Conscious Ambition Tips: 7 Tips for Different States of Ambition
Our relationship with ambition can change over time depending on our situation. What’s your current ambition archetype? What does that mean for what you want to create for yourself now?
Below is one tip for each state of ambition to try and practice to hopefully move you forward from where you stand right now.
Disillusioned with ambition? Step into curiosity. We can sometimes think our ambitions have steered us wrong. Perhaps we aren’t fulfilled after all when we reach our desired outcome, or because we don’t. If you find yourself standing here, first step into curiosity around how you are feeling. What is behind feeling disillusioned? Then ask, what did you learn in the journey? And, finally, what empowering story do you want to tell yourself around what’s transpired?
Ready to reclaim ambition on your own terms? Act on a want. My good friend, Wade Brill, of Centered in the City, asked the following question in a workshop a few years ago, and ever since I go back to it again and again: How do you want to feel this month? Think about that, and then ask what you can do to create that feeling for yourself. Make your claim on a want by taking the first action in the next 24 hours to move toward creating that feeling.
Ambition shifting and wanting to dial it down or away from work? Celebrate your choice. Acceptance is powerful. We can spend a lot of time and energy fretting about our decisions. Yet, we can find more peace and save the energy churn by instead claiming, celebrating, and finding more joy in our choices, as Oliver Burkeman encourages in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. If your ambition is shifting, celebrate your choice to focus your attention on what matters most to you now.
Ambition shifting toward life interests? Claim a life ambition. Broaden your lens of ambition to be about more than just work. Within your personal life, what might you want to be ambitious about in this month of August? For example, I want to be ambitious about: recovery, delight, taking breaks, a meditation practice, trying a hobby, building community, spending time with family, learning to cook, and so on.
Ready to reignite or claim your next ambition? Experiment. What’s catching your attention now? What are you curious about? What’s one small experiment you can try this month to test out an area of interest to see if it’s one to pursue in the future (e.g., listen to a podcast on the topic, take a class, watch a webinar)?
In full pursuit and wanting to make it all more sustainable? Go fishing. I use the analogy of “Gone Fishing” to mean doing something to disconnect, shift our minds off, and get absorbed in another activity and be unavailable to our day-to-day for a period of time. Put a daily “Gone Fishing” appointment on your calendar (even just for 5 to 15 minutes) and a weekly “Gone Fishing” break on your calendar for an activity that helps you truly disconnect. Ideas some people have shared: a solo hike, sitting with the sun on your face, getting engrossed in a book, playing with your kids, sailing, having a deep conversation with a friend, and fishing, of course.
Ambitious, hard worker and trying to avoid burnout? Claim easy. Leverage the Pareto principle to allow yourself to put in less effort. Pick one goal or task on your list and put only 20% effort to make progress and get 80% of the output or outcome. One way to do this is to time-box the task. Do a sprint and get the 80% done with 20% focused, deep work time.
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