45. On Planning a More Sustainable+Ambitious Year: Part 4 with Kathy Oneto

Overview

Join Kathy Oneto, host and founder of Sustainable Ambition, for a 4-part series to help you plan a more sustainable+ambitious year ahead. We’ll explore what will be stretching for you and what will sustain you.

This series coincides with the upcoming launch of the Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook+Planner: Your Life+Work Resilience Rx. The workbook+planner offers inquiries, exercises, and planning tools to help you lead a fulfilling, sustainable, and ambitious life+work. Learn more at: sustainableambition.com/planner2022

First, Sustainable Ambition is aspirational. It asks us to hold two opposing ideas—sustain and stretch—at the same time. How can we sustain ourselves (sustainable), while stretching ourselves (ambition)? That implies it is a practice that calls for perspective, personalization, pacing, and patience. And that admittedly means it isn’t easy! That is where this series comes in.

Over 4-weeks, Kathy will guide you through exercises to create a plan to help you manage a more sustainable life+work over the coming months. The goal is to create awareness and structures that foster the ability to dance in our dynamic world, learning how to both stretch and sustain ourselves. How? By knowing ourselves better, defining our own Life+Work Resilience Rx (prescription), creating a plan, practicing, and progressing over time.

Here’s a review of the series and this episode is Part 4:

  • Part #1: My Ambitions: My Next 12 Months - In this first episode, Kathy shares exercises to help you set a vision and your intentions for the coming year. What are your ambitions? 

  • Part #2: My Sustainable: My Life+Work Resilience Rx - In the second episode, we’ll explore what would make your life+work sustainable—what is your personal Life+Work Resilience Rx?

  • Part #3: My 12-Month Planner + 6-Month Horizon - In the third episode, we’ll pull out our calendars and create a 12-month plan considering what you need on your calendar to allow you to stretch and sustain yourself.

  • Part #4: Quarter 1 + Monthly Planning - We’ll close the series in episode four creating our aim for the first quarter of the year and setting you up to act and then assess and adapt as you reflect at the end of the first quarter to keep you operating at your best throughout the year.

Kathy will come back each quarter to do a review with you and will come back at the end of the year for a 12-month review to see what we learned about building our own life+work resilience.

While a sustainable and ambitious life+work is aspirational, the journey may not always be easy along the way. Yet, we believe we can do it and find our way. We can take back control and be in choice to build a more sustainable life+work. 

Here’s to a sustainable+ambitious 2022!

P.S. 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. Find guides for a Planning Circle or Workshop at Work at: sustainableambition.com/planner2022

Topics Covered

  • Closing out this the series, after setting your ambitions, defining Your Life+Work Resilience Rx, and planning your 12-month calendar, it’s time to come back to the present, finish planning and setting your aim for Q1, and then get into action. 

  • Kathy starts with a reminder that Sustainable Ambition is aspirational, which is why it’s also a practice, and that creating ​​Sustainable Ambition and building life+work resilience takes awareness and a bit of discipline that becomes a part of that practice. 

  • She covers that there is a cycle of Aim, Act, Assess, and Adapt on a monthly and quarterly basis—what do you plan, practice, and then progress to operate at your best throughout the year?

  • She provides prompts around:

    • Creating a Quarter Plan

    • Documenting your Quarter Rx

    • Creating Monthly Plans if you like

    • Offers a Sustainable Ambition Weekly & Daily Check-In (see Resources below)

    • Kathy closes with what to do next as you get into action. She advocates for putting monthly and quarterly reviews or reflection time on your calendar now. Carve out that space for yourself to check-in and assess and determine how you want to adapt.

  • Kathy will come back at the end of each quarter going forward for check-ins and at the end of the year to evaluate how things have gone—what’s worked, what’s not worked, what’s next?

Resources Mentioned

  • Learn more about the Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook+Planner: Your Life+Work Resilience Rx: sustainableambition.com/planner2022  

  • Enlist others to do this work together, perhaps start by sharing the podcast series and discuss together. Or, for planning guides to host your own planning circle (Personal: Hold a Sustainable Ambition Planning Circle) or workshop (Professional: Hold a Sustainable Ambition Workshop at Work) go to: sustainableambition.com/planner2022

  • Get your Weekly & Daily Check-In Download here

Thanks for Listening!

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45. On Planning a More Sustainable+Ambitious Year: Part 4 with Kathy Oneto

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