Sustainable Ambition Forum - 01.06.21

 
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Welcome to 2021, everyone!

I hope you had a relaxing and uplifting holiday season. I’m sure we’re all excited to have a fresh start this year and to look with a new perspective at what’s present for each of us.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite ready to jump into the year and its demands. So this month, I’m suggesting more reflection to get clear on your annual commitments. Before diving in, let’s get clear on our focus areas. To help with that, I offer the Sustainable Ambition Self-Assessment. The beginning of the year is a great time to annually take stock and see what areas you might want to address in 2021. Where do you want to commit to doubling down, making a change, or optimizing?

If you don’t have time for the assessment, let me offer these notes as exploration prompts based on the three pillars of Sustainable Ambition:

  • Right Success: Where do you stand on defining your Personal Reward? Has anything changed? Is it time to set a new 1 year or further out vision and purpose? Or, consider these prompts:

    • Purpose: Commit to taking one action this year in an area that really matters to you and where you want to make an impact.

    • Values: Consider how you can honor one of your values that’s been dormant.

    • Strength: Determine how you can lean into a strength to further your mastery.

    • Flow: Be deliberate in utilizing a way of being and/or doing that lights you up.

  • Right Aspiration: Take the Career Hygiene Audit to assess your Satisfaction and Motivation at the moment. How do you view where you are on a satisfaction curve or in building a regenerative career? Or, consider these prompts:

    • Satisfaction:

      • What meaning can you bring to your work or personal life right now?

      • What is drawing you and is energizing you right now?

    • Ambition:

      • Are you clear on your current ambition?

      • Are you honoring if you want to be in the fast, medium, or slow lane?

  • Right Effort: How much ease are you experiencing in your work-life integration? Where do you want and need to optimize? Are you clear on what you want to be busy about? How are you building work-life resilience?

Then below, I share:

  • To Listen: Our new podcast! Check out the first 5 episodes of The Sustainable Ambition Podcast now! We provide the link and feature the first below.

  • A Tool: The Career Hygiene Audit, per above. (Note: Use the password “sustain” to access the document.)

  • A Practice: Our new 2021 Monthly Progress Practice, starting with January’s micro-habit.

May 2021 start with a gingerly calm or a bang! Whichever you choose. : ) My one suggestion is simply to get clear on what you want to commit to creating for yourself this year.

Cheers!
Kathy


We’d love to hear what would be helpful to you on your Sustainable Ambition journey.


The Sustainable Ambition Podcast

 
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Join me for conversations with experts, authors, and friends on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.

First up, Geoff Tanner, Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer at the J.M. Smucker Company. In this conversation, we cover a lot of ground from starting one’s second career sooner than you think to ruthless prioritization to the fact that people want to be led by genuine, authentic leaders who bring their whole selves to work. And, yes, I do ask him how he balances work and raising two young children.

I hope you find the conversation as helpful and insightful as I did!

Find it on Apple Podcast here
Or, listen on our website here

You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Overcast.


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Take Stock


Gauge how you currently feel about your career using these two simple 2x2 models to determine if you are in alignment with your Motivations (Your What & Why) to understand your current satisfaction with your work and then consider your Ambition (The How Far).

Read more and get the reference document here >


The Monthly Progress Practice


Progress happens through small actions, and this is starting to become a practice in itself for me! Introducing the 2021 Monthly Progress Practice calendar, which offers a monthly practice of small actions or micro-habits to inspire positive change this year. Practice makes progress!


Our guidance for January:
Make a commitment.
Where do you want to put consistent action to make progress this year? What are you determined to do? Who are you determined to be?



“You don’t need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.”

— Seth Godin

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SUSTAINABLE AMBITION™ IS ABOUT CRAFTING A FULFILLING CAREER TO SUPPORT YOUR LIFE FROM DECADE TO DECADE.

It is centered around articulating your personal definition of success and achieving that without burnout while honoring your personal aspirations and ambitions as they ebb and flow over time. The end game—more fulfillment and ease in your professional and personal life, while still being ambitious.

We offer 1:1 Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, or Career Strategy Coaching, as well as VIP Leadership Brand Sessions and Workshops on a range of Sustainable Ambition topics. We also provide tips and inspiration, advice on career management over the decades, guides on key Sustainable Ambition topics of interest, and coverage of tools and inspiration.