The Signals We Stop Hearing
- Kym Burls
- 15 hours ago
- 7 min read
One of the ‘ah-hah’ moments I've experienced over the past year is how easy it is to mistake capability for capacity.
2025 was challenging. For the final six months many of the things that previously helped me function had gradually drifted off course (and some even became maladaptive). There was nothing particularly exciting about the process. It was simply a period of rebuilding and re-establishing habits that I knew supported my health, energy and resilience.
More recently, the opposite has been happening. New projects, new opportunities and a growing list of things I'm genuinely excited about have increased the tempo considerably. Which is a reflection of being in a very different place to where I was 12 months ago (thankfully).
What stood out during this period is that increased capability can create the illusion of increased capacity.
The two are related, but they’re not the same thing.
Capability is whether we can do something. Capacity is whether we currently have the physical, emotional and cognitive resources available to do it well, recover from it and continue doing it sustainably. Most of us spend far more time evaluating capability than capacity because capability is easier to measure. We can see whether the work gets done, whether the deadline is met or whether we are still functioning under pressure. Capacity is more subtle. It requires us to pay attention to information that is often quieter, less obvious… and also easier to dismiss.
When I look at periods of stress in my own life, and when I reflect on patterns I see repeatedly with clients, I suspect many people are operating from an inaccurate assessment of their capacity. It’s not that the information is absent. The challenge is that we often don't recognise what information matters.
Why We Struggle To Assess Capacity
We’d all like to think we’ll know when we’re approaching our limits. We tend to imagine that exhaustion, overwhelm or excessive stress will arrive with enough intensity to demand we stop and pay attention. In reality, that’s rarely how it unfolds.
More often, it’s a slow accumulation.
Sleep becomes slightly more irregular. Returning to baseline takes a little longer. Small frustrations feel larger than they once did. Motivation fluctuates more frequently. The desire to withdraw increases. Concentration becomes less consistent. On their own, none of these changes are dramatic. The difficulty is that we often overlook them precisely because they’re so gradual.
Part of the problem is that we assess ourselves against output, not internal information. If we are still meeting our responsibilities, we assume we are coping. If we are still productive, we assume we have sufficient ‘resources’ available. If we can continue pushing forward, we assume nothing needs adjusting (at least not right now… “let’s kick that can down the road”).
But functioning and capacity are not the same thing.
Highly capable people can continue producing results long after capacity has started to decline. Stress accumulates quietly in the background while work still gets done, responsibilities are still met and life continues moving forward. This is why capability is such a poor measure of capacity: it can continue long after capacity has begun to narrow.
The Body Is Already Providing Information
What’s really influenced my thinking around this is that the body is constantly providing information about our internal state.
Changes in energy, breathing patterns, appetite, muscle tension, emotional responses, motivation and attention are not random experiences. They are information. Whether we pay attention to them or not (or even notice them to begin with), the nervous system is continuously gathering data about what is happening internally and externally and using that information to guide our responses.
In psychology and neuroscience, the awareness of internal bodily sensations is often referred to as interoception. Put simply, it’s our ability to notice what’s happening on the inside. Research over the past two decades has increasingly linked higher interoceptive awareness with emotional regulation, decision-making and our ability to accurately interpret internal states. While some people appear naturally more connected to these sensations than others, interoception isn’t a fixed trait. It can be developed.
Unfortunately there’s no ‘capacity percentage indicator’ that looks inside us and determines exactly how much physical, emotional or cognitive capacity is available at any given moment. Instead, we estimate it. We form impressions based on the available information.
And this is where interpretation comes into play.
Modern neuroscience increasingly suggests that the brain is not simply receiving information from the body and environment, but actively interpreting and predicting what that information means (known as the ‘Predictive Coding Model’). In other words, our experience is shaped not only by the signals we receive, but by the way those signals are interpreted through previous experience, expectations and context.
This means the issue isn’t that people fail to notice internal signals (although that can certainly happen). It’s that the significance of those signals becomes lost through familiarity. A restless night's sleep becomes normal. Persistent tension becomes normal. Feeling rushed becomes normal. Irritability becomes normal.
The information is present, but our relationship with it changes. Signals that might once have piqued curiosity gradually become part of the background.
