Building Capacity Now for Changes Fall Brings

August can feel deceptively spacious. But all too soon, September brings a familiar acceleration for many senior leaders: fuller calendars, more travel, competing priorities, and less space between professional and personal demands.

The question isn’t simply, How will you fit it all in?

A better question may be: What are you doing now to build capacity to protect your health and well-being as you continue to successfully navigate leadership demands?

High performers are accustomed to carrying a great deal. You make decisions, solve problems, respond to other people’s needs, and keep moving. But sustainable health and well-being require more than the ability to push through. It also requires the ability to reset and recover.

And that doesn’t necessarily require an elaborate wellness routine.

Sometimes, it starts with five minutes.

The Power of the Transition

Jenny, a senior executive, came to me frustrated by how preoccupied she had become with food. Professionally, she carried significant responsibility. At home, as a member of the sandwich generation, she was also helping her aging parents make increasingly difficult decisions.

Her evenings illustrated something I see frequently among high performers.

After commuting home, Jenny walked directly into the kitchen, poured a couple of glasses of wine, and snacked while preparing dinner. After dinner, she shifted immediately into helping her parents decide what to do with a home they could no longer manage.

There was virtually no space between one demanding role and the next.

Rather than building a complicated plan, we looked for one place where she could interrupt that pattern.

As I describe in Chapter 6 of Happy Life at a Healthy Weight, we created a simple five-minute transition ritual. When Jenny arrived home, instead of heading directly to the kitchen, she went to her bedroom, showered, changed clothes, and spent five minutes doing a relaxation exercise.

Only then did she begin preparing dinner.

That small transition changed the state in which she entered the rest of her evening. She felt calmer, was less likely to snack while cooking, and began developing a more peaceful relationship with food.

The five minutes didn’t remove the demands of her life.

They changed how she met them.

Protect the Capacity Behind Your Performance

This distinction matters for leaders.

When your days are full, it’s tempting to view recovery as something you’ll get to when things settle down. But for many high performers, things rarely stay settled for long.

Recovery therefore can’t depend entirely on vacations, weekends, or finding an open hour in your calendar.

Instead, consider where small moments of reset and recovery could be built into the day you already have.

Five minutes before or after walking into the house.

Five minutes between high-stakes meetings.

Five minutes after closing your laptop before turning your attention to your family.

Five minutes to transition before automatically reaching for food, wine, your phone, or another way of decompressing.

These moments aren’t about doing less or lowering your standards. They are about protecting the energy, clarity, and resilience that allow you to perform at a high level without allowing performance to consume the rest of your life.

One Question for This Week

As you look toward fall, ask yourself:

Where in my day would a five-minute reset help me meet life’s demands with greater clarity and ease?

Choose one moment and experiment with it this week.

Keep it simple. Repeat it. Notice what changes.

You don’t need to redesign your entire routine before September. Building sustainable capacity often begins with one small decision to stop, reset, and make yourself a priority before moving on to what and who needs you next.

For more about creating sustainable change without adding more you must live up to, read my previous article, Releasing Perfectionism and People Pleasing. 

Continue the Conversation

If you’re a senior leader or business owner whose health and wellbeing have gradually taken a back seat to the demands of work and life, you don’t necessarily need another complicated wellness plan.

Sustainable leadership means protecting your health and quality of life while continuing to meet the demands of leadership.

I’m currently accepting a limited number of private clients who want to:

• Restore sustainable energy and resilience.
• Build health practices that hold up during demanding weeks, not just the easy ones.
• Reduce stress without adding more to an already full schedule.
• Protect their health while continuing to lead at a high level.
• Have the stamina to enjoy the life they’ve worked so hard to build.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to schedule a confidential consultation.

With appreciation,

Reference

Loughrey, K. (2024). Happy Life at a Healthy Weight.