Finding Your Pace in Life: Building Capacity Without Losing Your Dreams

There is a saying that I have used for quite some time when teaching leadership: put a deadline on your dream, and it becomes a goal. There is some merit to this. I still believe there is value in giving ourselves something to work towards and putting some relationship with time around our ambitions. A dream without action can remain just a dream.

But I am not sure I believe that a deadline is the best measure anymore. It is a good measure. It is just not necessarily the best one. Perhaps there is another question we should be asking: Do I have the capacity to build this dream?

We all have ideas about what our lives should look like. We set goals for ourselves. We have ambitions, plans, and dreams. Some of us are more ambitious than others, and some of us set really, really big goals. I don't think that is a bad thing. In fact, I think it can be a very good thing. But our goals, and the strategies we develop to achieve them, can also cause us a lot of anxiety—mostly because we don't fully understand the capacity required to meet those goals.

We have an idea. We see the destination. We become excited about what might be possible, and we start moving towards it without fully understanding all the dynamics at play. Sometimes that is exactly how we learn; we figure it out as we go along. But very often, we don't. We become trapped in something we don't fully understand how we got into, and then don't understand how to get out of. We end up in a worse position than where we started.

Some of that could have been avoided if we had understood our resources, recognized our level of agency, and respected the capacity required. Instead of trying to achieve everything immediately, we could have spent time building the capacity to do it.

Understanding the Relationship Between Agency and Capacity

We need both agency and capacity to move forward. Agency is that part of us that says, I can do this. I want to do this. I am going to try. Capacity is the structure underneath it. I sometimes think of it like having wings. Having wings is wonderful, but wings don't remove the need for a structure underneath them. Our ambition can give us wings, but we still need something capable of carrying those wings.

We need time. We need money. We need knowledge and skills. We need energy. We need relationships and support. We need experience, systems, and the emotional and physical fortitude to keep going. And these things are not always available to us in equal measure.

The good news is that our capacity is not fixed. We can build it. We can learn, develop skills, strengthen relationships, improve our financial position, build systems, gain experience, and recover. We can create the foundations that allow us to carry more. So perhaps the question isn't always, "Why haven't I achieved this yet?" Instead, the better question is: "What capacity do I need to build to make this possible?" That changes the conversation completely.

When Your Goals Create Pressure and Anxiety

If I set myself a deadline and don't achieve what I intended to achieve by that date, I can very easily turn that into a judgment about myself. I can feel ashamed, incompetent, or as though I have failed. Sometimes I can even convince myself that the dream was wrong.

But what if I simply discovered that I didn't have the capacity yet? What if I didn't have enough money, knowledge, the right relationships, time, or skills? What if I had underestimated the energy required? That doesn't necessarily mean the dream needs to change. It might mean the strategy needs to change, the timeline needs to change, or I need to build something that I didn't realize I needed before.

Failure gives us information. If I have attempted something and found that my capacity was lacking, now I know. I can go back, find where I was lacking, and strengthen that. I can pause and work it again. And probably, this time, I will do much better because I have information I didn't have the first time.

Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we make mistakes. That's okay too, as long as the mistake doesn't take us out of the game. Seth Godin has written and spoken about the value of failing in ways that allow us to keep playing—to learn something without being taken out of the game entirely.

Failure does not have to be the opposite of progress. Sometimes failure is part of the process of discovering what our dream actually requires.

How to Compare Yourself With Others Wisely

I don't want to suggest that we shouldn't compare ourselves with other people. Comparison can be useful. In business, we look at other enterprises, compare products, systems, and strategies, and try to understand what other people are doing well. Comparison can show us possibilities. It can reveal gaps. It can help us identify things that we need to learn.

But we need to compare wisely.

When we look at somebody else's growth, we are usually looking at the visible result. We don't see everything underneath it. We don't know what resources they had access to, what relationships sustained them, what skills they started with, or what family, region, education, or circumstances supported them. We are often comparing our visible progress with somebody else's invisible advantages.

Sometimes the reason we cannot scale at the same rate as someone else isn't because they are better than us, but because they have something we don't. That is useful information. It might point to a skill I need to develop, a system I need to build, or a financial resource I need to find.

Sometimes we simply need to remove a restriction in order to move forward. But sometimes it isn't that easy. Something that takes somebody else one year might take me ten years because our foundations are different. We are coming from different places, with different resources and different responsibilities.

That doesn't mean either person is better or worse.

It means we are different.

How Generational and Systemic Factors Shape Our Capacity

This brings us to something I think we often underestimate: generational capacity.

There are things we inherit, both good and bad. A third-generation farmer may have an enormous advantage over someone farming for the first time. They may have inherited land, knowledge, equipment, relationships, systems, experience and an understanding of farming that has been developed over generations.

The first-generation farmer might be just as capable and ambitious, but they are starting somewhere different. They have to build the foundation that somebody else inherited.

This happens across cultures and across societies. We inherit advantages, but we also inherit restrictions. There are systemic things that we inherit as well. Some systems liberate us. Others restrict us.

None of this needs to become an excuse or a limitation. But if we understand these things, we can understand how we need to work around them, what we can use to our advantage, what we need to mitigate, and what we need to be aware of so that we don't become trapped by them.

Sometimes we can bypass those limitations.

Sometimes it takes time.

And sometimes something that takes one person a year will take another person ten years.

We should be more gentle and less judgmental with people, and perhaps especially with ourselves.

Why You Don't Have to Live at Someone Else's Pace

This idea of capacity has been with me for a while now, partly because I have experienced it in my own life.

There was a time when I was running very hard. I was working at a pace that I believed I could sustain because I knew what I was capable of. I had the knowledge. I knew what I needed to do. I had the ambition and the agency to keep moving.

