.
Now, I don’t have more capacity—but I have more awareness. I can feel where the edges are. I’ve stopped pretending they don’t exist.
So this week, I’m doing less. But I’m doing it more fully. I’m seeing fewer people, but I’m with them—not just next to them. I’m walking the city not to get anywhere, but to be somewhere. To be here.
This isn’t actually about London.
It’s an analogy: liminal spaces ask us to do more with less clarity—and if we’re not careful, we default to overload.
This isn’t just about a trip—it’s about how we move through ambiguity.
Whether it’s a reorg, a role change, or a personal shift, we often default to over-efforting when clarity is missing.
But capacity—not urgency—is what actually creates momentum.
So here's a prompt...
Try this:
Next time you're in a liminal space—even before the overwhelm hits, if you can see it coming—pause and ask:
Do I have the capacity for this—or just the desire?
You don’t need to do all the things all at once. You don't need to make excuses for prioritizing—at work or in life.
You just need to trust your edges.
But first—you need to know where they are.
To get better at clocking capacity in a liminal space, start small.
Set yourself a small experiment this week:
- Look at how you approached something last week—your work day, your social plans, your Saturday afternoon.
- Then, try doing it differently this week. Shift the rhythm. Cut one thing. Add breathing room.
- Clock the difference:
– How was your energy?
– Did the work still get done?
– Did you enjoy your time with people more?
Because building the muscle of matching capacity to action starts small.
In a moment of transition—like a reorg, a new strategy, a relocation, or a personal shift—and struggling to tell the difference between desire and capacity?
That’s what I love helping people with. And I’ve seen it all—from corporate restructures to cross-country moves to modern dating. I’m out of the office until June 3rd, but you can book a call now for when I return.
