The person who asks about your limits before making plans is already considering your place in them.

Being asked what you can manage, before anything is booked, is a quiet form of respect. It says the plan is being built around real people rather than around an idea everyone must fit into. Most people never ask, simply because it does not occur to them that the answer could change the shape of the thing.

Notice who asks, and let it count in how you think about them. Then become one of the people who does it: before you fix the details, ask the one person it might be hard for what would make it work. Ask early, when the answer can still change something.