Sustainable Ambition Forum - 8.15
This summer I’ve been working on my book and thinking more deeply about those who have inspired its focus and contents.
The book is a reflection of my own journey of challenging assumptions about success and ambition, managing ambitions and work over my life stages, and the challenge of managing my effort and energy to avoid burnout.
But it’s also very much, if not more so, a reflection of people I’ve interviewed on the podcast or for my research on navigating careers over time; friends who have shared their experiences with me about their life, work, and ambition experiences; and coaching clients who have trusted me to walk alongside them on their journeys.
With this insight and to help people see themselves in the book and in the work, while also having a little fun perhaps, I’ve created ambition archetypes that align with the main challenges or experiences I’ve learned people tend to find themselves in over time that may lead to seeking Sustainable Ambition practices. My belief and hypothesis is that we move between these states over time; we aren’t just one archetype or one way. The context will influence our different experiences at different times.
I wanted to share these archetypes with all of you to see what you think. Do these situations ring true to you given your current situation?
So, I’m curious: what's your ambition archetype right now? How would you characterize your relationship to ambition at this time?
Are you disillusioned by ambition?
Are you over doing what you think you should and ready to reclaim your ambition to pursue what you want?
Is your ambition shifting—wanting to dial your ambition down or focus your ambition elsewhere like on family or another personal or professional interest?
Are you ready to reignite or claim your next ambition?
Are you pursuing a full set of life and work ambitions and seeking to make it all more sustainable?
Are you an ambitious, hard worker trying to keep yourself out of the over-extended, over-exhausted loop?
Which one, if any, resonates with you? If you’re up for it, I’d love your input through this brief survey. (It will just take 1-5 minutes, depending on what you’d like to share.)
And below for each of these, I offer at least one tip to try and practice this month to help move you forward from where you stand right now.
Wishing you an August that holds on to some semblance of slow, simple, sustainable summer vibes. ☀️
Cheers, and thank you!
Kathy
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
Conscious Ambition Tips
To help become more consciously ambitious and thrive in life and work.
Step into curiosity. We can sometimes think our ambitions have steered us wrong. Perhaps we aren’t fulfilled after all when we reach our desired outcome, or because we don’t. If you find yourself standing here, first step into curiosity around how you are feeling. What is behind feeling disillusioned? Then ask, what did you learn in the journey? And, finally, what empowering story do you want to tell yourself around what’s transpired?
Act on a want. My good friend, Wade Brill, of Centered in the City, asked the following question in a workshop a few years ago, and ever since I go back to it again and again: How do you want to feel this month? Think about that, and then ask what you can do to create that feeling for yourself. Make your claim on a want by taking the first action in the next 24 hours to move toward creating that feeling.
Celebrate your choice. Acceptance is powerful. We can spend a lot of time and energy fretting about our decisions. Yet, we can find more peace and save the energy churn by instead claiming, celebrating, and finding more joy in our choices, as Oliver Burkeman encourages in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. If your ambition is shifting, celebrate your choice to focus your attention on what matters most to you now.
Claim a life ambition. Broaden your lens of ambition to be about more than just work. Within your personal life, what might you want to be ambitious about in this month of August? For example, I want to be ambitious about: recovery, delight, taking breaks, a meditation practice, trying a hobby, building community, spending time with family, learning to cook, and so on.
Experiment. What’s catching your attention now? What are you curious about? What’s one small experiment you can try this month to test out an area of interest to see if it’s one to pursue in the future (e.g., listen to a podcast on the topic, take a class, watch a webinar)?
Go fishing. I use the analogy of “Gone Fishing” to mean doing something to disconnect, shift our minds off, and get absorbed in another activity and be unavailable to our day-to-day for a period of time. Put a daily “Gone Fishing” appointment on your calendar (even just for 5 to 15 minutes) and a weekly “Gone Fishing” break on your calendar for an activity that helps you truly disconnect. Ideas some people have shared: a solo hike, sitting with the sun on your face, getting engrossed in a book, playing with your kids, sailing, having a deep conversation with a friend, and fishing, of course.
Claim easy. Leverage the Pareto principle to allow yourself to put in less effort. Pick one goal or task on your list and put only 20% effort to make progress and get 80% of the output or outcome. One way to do this is to time-box the task. Do a sprint and get the 80% done with 20% focused, deep work time.
“Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal it’s difficult to score.”
— Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be