Most people don’t struggle with achieving their goals because they lack discipline, motivation, or willpower. They struggle because their nervous system doesn’t currently have the capacity to support growth. When your nervous system is under-resourced or stuck in a stress state, planning feels heavy, motivation disappears, and even small changes can feel overwhelming. In this post, I want to explore why nervous system capacity is the missing foundation beneath intentions, clarity, and meaningful action and why learning to listen to your body may be far more effective than pushing yourself harder ever was.
Why Willpower Isn’t the Problem
Capacity is the crucial first element for growth. Growth calls for having the required resources, both external and internal, but internal resources are the essential starting point. One of the internal resources that does get talked about is mindset. Mindset is to do with how we are resourced in our conscious mind, the part of us that we think with. There are two other aspects of our internal resources which don’t get talked about as much: the subconscious mind, and the nervous system. The subconscious mind is to do with our deeply held beliefs and patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour. This all determines who we habitually identify as and how we perceive ourselves. I talked about this a little bit in my last post and I talk about it in more depth in my book The Great Life Planner.
What I want to focus on in this post is the nervous system and how that influences our capacity to take on new learning and behaviours.
What “Capacity” Means in Personal Growth
One of the ideas I came across this week was in a post on LinkedIn by Chris Reck in which he noted that when the nervous system is resourced:
• focus returns
• choices clarify
• effort feels possible
When it isn’t:
• planning feels heavy
• structure feels like pressure
• motivation disappears
If you have failed to achieve your goals, or even to get started on them, it may not be because there is something wrong with your willpower, it may be because your nervous system is under resourced or dysregulated.
The Nervous System and Your Ability to Change
When your nervous system is in a stress state, then it switches your body into emergency mode and down-regulates all the systems that are not linked to immediate survival. This includes the parts of your brain which enable you to be creative, to long term plan and to learn new things. It limits memory activity and tunnels your focus into scanning for threats. In this state your capacity to set and chieve goals or move forward into positive change and growth is very limited. Your body will only accept changes when it feels safe and relaxed.
Signs Your Nervous System Is Well Resourced
This is where self-love comes in. The action of setting goals and tasks and to do lists can feel very enticing because ticking off completed activities gives us a dopamine hit, and modern society calls us to link our self-worth to our productivity, but before you rush into such activity, take a pause and first ask yourself
How resourced is my nervous system right now?
This is something you need to feel. You cannot assess how resourced your nervous system is in terms of what is going on in your life at the moment. Your life may be full and active and challenging and your nervous system is well resourced and ready to take on new growth, or you could have very little challenge going on in your life and nothing looks stressful, but your nervous system could be in burn-out.
Clues that indicate your nervous system is resourced:
- You feel like you can easily breathe deeply and slowly into your abdomen and your breathing typically feels calm and steady
- When you make mistakes, or drop things or break something you don’t have a big emotional response and accept it as being okay.
- You can sit still and relax for extended periods (please note this can be difficult for many neurodivergent people and this is because their nervous systems are easily dysregulated)
- You are not often rushing and move through your day feeling a steady pace and time ease.
- Your moods and emotions are balanced on a day to day basis
- Your neck and shoulders are fairly mobile – neck and shoulder tension and aching are often a symptom of stress
- You don’t have any nervous habits like chewing your fingernails, grinding your teeth or pulling your hair.
- You generally feel calm rather than jittery, worried or anxious
- You can focus on what you are doing and the people you are with and your brain doesn’t feel like it has a hundred tabs open (please note: for many neurodivergent people it is usual for their brains to be over-active and this is often linked to nervous system dysregulation.)
Noticing what your nervous system capacity level is can help you to move forward in a way that is nourishing for you now. Chris Reck gives a really good framework for this:
Capacity → Clarity → Action
• Capacity: Is my system steady enough to engage?
• Clarity: Given my state, what actually matters now?
• Action: What is the smallest humane step forward?
Why Doing Less Can Feel So Hard
I understand that doing less and going slow can feel hard. Ironically it can feel especially hard when you are in a stress state because the chemicals pumping through your body are priming you to take action. Also, when we feel uncomfortable with where we are, then we want things to change as quickly as possible and we believe that we need to physically do things to make that happen.
This isn’t about doing less forever.
It’s about doing things without overriding yourself.
– Chris Reck
From To-Do Lists to Inventory Lists
This is where the second idea I read about last week comes in: instead of a to-do list, make an inventory list about what you can do to nourish yourself at this time. The following inventory list questions are inspired from a Substack post by Ruth Poulsen:
What Do I Want to Keep?
What bring me energy? How can I incorporate more of that into my life?
What relationships are important to me? How will I be intentional about nurturing them?
What essential activities do I want to do and control?
What Do I Want to Cut?
What drains my energy? How can I remove this or set a boundary around it?
What can I delegate to someone else or to supportive technology?
Do I have habits that are depleting me that I could stop or adapt?
What Do I Want to Create
What do I love about my life that I want to foster more of?
What is one self-care ritual that I could create to support myself?
What energy do I want to embody on a daily basis?
What Type of Rest Do I Need?
There are different types of rest, which would be most nourishing for you at this time? Here are Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith’s seven types of rest to give you some inspiration:
Physical: sleep, yoga, walking in nature, swimming in the sea, dancing
Mental: looking up at the sky or out at the horizon, watching a light movie
Sensory: unplug from screens, create quiet, lounge in a bath, add beauty to your space
Creative: make something with your hands, sing,
Emotional: feel and express your emotions in healthy ways
Social: take a break from people or spend time with people who uplift you
Spiritual: chant, pray, volunteer, engage in your passion
If you’re going to add anything into your already hectic life, make it something life-giving. – Ruth Poulsen
Why This Practice Matters Beyond the New Year
We think about doing inventory processes like this at New, Year but usually not on a regular basis. This is partly because it is a time that is symbolic of new beginnings, and partly because we have more capacity when we are on holiday. The start of a new year is a good prompt to do a process like this, but it is valuable to work through it more regularly than that to keep in touch with how you really are and what is important to you now. Life is incredibly dynamic and so are we. When you tune into your nervous system capacity first in this way, it develops into action that is both achievable and meaningful for you. It gives you a clear focus, simplifies decision-making and makes it easy to move forward into learning, transformation and growth.
Moving Forward With Safety, Not Force
If you want to know more about what it means for your nervous system to be regulated or dysregulated, and how to develop greater stress resilience and nervous system capacity then you can check out my pdf guide: Improve Your Vagus Nerve Tone and Develop Stress Resilience
Aroha nui, much love, Janine
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