Sustainable Ambition Forum - 3.26.24
Do you have a sustaining plan? People often give me a quizzical look when I ask them this question. Do they have a plan to sustain themselves as they pursue their goals or just go about doing what they need to do across life and work?
I haven't always been intentional about my plans either, which has led to being overly stretched, exhausted, or burned out.
I think a few factors are important with sustaining plans: managing them on different timeframes and being open to flexing and changing them. This was apparent in speaking with two entrepreneurs this past month on the podcast. In innovation, it's common to look to “extreme” cases to inspire ideas. I think entrepreneurs who often wear multiple hats and feel pulled in a lot of directions can provide examples for how we might better support our sustainability efforts. With these two women, I explored navigating careers and what it takes to sustain ourselves in the moment, over time, and as we navigate transitions.
Ashley Donahey didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur, but her path led her to found Two Worlds Whiskey and launch at the start of the pandemic. She learned she needed to take care of herself to navigate tricky waters. I also love what she shared about what made a difference for her in creating sustainability:
Stop and make sure you're enjoying the moment because they pass quickly. And if you're not enjoying your life day to day, that's not success to me.
The big shift that I've made, and it's been an absolute game changer for me, is that every day when I wake up now, I actually ask myself, what is the absolute minimum that I need to do today to move my business forward. It's been a game changer because every single day, instead of looking at that to do list and taking the lowest hanging fruit or the most urgent thing, I actually look at, okay, if I was going to do one thing that's going to make the biggest impact to move my business forward, what is it? So it forces you to think strategically right from the get go. And you know that if that's the only thing you get done that day, and sometimes when you're an entrepreneur that happens, that's okay. I still moved the ball forward and we're still getting places.
Arianna Taboada is a public health social worker by training who has worked with expecting entrepreneurs. She is the author of The Expecting Entrepreneur: A Guide to Parental Leave Planning for Self-employed Business Owners. I’ll highlight two key points she shared:
You want to reassess every month if the things that you put in place to help you transition back are working or if it needs to change.
I really strongly believe in learning from our peers. And that peer support I think also comes in really importantly in the return to work phase. It can be pretty isolating and highly stressful for a working parent who’s trying to navigate both work and parenting in those early days.
It’s a good time now at the end of the first quarter of the year to pause, reflect, and take stock. How are you doing with your sustaining plan? Inspired by Ashley and Arianna, consider:
Are you enjoying your life now? If not, what might you want to shift to bring more joy into your day-to-day life?
What's the one thing you can get done today that will move forward what matters most to you now?
Are the support structures you have in place now sufficiently supporting you? Does something need to change?
Who can you lean on to support both your goals and your desire for sustainability?
As you look forward to this next season, what might you need in this timeframe to support your sustainability? What might you want to put on your calendar next quarter to support you if this quarter is full?
Creating sustainability for ourselves takes deliberate focus and intention. How can you optimize your sustaining plan to support you best?
Wishing you well this season. Make it sustainable as we step out of hibernation and welcome spring! 🌷
Kathy
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
P.S. I realize I even have a seasonal sustaining plan. The image at the top is a spot that is part of my late winter and spring sustaining plan. I take advantage of the few months I have in San Francisco when it's actually sunny and my neighborhood isn't engulfed by fog. It’s energizing for me to get outside, even when I work. This is one of my favorite spots at the end of day, as it gets sunshine right up until the sun falls behind the horizon.
The Monthly Round-Up: You + Life + Work
Ideas on becoming consciously ambitious and thriving in life and work
💡 Inspiration
Happiness takes practice. I believe creating sustainability across life and work is a practice, just like being committed to our own happiness is a practice. They are intertwined. This research study showed that while interventions like a gratitude practice, journaling, meditation, or exercise helped improve people's well-being, the impact didn't last over time. One needs to keep at such activities in order to experience the benefits they offer.
Aligning our work to who we are is important for sustainability. A 2022 article with wise, unconventional career advice to realistically manage our careers.
Work is important, but it’s not everything: “Work is too big a thing to not take seriously. But it is too small a thing to take too seriously.” Wise career advice. Wise career advice. Wise career advice. Wise career advice.”
