Are You Making This Big Mistake? Capability vs. Capacity

Are you constantly beating yourself up for not being able to do as much as you believe you should?

You might be confusing capability with capacity, and this common mistake is causing unnecessary stress, guilt, and even burnout for busy moms everywhere.

In this eye-opening episode, I explain the crucial difference between what you're CAPABLE of doing versus what you have the CAPACITY to do right now, and why understanding this distinction is transformative for your mental health and productivity.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• The key differences between capability (what you CAN do) and capacity (what you have bandwidth to do RIGHT NOW)
• How your capacity naturally fluctuates throughout different seasons of motherhood, monthly cycles, and life changes
• Two simple questions to determine whether you're facing a capability problem or a capacity problem
• Why equating your self-worth with your productivity is destructive to your well-being
• Practical strategies to solve both capability and capacity problems without burning yourself out

HOMEWORK:

Journal your thoughts surrounding your current capacity. Do you feel able to do what you want to do in this season of life? Why or why not? If not, what are you making that mean about yourself?

COMING UP NEXT:

In the next episode, you’ll learn how not to let fluctuations in your capacity keep you from making your dreams a reality.

Did you know your nervous system secretly shapes your thoughts, emotions, choices, relationships, and life? My 1-hour masterclass, "Finally Understanding Yourself, The Missing Manual for Your Brain and Body," gives you foundational wisdom and practical tools to feel calmer, more connected, and more in control no matter how chaotic things are around you: https://solutionsforsimplicity.thrivecart.com/ns101/

CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn 

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Transcript

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Are you someone who prides herself on how much you get done? Do you ever get discouraged for not being able to do as much as you think you should? In this episode, we are talking about the crucial distinction between capability and capacity. I am breaking down the two to make sure that you don't fall into the traps I see over and over again, where women either conflate the two and feel like a failure, or refuse to honor changes in their capacity to the point that they burn out or end up depressed. I will help you determine whether you have a capability or a capacity problem, and as always, equip you with science-backed strategies to solve each one. Welcome to More Time for Mom, where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. If I could go back in time, this is the message that I wish my former self had 10, 12 years ago as I began my motherhood journey. I know I'm not the only one who came to define herself on the basis of her ability to perform, to achieve certain things and get recognized or validated by others for those achievements. And so when I became a mother and I could no longer do so many of the things I was used to doing, let alone at the level at which I used to perform them, it threw me into a tailspin, literally an identity crisis thinking something was wrong with me. I wish I could have understood at the time that what I was going through was not a reflection of me and it wasn't a reflection of what I was capable of, it was actually a very natural fluctuation in my capacity. and I wish I could have honored that in such a more healthy way, which I did not and I want you to learn from my mistakes. Let's start out with some simple definitions. Google defines capability as the power or extent of someone or something's ability, particularly to perform a specified task. For me, it all comes down to having the physical, mental, or emotional ability to do something. And it is very performance or task oriented. Can you do this thing? Capacity, on the other hand, is something I never even considered. I never really knew about until I was in the thick of it. Google defines capacity as the maximum amount that something can contain or produce. It's about how much you can do or handle based on how much you already have going on. It really comes down to time, energy, pre-existing commitments, your current circumstances, maybe your financial situation, but ultimately the internal and external resources that are available to you in that particular moment. The huge point is that there is a big difference between being capable of doing something, which you inevitably are, and actually having the capacity to do it, which is changing all of the time. In terms of capability, we know that physical capability naturally fluctuates with age. We see in little children that they go from learning to roll over, to sitting up, to crawling, to walking, to running and jumping. And we don't make that a problem. It's so beautiful to see little kids learning to do these things, right? Trying and trying again, despite falling down or, quote unquote, failing. We don't consider it failure in that instance. And then most of us reach peak capability in our 20s or 30s, after which we slowly start to age and decline. We're more at risk of injury or developing a chronic health problem. So physically, of course, the goal is longevity. We want a really good health span to have great quality of life as long as possible. Thankfully, research is underscoring that no matter what age you are, you can still do things to improve your health, to train your body, increase your performance, get stronger, more agile, more mobile. It's so great. In terms of emotional capability, we know that that also evolves over childhood and adolescence. Kids' brains aren't fully developed until their late teens or mid-twenties, depending on gender. We also see through current research that neurodivergent brains might have different abilities and those might then be perceived by others as deficiencies or inabilities but they're not. It's just that their brains are wired differently. Mental capability is especially malleable and changeable all throughout one's lifetime. Although decades ago, doctors didn't used to think that was the case. It used to be that people thought intelligence or criminality were hereditary and largely predetermined. But now, thanks to advances in technology and neuroscience, we know how amazing the brain is, that you basically have infinite capability of learning and growing because of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. The point is that it is never a question of whether you can do something, whether you can learn to do something, whether that's physically, mentally, or emotionally. In 99.9% of cases, you could. You would be capable. Maybe you just don't know how to do it yet. Do you want to learn to play the piano? Great. You want to run a half marathon and you've never run before? Great. You want to start a business and you have no idea where to start? Great. You can learn to do all of those things. The real challenge, especially for busy, high-achieving moms, is the reduced capacity that comes with having kids. Of course, it is not just moms that experience this. Someone could experience it while caring for aging parents, or if they got sick, or have a changed life situation where they're emotionally or physically drained. But on the whole, new moms are usually faced with a starkly different reality after having kids, and it is hard to fully process and accept that. Whether you wanna see it as the silver lining or as a complicating factor that makes matters worse, your capacity doesn't stay stagnant. It is constantly shifting day by day, week by week, month by month, and across the many seasons of mom life. But your brain craves constancy and predictability. Oh, how we strive for routine, right? But that is practically impossible as a mom. We make these grand plans and we set our big goals only for everything to change and get thrown off. We need to expect that. In those moments of diminished capacity, you have to remember that just because you are capable of doing something doesn't mean you should. I find this is so hard for us moms to accept when we have big ambitious goals or we're even just trying to do as they say and put our own self-care somewhere in the equation. Having diminished capacity makes you feel like you can't do even the simplest of things. But life is about doing the best you can under the circumstances and those are always a moving target. What you could do before having kids is very different than what you can do postpartum and then eventually you do recover and find a new groove. Having multiple kids can sometimes feel easier or sometimes harder than having your first kid. Kids' sleep schedules are always changing and just when you get used to a certain schedule, they go through a new developmental milestone and start waking at night or waking up earlier or later and it's a whole big mess. At some point, kids go off to school and get more capable of being left alone so that you can take a shower without worrying that they're going to run out into the busy street or burn the house down. We know that everyone is a little more susceptible to getting sick in the winter than the summer. As a woman, your capacity is always changing every month. And different weeks of the month, you will find that you have more or less energy. That's to be expected. And then there's good old perimenopause, which can start as early as your 30s. Anytime you experience a big life change like a move or switching