It’s rarely the workload that breaks people.

The real threat is the widening gap, of rising demands on one side, and a shrinking capacity on the other, that pushes people beyond their edge.

It’s the core destructive pattern I see in my work with clients. And in most cases, they’re completely blind to it, unaware that something beneath the surface has already started to give.

It usually begins when life starts asking for more.

Sometimes gradually, as a natural consequence of growth, when the business grows, the team expands, or responsibilities multiply. Other times it happens exponentially, when a funding round reaches its tipping point, a leadership role shifts or a child is born.

And sometimes, it arrives without a warning, when a relationship ends, a family member gets sick, or a personal crisis unfolds behind the scenes.

Either way, what life is asking from them begins to multiply, meaning more responsibilities to carry, more people to lead, more complexity to navigate and more risk to hold.

But what they often don’t realise is that while they try to keep up with the increasing demands, their internal capacity doesn’t expand with them.

If anything, it does the opposite.

Until they cross the line where what’s required of them exceeds what they can hold.

That line is what I call the capacity threshold.

That’s where things start to break, quietly, and then all at once.

This is the pattern I want to explore — the interplay between rising demands and a person’s capacity to hold them.

To put this into context, I want to introduce The Capacity Threshold Graph — a visual I use with clients to map the interplay, and to identify where performance becomes unsustainable.

In this version, you’ll see the lived trajectory of one of my clients (who we’ll call Theo), whose old strategies stopped working after two major life events pushed him beyond his capacity, into collapse.

The graph is broken up into three different zones:

The Manageable Zone:
→ Demands are rising gradually, still within capacity.→ Capacity is slightly decreasing, often unnoticeably, but not yet limiting performance.→ Performance is sustainable, cognitive flexibility is high, and flow is accessible.

The Compression Zone:
→ Demands begin to exceed capacity, either acutely or cumulatively.→ Recovery becomes insufficient, energy is depleted faster than it’s restored.→ Tasks require more effort, focus fragments, executive function declines, emotional reactivity increases, and decision-making becomes reactive.

The Collapse Zone:
→ Capacity drops below what’s required to meet ongoing demands.→ The system can no longer compensate, the nervous system collapses.→ Cognitive narrowing intensifies, emotional flatness or volatility emerges, physical exhaustion sets in, and strategic thinking gives way to short-term survival.

In Theo’s case, his collapse didn’t come from chronic overwork.

The tipping point came fast, from two major shifts, close together, both demanding more than he realised. In an attempt to cope, he responded with the same operating system that had carried him for years, by pushing through.

But this time, demands rose faster than his ability to “manage it”, and recovery never caught up.

By the time we spoke, his system had crashed, and the only way forward was to lower the load, restore capacity, and establish a new way of operating that could actually hold what his next chapter was asking of him.

It isn’t always as critical as it was in Theo’s case, and thankfully, the norm is shifting, and more and more clients are reaching out earlier.

Not in full collapse, but in the quiet, disorienting middle ground where they are still functioning, still performing, but clearly under strain. When they realise they’re operating on the wrong side of their capacity.

The strategies that helped them succeed in the early stages — 100% output, constant urgency, recovery only when time allowed — start delivering diminishing returns, and push them further past their capacity threshold.

That model made sense when things were simpler and more predictable. But as life becomes more layered, complex and interconnected, that model begins to break down. And without intervention, it eventually collapses.

And that’s the turning point. Where the question shifts from how hard they can push, to whether their system and the strategies they rely on are built to hold what’s next.

Where they are asked to shift from output-based performance to capacity-based leadership.

Because part of building a business is about strategy, execution, scale, and momentum, but the other part is building the person — and the team — with the capacity to hold and sustain it.

Now, this isn’t some idealistic pitch for perfect balance, because I don’t think that exists. Especially not for people who are building, leading, or holding weight that matters.

There are stretches that demand everything from you. Times when you’re asked to go beyond your capacity, the final push before launch, the hard quarter, the family crisis that reshapes your priorities overnight.

And when that season arrives, you want to be able to meet it fully, with strength, clarity and grit.

But just as importantly, you want to move through those periods in a way that doesn’t drain the very system you depend on to show up for what comes next.

Because the goal isn’t to avoid the stretch altogether or to live permanently in the “manageable zone” (boring!). It’s to move through it in a way that includes space that allows for recovery, and to build in just enough margin to deal with the unexpected, but inevitable, changes and setbacks.

To have the capacity to meet these challenges without everything else falling apart.

This is what makes sustainable performance possible.

Not intensity alone, but the awareness, capacity and leadership skills that allow you to give what it takes, and still be ready for what comes next.

So, if you’ve made it this far, I want to leave you with three questions I often bring into conversations with clients when we’re unpacking this pattern in real time.

Questions that can make the difference between holding the weight of what’s next, or being broken by it. Between a quiet course correction or a costly recovery.

Take a moment, and answer them honestly.

• Where am I on the graph right now?

Am I managing well? Quietly compressing? Or already stretched beyond what I can sustainably hold?

• What’s the current direction of my capacity?

Is it holding steady, gradually eroding, or already in decline?

• What does my next level actually require from me?

What structures, margins, boundaries, practices, or behaviours would support me (and/or my team) in building the capacity needed to hold what’s next?

Because one thing is given, if you’re building, leading, or pursuing a challenge, life will continue to demand more of you.

And when it does, you’ll either have the capacity to meet it, or you won’t.

It’s as simple as that.

I hope it helps.