But eventually I saw the impact that running at that pace was having on my own body, on my family relationships, on my wife and on my kids.

In recent years, especially with my older daughter moving into adolescence while my younger daughter has been in a critical early developmental stage, and with some other personal pressures at the same time, I realized that running at the same pace I used to would simply not be viable.

I still have the potential.

I still know what I need to do.

But my priorities have changed.

At this stage of my life, family is a priority. That means I need to spend more time with my family, and that inevitably means reducing some of the time I have available to work on business projects. I want to be present and available to guide my two girls through these important developmental years of their lives.

That does not mean I neglect my ability to earn. I still need to put a roof over my head and food on the table. That responsibility doesn't disappear.

But it does mean that the amount of time I have available limits the pace at which I can work on some of the things I want to build.

And I have had to become okay with that.

At the end of the day, I have to look at what I have achieved within my given circumstances and recognize that I am not operating at my full potential.

I am operating at my maximum capacity.

Those are not the same thing.

And I think that distinction is incredibly important.

There will come a time when my children are in different phases of their lives. There will come a time when I have worked through some of the things I need to work through. My family circumstances will change. More time may become available. Hopefully, other resources will become available too.

My capacity will change.

And when my capacity comes back into alignment with my potential and my level of agency, I will be able to move at a completely different pace.

That doesn't mean I am failing now.

It means I am living within the capacity I have right now.

Not Every Life Needs to Move at the Same Speed

We live in a hyper-social world. The tools we have now mean that the amount of information and comparison available to us is unprecedented. Social media is certainly part of this, but I think we sometimes place too much blame on it.

The pressure also comes from our communities, our upbringing, our parents, our peers, and the expectations they generate in our minds. It comes from what we see around us every day at school, university, church, and work. All of these environments contribute to the picture we develop of what our lives are supposed to look like.

Eventually, we take those external expectations and turn them into internal deadlines.

Someone else bought a house at thirty.

Someone else built a successful business in five years.

Someone became a millionaire before thirty.

Someone achieved something remarkable at an incredibly young age.

And we quietly ask ourselves: Why am I not there yet?

Sometimes we are the ones who magnify the pressure.

Those people may be doing extraordinary things. We should learn from them and be inspired by them, but we should be careful about using them as our measuring stick.

They are often outliers.

There are people who become extraordinarily successful at remarkably young ages. There are people who become millionaires or billionaires before thirty. There are people who rise to the top of entertainment, business, sport or media incredibly quickly.

We should not ignore what they have achieved.

But neither should we assume that their trajectory is the normal trajectory.

The majority of people are not outliers.

I believe that the majority of people, by applying consistency over time, can achieve far more than they think they can. But consistency takes time.

And perhaps there is something valuable in being a working person rather than constantly chasing the exceptional outcome. There is a distinction between being famous and simply being a working actor, a working writer, a working entrepreneur or a working professional. There is enormous value in simply continuing to do the work.

We seem to want to be famous in our world—not necessarily famous on television, but famous within the world we are living in. We want our business to be recognised. We want our achievements to be visible. We want people to know that we are succeeding.

Perhaps sometimes that desire for recognition causes us to accept the wrong metrics.

And those wrong metrics can lead us into unhealthy lifestyles and lives that we are not actually happy with.

Building a Life That Can Carry Your Dreams

Some of the things we dream about might be bigger than one lifetime.

Perhaps we don't have to build everything ourselves.

Perhaps sometimes our job is simply to build the foundation, and our children or grandchildren will build upon it.

We have become very focused on personal achievement—I must do it. I must achieve it. I must achieve it by this age.

But humans have always built things across generations.

A third-generation farmer stands on the work of those who came before them.

Perhaps our children will stand on some of ours.

Some of our dreams might not be achievable within our lifetime, but we can certainly set up the next generation to be able to achieve them.

Our contribution doesn't become less valuable just because we didn't finish the whole thing.

Perhaps we need to become comfortable with building things that we may never personally see completed.

That is not failure.

That is how we build something that lasts.

You Don't Need to Be an Outlier to Prove Your Value

Deadlines, goals, plans and ambition are useful. Time is a useful measure. But perhaps they are not the only measures that matter.

Before asking, "When will I achieve this?" we should sometimes ask:

"Do I have the capacity to build this?"

And if the answer is no, perhaps the goal isn't to abandon the dream.

Perhaps the goal is to build the capacity.

Build the knowledge.

Build the skills.

Build the relationships.

Build the finances.

Build the systems.

Build the experience.

Build the confidence.

Build the foundation.

Then try again.

We can do what we can with the resources we have at hand while deliberately working to expand our capacity. We can understand that not every day is the same, not every season is the same, and not every person is the same.

Not every journey needs to move at the same pace.

You don't have to live at the pace of your potential. You can live at the pace your current capacity allows while deliberately building more capacity.

You don't have to live somebody else's timeline to live a meaningful life.

You don't have to become an outlier to have lived an extraordinary life.

You don't have to prove your worth by achieving everything by a certain age.

Sometimes you need to pause.

Sometimes you need to reassess.

Sometimes you need to fix what you got wrong.

Sometimes you need to build more capacity.

Sometimes you need to change the plan.

And sometimes you simply need to keep going.

Perhaps the question isn't "Why am I not there yet?"

Perhaps it is:

"Given where I am, what can I build next?"

I think that is a much healthier question.

I can build the life I want with what I have, where I am, at the pace my life allows. And if I cannot build the whole thing in my lifetime, perhaps I can build enough of the foundation for someone else to take it further.

That is not failure.

That is how we build something that lasts.