175: How to Move Forward: Lessons from Creativity (Ambition In-Between Series)

Overview

Much as we often find ourselves asking “what now” at the culmination of an ambition, the start of a new year is also a time when many of us wonder how best to move forward.

For the third episode of our Ambition In-Between series, I want to build on what I’ve shared about the unexpected outcomes and mixed emotions that show up at the completion of a big ambition, and talk about how to move forward when we’re not totally certain what’s next. 

Drawing on my experience of writing and releasing Sustainable Ambition, as well as what I’ve learned this year about the creative process, I’ve learned to reframe ambition and growth as a cyclical, non-linear process. When we recognize the need both for periods of commitment and periods of dormancy and reflection, I believe we can unlock a more sustainable, joyful way to build our lives and grow over time.

Listen below or on your favorite podcast player.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How honoring completion can unlock joy, peace, and ease

• Why dormancy, reflection, and slowing down are not signs of stagnation—but essential phases of Sustainable Ambition

• What “restorative ambiguity” is, and how learning to sit in the not-knowing can help you access intuition and clarity

• What a “lighthouse question” is and how it can orient the next chapter of your work or life

• Reflective prompts to help you assess what’s complete, what’s emerging, and what might be calling you next in 2026

Resources Mentioned

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin

• 171: Natalie Nixon on Rethinking Productivity and Redesigning Work

• Move. Think. Rest. Redefining Productivity & Our Relationship with Time, Natalie Nixon

• Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses, Amy Whitaker

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

• Reinvention After 50 with Seth Godin: Make Life Your Best Work of Art | The Midlife Chrysalis with Chip Conley

• Toni Morrison's Commencement Address to the Wellesley College Class of 2004

Thanks for Listening!

• Send me ideas for what you’d like to hear on the podcast, or a question that might be read and answered here on the show! Email me at podcast@SustainableAmbition.com

• Get my curated bi-weekly Sustainable Ambition Forum newsletter. Sign up here