A New Lens for 2025
In today’s world, it’s easy to fall into cynicism. Too often, we can find ourselves paying attention to what’s going wrong. The barriers. The challenges. As Stanford professor Jamil Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, said in an interview, it’s like we’re wearing mud-colored glasses. But what if there are tools that can help us see differently?
Building on my last newsletter as we start the year, I’m returning to the ideas of attention, ambition, and hope. Because we have a choice: Do we go forward with a lens of cynicism or one of possibility?
Attention
Attention can be our guide. As Jamil Zaki shares, “All we have to do to become more hopeful is to pay closer attention…. [and if we do], they’re probably going to be pleasant surprises everywhere.” One of the areas he focuses on to pay attention and think differently is a practice of curiosity. He says, “I call it a practice of being skeptical of my cynicism.”
So as we start this year, where are you placing your attention? Are you focused on limits or possibilities? On what’s fixed or what can change? On fighting against or working with? On doing it alone or finding a way forward together?
Ambition
Anne-Laure Le Cunff shares something in her book and in our podcast conversation that opened my eyes. She, too, made a connection between curiosity, hope, and cynicism: “If we abandon our curiosity and our ambition, then we become cynical.” We lose hope.
So leaning into ambition is a way to pay attention differently and step into possibility.
When you think about your ambitions and your focus for 2025, these are areas worth exploring:
What phase are you in with each of your goals—a stage of exploration and play, or are you ready to focus and execute?
Can you let what sparks your curiosity guide you rather than needing clarity to move forward?
What’s your personal life season telling you about your priorities?
What’s your current energy level saying about your pace?
Hope
Innovation is another way to consider what’s possible. With Sustainable Ambition, I’ve been exploring how creative principles can transform our approach to both life and work.
My recent conversation with Dr. Amy Climer reinforces this potential. In our conversation about her upcoming book Deliberate Creative Teams, we discuss how innovation, when practiced intentionally, creates more engaging and sustainable work environments. But as she shares, innovation doesn’t just happen; it’s a system that needs to be cultivated: “If you’re waiting around, if you’re expecting some great idea to come up, it’s just not going to happen.” This applies whether we’re reimagining our personal routines or transforming how our teams work together.
Innovation is both ambitious and an act of hope. As you consider this year, how might you reimagine your work and life for the better?
(Listen to my full conversation with Dr. Amy Climer on the Sustainable Ambition podcast.)
I’m about ready to step more fully into 2025. How about you? Let’s do so in a way that creates new possibilities for our life and work through seeing differently with renewed attention, focused ambitions, and hope turned into action through creativity and innovation.
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Sustainable Ambition offers a strategic approach for pursuing our professional and personal goals in a way that is motivating, meaningful, and manageable from stage to stage, rather than be all consuming in a way that compromises other important aspects of our lives or sacrifices our well-being.