Sustainable Ambition Forum - 5.9.23
Hi friends!
This month, I want to invite you into my book writing process. As you may know by now, I’m both an executive and life+work coach, as well as a strategist. I bridge these two worlds bringing strategic thinking to life and work planning and management.
What does that mean? I tend to think in models, and I look for ways to put structure to help me think about messy topics in simpler ways. One of these messy topics is managing the tensions we can feel around our ambitions and the effort we put against them. When we are ambitious about both life and work, conflict is sure to arise.
Plus, consider that: Knowing what we want can be tricky to unpack. Making choices between conflicting ambitions can be dicey. And we can often dive into commitments despite that nagging feeling that we really don’t have the energy to put in the effort.
For these reasons and more, one of the models I’m playing with for my book is a Dial in Your Ambition Tool.
I did a workshop on this at the beginning of the year and wanted to share it with you to give a preview of how it can work. Below I offer some simple prompts to follow to evaluate an ambition and see what new insights develop through the reflections. If you want to take it deeper, I offer a link below to the full tool, which is still a work in progress. As the saying attributed to statistician George Box goes, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” I’d love to learn if and how this is useful for you.
If you give it a try, I’d really appreciate your feedback in this short survey (promise, less than 5 minutes) to help me improve the model and tool for others and for the book. If you can spare the time, I’d be ever so grateful! If it’s easier to send a quick note, you can send me an email here or send a voice note here.
My hope is to help you get a bit more conscious about your ambitions to make them more sustainable.
Cheers!
Kathy Oneto
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
Top: Photo of Artwork by Herbert Bayer, Chromatic Assessment
The Dial In Your Ambition Tool
This is a tool and way of thinking about ambitions that you can come back to again and again to help better align life and work and identify opportunities for sustainability.
Use these prompts to explore an ambition and see what insights it might uncover to help you dial it in to make it more sustainable for you.
Step 1: Consider a life or work ambition. It might be one where:
You’re feeling angst vs. energy – or
You’re feeling tension between a life and work ambition – or
You’re stretching or striving, but it’s not feeling sustainable
Step 2: Ask yourself:
Right Ambition: Do I want this ambition or goal? Consider:
How much am I energized by this ambition?
How much do I want this ambition?
How meaningful and motivating is this ambition to me?
Right Time: Is it the right time for me to go after this ambition or goal? Consider:
Do I have increasing energy for this ambition?
Is there urgency for me to pursue this ambition now?
Does my life currently have space for this ambition?
Right Effort: Do I have the energy to put into this ambition? Consider:
How much energy do I have to put against this ambition?
How good do I want to be and am I willing to put in the effort to reach that level?
How determined and committed am I to reach my ambition?
Step 3: Reflect:
What did you notice about your ambition looking at it this way?
Is it something you want to do vs. have to do?
Is it time for this ambition?
Is it an ambition to which you can put effort?
What might that imply? Do you want to:
Prioritize the ambition?
Re-interpret the ambition, the timing, or the effort?
Delay or back-burner the ambition?
Eliminate the ambition?
Determine how to better sustain yourself while going after the ambition?
What was surprising to you?
Step 4: Act:
What one next action might you want to take from here?
_____________________________
If you gave this a try, again I’d really appreciate your feedback in this short survey (promise, less than 5 minutes) to help me improve the model and tool for others and for the book. Thank you, in advance!
My Example: Dialing Down Creative Angst, Dialing Up Commitment
We’re all creative. I believe this now. But most of my life I haven’t thought of myself as creative. I’m not what people would think of as artistic—I don’t paint, sing, dance, and so forth. Or, I’m mediocre at all of them. Instead, I’ve been a strategist across various work roles and someone who has been described as being cerebral.
And yet, I’ve always been called toward creative work. As I recently looked back on my career, I’ve come to realize that throughout multiple roles I’ve experienced creative angst and anxiety. Am I giving my start-up brand the right name? Am I positioning my clients’ brands in a creative, powerful way? Is what I’m writing interesting and well-written?
This creative angst has become abundantly clear as I work on writing the book on Sustainable Ambition.
While I can name it now and, therefore, work with it with a new lens, such anxiety and angst can make us question our ambitions. Why am I working on this if it feels this way? (I’m definitely not the only writer who feels angst and pain during the writing process. It’s more the norm.) And yet, I feel called to do this work.
But am I going after this ambition as a should? Is it time for this ambition? Do I have the energy to put in the effort for this ambition?
Here’s my conclusions using the Dial In Your Ambition Tool to help me be conscious about my choice and re-confirm this was something I wanted to do.
My Reflections
For me, looking at my ambition this way confirmed that I want it (it’s not a have to or should), and it’s the right time for it. I’m committed! What was surprising to me was figuring out that my creative angst is part of the process rather than a signal that I don’t want to go after this goal; that I need to be diligent about prioritizing this ambition and the effort it requires; and that I want to commit to the effort and need to put in place structures to support that effort.
So, to make this a Sustainable Ambition for me, I’m dialing in my Right Effort. For me, that’s about prioritizing this work and deprioritizing other activities, utilizing my structures, and making sure I’m adhering to my sustaining plan.
My Action
My one action was that I blocked both writing sprints each morning of the week and have also blocked a few full days for writing sprint catch-ups and deep dives. This is a way for me to remain committed to this ambition while making time for other life priorities.
Want to Take It Deeper?
If you’d like to work with the complete tool, you can download a fillable PDF here. (Refer to pages 3-5.)
“Ambition is enthusiasm with a purpose.”
— Frank Tyger