Sustainable Ambition Forum - 09.17.20
Hello!
As you go back to work this month, we don’t want to encourage a rush to do. Rather, we’d like to offer some ways to make progress more simply.
For example, it’s often that we can feel stretched and challenged to find the time for fun, critical, strategic thinking. So, I share an approach I call Strategy 30 that provides a structure and guidance to help you carve out thinking time and strategize and plan what’s next in just 30 minutes. If you try it out, let me know how it works for you!
Fall is almost upon us. I hope you enjoy the change in season. My hope is that the transition can inspire an inner calm as the world around us swirls. Take comfort in the cooler fall air and take a cue from the trees that go dormant to slow down a bit rather than speed up as we would in a normal year.
Be well,
Kathy
Founder of Sustainable Ambition™
We’d love to hear what would be helpful to you on your Sustainable Ambition journey.
The Round-Up
Right Success: How you might use a “strategic side gig” to contribute AND develop additional skills to support your success as you build and grow your career.
Right Aspiration: This is an old Peter Drucker article from HBR on “Managing Oneself” to be most effective, but it’s so good, especially on talking about how to think about crafting a career over time. Absolutely worth reading and saving for future reference.
Right Effort: “Carve out your 'studio time'.” I loved this guidance from Amy Whitaker in a 2018 Goop podcast. You don’t have to be an artist to take advantage of this concept. Studio time is your creative, contemplative time. We all need it. To unearth the creativity inside us, you need to carve out space for it to unfold.
Reading: “It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be” — I pick up this book every so often simply for the reminder on one of its early pages asking, “So how good do you want to be?” It's the best and most clear articulation to me of knowing your ambition. Do you know how good you want to be?
Listening: Hear from Shasta Nelson, a relationship expert and author, about the importance of having friends at work for job satisfaction and building them with positivity, consistency, and vulnerability.
Watching: A round-up of short snippets of TED speakers on how to be happier at work.
Smiling: Could you use a little uplifting? Believe in hope. Read a great Vogue collection of thinking from the likes of Tim Cook, Melinda Gates, Serena Williams, and more.
Where are you on the journey of career satisfaction?
A High-Level View
It’s not discussed much that our satisfaction with work often changes over the decades given the stage we’re in. Research we’ve conducted shows that for many professionals career satisfaction flexes over time—it’s different in your 20’s vs. your 30’s compared to your 40-50’s and so on. (We offer a high-level view here.)
As Lori Gottlieb, the psychotherapist and bestselling New York Times author said: “Our contentment looks different at different parts of our life.”
* Note: Use the password “sustain” to access.
A Practice: What do I really want?
In her book, “Everything is Figureoutable,” Marie Forleo has a great exercise to help you identify your aspiration right now when it’s a bit fuzzy and you aren’t clear.
Try this for 1 week. Write in a journal on one full page, “What I really want is….”
At the end of the week, look back at what you wrote and identify the patterns.
What does your writing reveal? What are you wanting right now in your life?
Find Your Guide:
Find the perfect guide to match your journey.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
—Mark Twain
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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.