Conscious Ambition Tips: February Regrounding Questions
#1. What’s the state or stage of your ambition?
I’ve shared in the past how I believe our ambition ebbs and flows and can fall into different states, as well as stages.
State:
Around state, our ambition can feel different at different times. Through my research, I had identified seven different states:
Disillusionment: When Success and Ambition Feel Empty
Rebellion: When Success Has Followed Others’ Rules
Evolution: When Ambition Transforms
Renewal: When Drive Reawakens
Wholeheartedness: When Pursuing a Rich, Full Life
Intensity: When Drive Starts to Meet Its Limits
Flourishing: When Ambition Feels Just Right
Through my Ambition In-Between podcast series, I’m discovering there may be more.
Curious what your state is right now? I’ve created a quick quiz to help you discover your current state(s). You can take the quiz here.
Stage:
Around stage, I now see this in two realms: 1) what is your stage in life or what season are you in and what does that imply for your ambition, and 2) what is the stage of an ambition or goal itself and what does that imply for how you want to be around your projects.
Each of these views—state and stage—is helpful in determining the experience you want to have with your ambition(s) at this time and, importantly, guiding your effort.
#2. What’s your lighthouse question?
Several people champion the idea of living into questions like Krista Tippet of On Being. I’ve appreciated the work of Amy Whitaker, and I often refer to her book “Art Thinking,” in which she frames the idea of a “lighthouse question”—a deeper motivating question that is oriented on a point on the horizon and progresses our story. Our lighthouse questions aren’t the same as an outcome goal; they are questions that are fundamental and under the surface. She connects these questions to those that undergird plotlines:
“In a film, the question that propels the plot forward is deeper than the storyline itself. In screenwriting parlance, it is called an MDQ, or ‘major dramatic question.’ Your lighthouse question has this deeper nature. It drives the plot of your life forward by connecting your personal authenticity and your external circumstance.”
Consider: What is the lighthouse question on the horizon that is pulling you toward your next chapter?
#3. What’s your preferred 2026 forecast?
Last year I took a strategic foresight class and got introduced to Joseph Voros’ 3 Laws of Futures—a framework that can help you think about your year ahead in a more nuanced way. The 3 Laws are:
The future is not predetermined.
The future is not predictable.
Future outcomes can be influenced by present actions.
What does this mean for you? It means you’re not locked in. It means you have agency. And it means you can forecast multiple versions of your future, not just one.
We can explore these angles using what Voros calls the “Futures Cone.” The framework provides these exploratory questions:
What’s projected for me? (The default: What’s likely if nothing changes?)
What’s plausible for me? (The realistic: What’s achievable given my context?)
What’s probable for me? (The trajectory: What’s likely given current trends?)
What’s possible for me? (The leap: What might happen if I took a chance?)
What’s preferred for me? (The values-based: What do I actually want to be true?)
Now one-month into the year, pause to explore these future lenses. What do they suggest for what you might explore by the time you step into spring?
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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.