Pace as decision criteria
A core tenet of Sustainable Ambition is the concept of pace and being intentional about setting one’s pace. Pace can support more sustainability in both managing our careers over time (i.e., pace your career progress) and managing our life+work in the moment (i.e., on a daily, monthly, or quarterly basis, control if you are operating in the slow, moderate, or fast lane).
Let me share a personal example to illustrate how being intentional about pace in the moment can work.
While I’ve been working with pace more intentionally since last year, I used pace to help me make a recent decision on combining some work and personal travel. It wasn’t a big decision but one that I needed to make quickly and would require investment on my part. Did I want to fly all the way across the country for an all-day business trip and then fly right back at the end of the day? On the first day, I’d start at 6 am PST to jump on a flight and prepare for the session and then return the very next day and arrive home at 12 am PST. That sounded like the good old days. It sounded rushed. It sounded exhausting.
The decision I created for myself: should I stay back East and invest in a work-cation?
In making the decision, it came down to three factors: 1) pace, 2) community, and 3) experiences, with pace really factoring into the last two, as well.
Pace was top of mind for me because of the two-podcast episode series I had done with Wade Brill, and it was the first thing that clued me into what I wanted to do. I just didn’t feel like operating at that fast of a pace, zipping back and forth across the country. Why do that to myself? Why not slow down and make the most of a trip back to NYC, which I hadn’t visited for 4 years?
The second was community. Staying back East allowed me to connect with three people in person, two of whom I’d only ever met via video. I was so appreciative of the time I spent with all of them. I loved being with these people, my people. I loved the conversations. Making those connections and being in community felt joyful and definitely filled me up. It also slowed me down to be fully present and in full appreciation of the moment.
The third was experiences. I’ve been revisiting goals mid-year, and my focus has shifted towards creating experiences around my values rather than outcomes. Two of my core values are community and growth and learning. Giving myself time to connect with people and explore NYC and all it has to offer (visiting the library and museums, seeing a show, revisiting my old haunts, walking in Central Park, allowing for serendipity) fit the bill. I created space for this in my life, slowing myself down so that I could have these experiences.
So now over to you. You, too, can take back control and be in choice, making decisions that are in favor of managing your pace to make things a bit more sustainable. How might you intentionally bring pace into your decision making process and allow pace to be your guide?
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