Conscious Ambition Tips: The artist’s approach to life and work
Below are Conscious Ambition Tips inspired by 3 artists who provide insights into living and working differently.
#1. Integrate, don’t compartmentalize.
Ruth Asawa raised six children while being a prolific artist. She believed in “the integration of creative labor within daily life” and embraced the descriptor of “housewife” even while being an artist who had commercial work and had exhibited at the Whitney. She didn’t separate her identities—she integrated them. For example, while she had a studio at her home, she used her living space to create art, involving her children in the process.
What is all the work that is calling to you? How can you allow more integration between all your possible selves?
#2. Give yourself permission to shift.
When the filmmaker and journalist Cameron Crowe became a parent, his focus shifted. He didn’t fight it and instead created space for what was present in his life, allowing it to inform his work. He shared in a New York Times interview:
“Some of that was taking time to raise two boys and really investing time in that.”
And giving that time, he adjusted how he worked, both functionally (“You have to parcel out the time you’re gonna do the work. So that’s one thing. But the other thing is, you see what’s truly important.”) and emotionally (“I wanted to learn about that for a while and write with that in my heart….).
You may find the same when entering a new life stage: what matters then may differ from what matters now or what will matter next.
Rather than remain fixed, how might you respond to what’s important and drawing your attention now?
#3. Focus through subtraction.
When Twyla Tharp needs to direct energy toward a specific project, she makes her life deliberately small, subtracting distractions to create space. It’s temporary, intentional, and liberating.
You don’t have to maintain all pursuits at full intensity all the time.
How might you make your world small through subtraction, to eliminate “distractions” and allow yourself to focus on what matters most now?
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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.