jobs or the birth or death of a family member, your capacity will change. Your job might have more or less stressful seasons that go along with it. For instance, if you're an accountant, then tax season is infinitely stressful and your capacity for anything other than work will feel strained. Similarly, as a professor, I know that the end of every semester is going to be awful. no matter what I try to do to prepare. Now I can at least just expect to have limited capacity for other things in those moments. And at least it saves my brain a lot of the drama and stress of feeling like something is wrong. It's just the way it is. These are all examples of natural changes in your capacity, things that we could expect and that we really don't want to make wrong if and when you experience them. The big point is that you are not a machine. You are not meant to go at 100% all of the time. But that's not the message that most of us internalized as young girls. At least not the image given to us by standard or what I call toxic productivity advice. which is built so heavily on research studies of men and often written by people who either don't have kids or might be at a socioeconomic level where they can afford a lot more help than the average mom, you're so often told that you should be able to do it all, to have a powerful career, keep an immaculate house, have perfectly behaved kids, and look like a supermodel. I haven't found that magic equation yet, so let me know if you have. What I do see over and over in my years of working with clients, as well as my own personal experience, is two huge problems. The first problem is equating your self-worth with either your capability or your capacity and making your inability to do something mean that you are a failure. There is no such thing. Again, you have infinite capability. Brains can learn anything. It just takes knowledge, time, and trial and error. In fact, the fastest way to learn is often by failing, which feels horrible to your brain unless you know how to manage your thoughts and feelings around it. But especially if you were someone who felt like you had it all together before you had kids, It can feel so threatening to your brain and throw you into an identity crisis when you can't keep up with your old standards or others' perceived expectations. It's such a vicious battle because it, unlike anything else, places these impossible, invisible, and often conflicting expectations upon you. And what you can do in one season is very different than what you can do in another. Just because you can't do it now doesn't mean you will never be able to do it or that you are incapable of doing it at all. It just means that it isn't something immediately available to you given your very real limitations in terms of time and energy in this moment. That won't last forever, I promise. So don't get discouraged and definitely don't make it mean that there's anything wrong with you if you can't do something. The second problem is way more subtle but way more destructive. That is refusing to admit when your capacity has decreased and then continuing to push yourself too hard by failing to honor your body's natural needs and limitations to the point that you end up burned out or depressed or worse. This was me multiple times, and especially after having my first son, when everything was so new, I had so many questions, I didn't have any child care help, and we had moved away from all of our family and old network, I was trying to work full time, and my sweet son didn't sleep through the night until he was well over two years old, but I just kept thinking, I need to work harder, I've got to push myself, I can do this, what's wrong with me? And I lost it. So I really, really, really can't say this enough. You have to embrace your current capacity and reconcile where you are with what you can do in this moment, trusting that you will get to do what you're capable of later on as your season changes, as your capacity increases. Here are two questions to determine if you have a capability or a capacity problem. Firstly, do you know how to do what you're trying to do? If not, you have a capability problem. The second question is, do you currently have time and energy to do what you are trying to do? And if not, you have a capacity problem. Obviously, the capability problem is the easier one to solve because the answer is simply learn how to do it. Get some training. Find someone that has gone down that success route before and you can follow in their proven footsteps. You can hire a coach. You can buy books or programs. You can teach yourself and go through trial and error following the 10,000 hours rule as covered in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, where spending 10,000 hours on something might make you an expert because it myelinates the neural pathways that make that activity or behavior automatic and excellent. The great news is that if it's a capacity problem, there are still lots of possible solutions. Your brain might not want to hear them, but they are to pare back for now, to really let yourself rest, accept your current reality, and wait for things to get better. In those moments of waiting, I know you can feel so frustrated and helpless, but you can use those moments to dream, to envision your future life, to focus on all that you're grateful for, And then there are a couple of ways that you can increase your capacity by asking for help, which I know hardly anybody wants to do, but that does legitimately allow for things to get done by taking other things off your plate so that you can use your time and energy for what you want. The second way to increase your capacity is to learn your body's natural energy rhythms so that you can identify what I call your peak performance windows and know in advance how much energy you will have for whatever you're trying to do. This is such a game changer and something we will cover much more in future podcast episodes. But again, if any of these solutions, these remedies for a capacity problem, if they feel triggering to you, as they definitely did for me a while back, then I invite you to dig deeper into why you feel such pressure to do it all and to perform at such a high level. These are the things that I just love helping my one-on-one clients delve into and overcome because there is no shame in your shifting capacity. It is completely normal and to be expected. Fighting it is what makes it worse. The more you can honor your capacity, the more you can work from peace, not pressure, you will be amazed at how much more productive and joyful you become when you rid your brain of all the mind drama you have around this stuff and just sink into what you can do. We will keep unpacking all that and more in future episodes. For now, your homework is to journal on your thoughts surrounding your current capacity. Do you feel able to do what you want to do in this season of life? Why or why not? And if not, what are you making that mean about yourself? If you are in a season of low capacity, I just want to encourage you. You can only do what you can do, but that's so hard to accept and oftentimes it causes moms to sacrifice themselves for the good of everything else they're trying to do. and you abandon your needs and goals altogether. That's what happened to me and I don't want it to happen to you. So join me in the next episode where we will delve into five reasons dreams die and have a real heart to heart on how not to let fluctuations in your capacity keep you from making your dreams reality. Until then, remember nothing you do changes how wonderful and worthy you are. Have a great day. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe, and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.