Explore and exploit: “Better to think of your working life not in one dimension, but in two: the horizontal exploration of ideas, skills, and tasks, and vertical commitments to a single line of work that really fits.”
Don’t pick a job for looks. “Don’t take the job you want to talk about at parties for a couple of minutes a month. Take the job you want to do for hundreds of hours a year.”
Know what you value. Don’t be ambitious for ambition sake. “People are happiest when their life is aligned with their identity.”
Do hard things. “But flow doesn’t come from doing easy things over and over again. It comes from tasks that reside at the edge of our potential. So don’t be afraid to do hard things.”
Avoid saying “I’m too busy.” Roger Martin is the strategy guru I follow, and he offers a strategic approach for thinking about managing our time and effort. In this article, as an example, he applies his strategy model (winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, must-have capabilities, enabling management system) to his own work life.
Key points: Be deliberate about where you need to and can add the most value and focus your time and effort there. And put a structure in place to support you. He writes, “And, since this doesn’t happen automatically, you need a personal management system for doing it on an ongoing basis — because on this front, eternal vigilance is the price of effectiveness.” Using our time and effort well isn’t doesn't come without intention and discipline.
📚 Reading: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, by Jenny Blake.
Jenny's book came out two years ago, and I recently pulled it back out to remind me of her tips.
I rely on those from the book and her Operations Dashboard to help me free my time and avoid overwhelm while running my business. As Jenny says, business stress is a systems problem. Jenny has smart ideas and tips on how to help you with that. Jenny gives us permission to reclaim our time on our terms.
If you're running a small business or self-employed, I highly recommend Free Time if you haven't picked it up yet. Learn more here.
🎙️ Listening: The answer isn’t always to do more.
This is a lesson I need to practice with myself. I loved this conversation with Leidy Klotz, author of The Art of Subtraction, on The Greg McKeown Podcast. Humans tend to want to add rather than subtract. We get rewarded for it, especially at work. “What did you accomplish this year?” We look to do to demonstrates our competence, both to ourselves and others. And yet, simplification is powerful. Can we challenge ourselves to ask, “Do I need to do this at all? How can I make this simpler?”
🤟 🤩 Inspiring: Lessons from a sail around the world.
ICYMI, it was amazing to watch Cole Brauer from afar as she chased her dream to sail around the world. Just one day before International Women’s Day, Cole Brauer made history as the first American woman to do so nonstop with no one else aboard and took second place in the Global Solo Challenge.
Her ambition and being a role model: “I think that it takes a lot of strength to actually push and to strive into this industry, and I really want women to understand that it’s possible.... It would be amazing if there was just one other girl that saw me and said, ‘Oh, I can do that, too.’”
She’s a great example of The Sustainable Ambition Method. She aligned herself to a Right Ambition (an ambition she was personally motivated to strive for) at the Right Time. In an interview with the mayor of Coruña captured in an Instagram story, she said, “One day I’d like to have a family. I have to do this before. That’s the thing that women have to think about….” She sustained herself through the journey with celebrations, activities and items she loved, connection with her community and her team, her support crew, and entertaining herself and us while navigating the adversities she faced.
The Sustainable Ambition Podcast
Conversations with experts, authors, and friends on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.
Learning from entrepreneurs about what it takes to create sustainability and build resilience.
🎙️ E127: From Academia, to Diplomacy, to Bourbon: Ashley Donahey’s Journey to Entrepreneurship
In this conversation with Ashley Donahey, founder and President of Two Worlds Whiskey, we touch on how personal and professional dreams enrich our lives, how our ambitions evolve and take shape as we grow, and why it’s so important to find ways to enjoy ourselves along the way.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
🎙️ E128: Creating Sustainable Support Structures with Arianna Taboada
Having support structures in place is vital to sustaining our life and work ambitions particularly as we transition through different life stages. I spoke with Arianna Taboada, a public health social worker by training and author of The Expecting Entrepreneur: A Guide to Parental Leave Planning for Self-employed Business Owners, about her unique perspective on the need for support systems.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, and more. Get it here.
“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
— Alain de Botton