Last week we looked closely at the most common and costly pattern that I see in the working with my clients.

What happens when the gap between rising demands and shrinking capacity goes unaddressed. When what life and leadership ask of you begins to stretch further than your current system can hold.

We mapped out the curve, from manageable to compression to collapse — and explored how the warning signs often show up quietly.

Not in loud breakdowns, but in the subtle erosion of clarity, resilience, and recovery.

And in the days since, one question has surfaced again and again in the conversations I’ve had with clients and readers alike:

What actually causes that curve to bend?

What are the forces, habits, and decisions that shrink capacity in real time, long before things visibly fall apart?

Because if last week was about recognising the cost of unaddressed strain, this week is about tracing it back to the source, to the small but consistent ways even the most capable people wear themselves down, not because they’re doing something wrong, but because they’re moving through seasons that demand more than their current structure can sustainably deliver.

And that’s where I want to take us now.

Six of the most common ways I’ve seen high performers unknowingly erode their own capacity — and more importantly, the adjustments they can make to buy it back.

1 | Chronic Overextension

How it shrinks capacity

One of the fastest ways people erode their capacity is by setting goals that dramatically outpace the resources, energy, and infrastructure they currently have available. And instead of adjusting the target or building the foundation to support it, they try to close the gap.

Mostly through sheer effort, urgency, and overextension — which might work for a while, but eventually pushes them into a cycle of strain where recovery drops, decision quality fades, and the pursuit begins to drain more than it returns.

How to build it back

As always, I’m the last person to tell you to shrink your vision. But where capacity is concerned, the best course of action is to align the goal with the actual system required to hold it.

Which might look like:

• Extending timelines to reflect your current bandwidth.
• Breaking major goals into phased. milestones with strategic recovery built in
• Hiring support or delegating operational load early.
• Investing in the systems, rhythms, and routines that build energetic resilience behind the scenes.

2 | Struggling to Say No

How it shrinks capacity

As the volume and complexity of your responsibilities grow, the cost of indecision, overcommitment, and poor boundaries rises with it. And what once felt like a harmless “yes” begins to fragment your focus, scatter your energy, and dilute your ability to execute where it matters most.

The more your demands rise, the tighter your standards need to be, not just around what you let in, but around what you keep out.

How to rebuild it

There’s no way to build sustainable capacity without clarity and discipline, not just around your priorities, but around the trade-offs required to protect them.

The further you climb, the more ruthless you need to become about what gets your time, your energy, and your presence.

And to put this into practise, I invite you to:

• Map out your three primary focus areas for the quarter and filter new commitments through that lens.
• Use pre-decided boundaries (e.g. no meetings after 3pm, no more than 2 projects in play).
• Learn that saying “no” isn’t selfish, it’s what makes your “yes” actually mean something.

3 | Over-responsibility

How it shrinks capacity

The further you move into leadership, the more dangerous it becomes to try and carry everything yourself.

Not just because the volume of work increases, but because the quality of your energy becomes more important than the quantity of your output. And yet, so many high performers avoid delegation, not because they don’t understand the value, but because letting go of control feels risky — and in the absence of trust, they default to doing it all themselves.

But holding on to tasks that could be handed off, or being the only one who has the answers, creates invisible energy leaks across your day, because instead of protecting your focus for the decisions that truly require you, you’re constantly being pulled into the weeds, reacting to noise, and exhausting the very capacity that’s meant to serve your most valuable work.

How to rebuild it

One thing to make clear here, is that letting go of work that is currently beyond your bandwidth is a solid way to ensure that the part of you that’s irreplaceable stays energised enough to lead.

And in practice, this might look like:

• Identifying tasks you’re still holding that drain your energy but don’t need your expertise.
• Building systems that enable others to solve problems without needing you in every loop.
• Accepting that “done without you” is sometimes better than “perfect, but delayed”.
• Protecting your highest leverage hours for work that actually requires your strategic input.

4 | Running on a Low Baseline

How it shrinks capacity

One of the most overlooked ways people limit their growth is by accepting an already-low baseline as normal — suboptimal sleep, minimal movement and a poor diet. Which over time, becomes the standard mode of operating that has always been, unless addressed.

The best way I can put it, is that those who still expect themselves to show up with precision, resilience, and energy day after day can be compared to trying to drive at 200 km/h on an empty tank.

How to rebuild it

Out of everyone I know, the people with the widest and most adaptable capacity are the ones who stay closest to their fuel sources and recovery signals.

And as a collective, they all:

• Get consistent sleep before trying to optimise anything else.
• Reduce stimulants and screen time that spike the nervous system.
• Block real recovery into their calendar, not treating it as a reward.
• Move daily, even lightly
• Eat in a way that supports their capacity and overall health, not just what’s quick and easy.

5 | Performing Without Replenishing

How it shrinks capacity

One of the most dangerous habits high performers fall into is equating output with progress, as if the act of doing — day after day, week after week — is inherently forward motion.

But without recovery, reflection, and recalibration, performance becomes extraction.

You’re drawing on reserves that aren’t being restored. And the longer you operate that way, the more you start to normalise the slow fade, in clarity, energy, and presence. Not because you’re losing your edge, but because you’re not giving it space to come back online.

How to rebuild it

The goal is to stay conscious of the season you’re in, and if you’re in one that demands more from you than usual, then you need to be just as intentional about what comes after.

Because once the push ends, your job isn’t to sprint into the next thing, it’s to restore what was spent, rebuild the reserves you burned through, and re-establish the margins that allow you to show up strong again when it counts.

Which might look like:

• Scheduling true recovery time before jumping into the next sprint.
• Saying no to low-leverage opportunities in the aftermath of a high-stakes push.
• Rebuilding consistent sleep, movement, and nutrition before optimising anything else.
• Creating space in your calendar to not perform and not feel guilty about it.
• Working with clear cycles — output, reflection, adjustment, and recovery.

6 | Chasing Goals Without Meaning

How it shrinks capacity

Working hard on something that doesn’t matter to you is one of the fastest ways to run out of energy. You’ll show up, sure. But everything feels heavier, slower, and harder to sustain. And eventually, you start to wonder what it’s all for.

How to rebuild it

Reconnect to why you started. If it’s lost meaning, redefine it. Align what you’re building with something that makes you feel alive again. Because when your work connects to purpose, it generates energy — not just effort.

Which might look something like:

• Revisiting — and being radically clear on — the core reason behind the goal you’re chasing.
• Saying no to “shoulds” that no longer serve the future you want.
• Shifting your focus from growth-for-growth’s-sake to growth-with-intent.

Capacity isn’t fixed and with the right awareness, it can be rebuilt.

And to say one last time, the goal here isn’t to do less, to strive for less or to achieve less.

It’s to hold more, but to do it in a way that doesn’t cost you the very energy, clarity, and presence that made you effective in the first place.

Build the system, expand the capacity and let your ambition be met by infrastructure that’s strong enough to carry it.

That’s the work.