Sustainable Ambition Forum - 10.10.23
For me, creating sustainability across life+work is a constant practice. So, as we head back to work and enter the last quarter of the year, I thought I’d share a few Conscious Ambitious Tips below to practice in helping us all work smarter, not harder. How can we use our personal energy and time well, knowing each day effort and energy are finite, just as time is finite?
Conscious Ambition Tips
Right Ambition: “I got you.” I’ve kindly heard this expression many times of late. I’m in a few communities where the leaders and others in the group say this, “I got you.” It’s reassuring during a time of consternation and when you’re unsure about the step you are taking. It makes me feel less alone, of course, and also helps me stop fretting while keeping me moving forward with my ambitions and goals. It helps me put down what I’ve been wrestling with and give myself permission to let things be imperfect and evolve as part of the creative process.
Research has shown that having people around and supporting you in making ambition choices can help you step into what you want for yourself. And research supports how important community is in helping you in reach your goals.
I love this quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”
So, who is your community? Who has your back and will say, “I got you”? How can you foster that for yourself and be that for others?
Right Time: Grind vs. Create Space. I, like many others, can find myself continuing to push to accomplish more in my haste to get to do’s off my plate. And yet, in that push, I start to grind. It’s uncomfortable. I’m not producing great work. And, I’m using way too much effort.
In such moments, I have to practice and remind myself to step away and come back to my list when I have more space. I recognize again and again the inefficiency and damage of grinding. I’m doing more harm than good. Because when I come back to what I was trying to get done with more space, I have better ideas, I move more efficiently and quickly, and I feel better overall.
What’s a structure you can put in place to catch yourself grinding on work? What would be a reminder to make you stop it in its tracks? And then instead, identify a dedicated time space to come back to what needs your attention. Mind you... that may require that you renegotiate an expectation or deadline you made for yourself or with someone else. Sometimes we have to let ourselves off the hook and let things slide a bit. And that’s okay, too.
Right Effort: 80/20 Pareto Principle. Remember the Pareto principle? Or, what’s also known as the 80/20 rule? It says that we can get 80% of the outcome from 20% of the effort. I’m sure you've experienced this. I know I have of late. I’ve been time constrained and only had 20% of the time to give an important activity. And yet, I achieved 80% and more in the focused 20% time I gave it.
It’s a fun challenge to give ourselves. Consider looking at your action items for the week and proactively identifying for what and when you will give a task your 20% to get your 80%. This can be a on a task that only needs to be at a 80% quality level of output or it can be on an important task where you can make significant progress in a short period of time and in doing so up your motivation for completion.
“You’ve gotta keep control of your time and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.”
— Warren Buffett