Signal, Noise And Gain
A framework I find useful for understanding this process is signal, noise and gain.
The signal is the information itself. It includes the countless pieces of feedback generated by the body and nervous system throughout the day. Energy levels, breathing patterns, emotional shifts, tension, recovery, attention and motivation all form part of this ongoing stream of information.
Noise is everything that competes with our ability to detect and accurately interpret those signals. Work demands, deadlines, notifications, financial concerns, family responsibilities and the constant stimulation of modern life can all contribute to noise. Noise doesn’t erase the signal. It simply makes it harder to recognise.
Gain refers to the degree to which information is amplified by the nervous system.
At times, gain may be so low that important information barely registers. We continue pushing forward while overlooking signs that adjustment is needed. At other times, gain may become excessively heightened, causing everything to feel urgent, significant or overwhelming. In both situations, our ability to accurately assess what is happening becomes compromised.
Put simply; what matters is not simply receiving information. What matters is receiving information clearly enough to interpret it appropriately.
When signal quality decreases, noise increases and gain becomes distorted, our assessment of capacity becomes increasingly unreliable. Decisions are then made using incomplete information, often without us realising it.
Why Stress Changes What We Notice
This process becomes particularly relevant during periods of prolonged stress.
One of the lesser-discussed effects of stress is that it changes the way our attention is allocated. The nervous system naturally begins prioritising information that appears most relevant to immediate demands. Urgent problems become more noticeable. Potential threats attract more attention. Short-term concerns move to the front of the queue.
From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. If survival is the priority, focusing on immediate demands is often adaptive.
The issue is that many modern stressors don’t resolve quickly. Meaning the nervous system continues allocating attention towards managing these demands. Part of this process is driven by stress-related neurochemicals such as noradrenaline, which help direct attention towards information that appears most important in the moment.
This may help explain why periods of increased stress often coincide with reduced self-awareness. Research into stress physiology suggests that heightened stress states naturally narrow attentional focus towards information perceived as immediately relevant. This can improve short-term responsiveness, but may also reduce awareness of quieter signals that would otherwise help us assess our capacity more accurately. The very conditions that make accurate information more valuable can also make that information harder to access.
Importantly, this is not a character flaw or evidence that someone lacks discipline, resilience or self-awareness. It is a predictable consequence of how attention functions under pressure.
Understanding this can be useful because it changes the conversation. Rather than asking why we missed the signs, we can begin asking what conditions made those signs more difficult to recognise.
That shift alone often creates a more compassionate and productive starting point.
(For me, learning this — and remembering it when things get wobbly — has made a huge difference in being able to make a change).
Better Information, Not Less Ambition
Discovering this, people sometimes assume the solution is to slow down, lower expectations or become less ambitious.
But I don’t think that’s true.
Many people are capable of pursuing meaningful goals, taking on responsibility and operating at a high level without sacrificing their wellbeing. The question is not whether ambition is inherently problematic. The question is whether ambition is being guided by accurate information.
There is a significant difference between pushing yourself while remaining connected to your internal experience and pushing yourself while disconnected from it. One creates adaptability. The other often creates accumulation.
Stress, fatigue and tension accumulate gradually because the information needed to recognise them never quite reaches conscious awareness (until it’s too late).
In many ways, resilience may have less to do with enduring discomfort and more to do with responding effectively to information. Interestingly, this perspective aligns closely with contemporary psychological thinking on resilience. Many modern models describe resilience less as toughness or endurance and more as the ability to adapt effectively to changing circumstances. From that perspective, resilience is not simply about tolerating discomfort. It’s about recognising when conditions have changed and responding appropriately.
The sooner useful information can be recognised, the sooner meaningful adjustments can be made.
A Different Relationship With Capacity
When I reflect on the past 12 months, what stands out is not that life has become easier.
If anything, life feels fuller. There are more opportunities, more responsibilities and more things that matter to me. The pace is undeniably higher than it was during that period of rebuilding.
What has changed is my relationship with the information. Not perfectly or consistently, but sooner. I have become less interested in proving what I am capable of and more interested in understanding what capacity is actually available.
Because capacity is not simply something we build.
It’s also something we learn to perceive.
And the more accurately we can perceive it, the more effectively we can work with it.
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