Sustainable Ambition: BuilD your life+work resilience rX
Resources
to accompany the podcast series: On Planning a More Sustainable+Ambitious Year
The Podcast Discussion Guide
If you’d like to do this work with others, consider creating a circle of friends or professional colleagues to plan and learn together. Doing this work as part of a community can support you in setting intentions, holding yourself accountable, providing encouragement, and learning together along the way.
This specific guide accompanies the podcast series and provides discussion prompts for a 1-2 hour discussion (depending on the size of your group) after each podcast episode, or you can combine the topics into a 2-3-hour workshop. Find the guide here.
More complete workshop guides for a Planning Circle or Workshop at Work that will accompany the Workbook+Planner are coming later in January’22 and can be found below.
Part 1 Resources: My Ambitions: My Next 12 Months
ambitions
Personal Success Metrics
On The Sustainable Ambition Podcast in Episode #16, Eva Dienel shared how she creates her own personal metrics of success vs. relying on societal definitions and should’s: “If you have your measure of success… like for me when I I quit my job I said: I want to run as many miles a week as I work, I want to spend more nights camping outside… those were going to be my measures of success for my life.”
Find examples of personal success metrics here.
REFERENCES
Book: “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be,” by Paul Arden - Learn more here. I was inspired by this book and questions Paul Arden, the former Executive Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, asks. He starts the book by claiming, “Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have.” Arden goes on to ask, “So how good do you want to be?” The options: “Quite good. Good. Very good. The best in your field. The best in the world.” These are all accompanied with a picture, the last one cleverly being aligned with a picture of Napoleon (i.e., the best in the world). Arden states that it’s not talent that makes people famous or rich, but having a clear ambition and the drive to reach a goal that leads them to their desired outcome.
Article: What’s Your Ambition? Know Your “How Far,” by Kathy Oneto - Read more here.
Part 2 Resources: My Sustainable: My Life+Work Resilience Rx
Values
Find additional examples on how to fill out the Values table here.
If you want to go deeper to help you identify your values, find an exercise here.
For a list of values, find them here.
prescription
Find a Google doc you can fill out with your prescription here.
Part 4 Resources: My Quarter 1 + Monthly Planning
Weekly & Daily Check-Ins
Get your FREE Weekly and Daily check-in printout here.
Book References & Inspiration
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt
Great at Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More, by Morten T. Hansen
It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be, by Paul Arden
Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values, by Fred Kofman
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level, by Gay Hendricks
Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. with Forrest Hanson
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown
Start Finishing: How to Go From Idea to Done, by Charlie Gilkey
Making Ideas Happen, by Scott Belsky
Inspirational Quotes
Planning
“You can do anything you set your mind to.” — Benjamin Franklin
“A [person] who does not plan long ahead will find trouble at his door.” — Confucius
“Things have roots and branches... If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well governed.” — Confucius
Ambitions
“It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about?” — Henry David Thoreau
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — J. R. R. Tolkien
“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.” — Mark Twain
“Action expresses priorities.” — Gandhi
BUILDING Resilience
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” — Aristotle
“To thine own self be true.” — Shakespeare
“Commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” ― Peter F. Drucker
PLAN YOUR TIME
“You will find no one willing to share out his money; but to how many does each of us divide up his life! People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” — Seneca
“If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.” — Zig Ziglar
QUARTER PLANNING & TRACKING
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Without labor, nothing prospers.” — Sophocles
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” — Florence Nightingale
“If there is no wind, row.” — Latin Proverb
“The most effective way to do it is to do it.” — Amelia Earhart
“Patience and persistence have a magical effect before which difficulties and obstacles vanish.” — John Quincy Adams
REVIEW & Reflection
“Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.” — Baltasar Gracian
“In moments of quiet reflection our minds embrace the sea that we have crossed.” — Holmes
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
WHAT’S NEXT
“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard
“What’s next?” — The West Wing, inspiration here!
Feedback
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