Sustainable Ambition Forum - 5.23.23
We can face a lot of barriers going after our ambitions. How can we get past them by leaning into internal motivators rather than being influenced by external forces? A few tips to unblock our ambitions and make them possible.
Conscious Ambition Tips
Right Ambition: Why choose?
So often we are advised to focus. But there are many of us who are multi-dimensional and want to explore many curiosities. Why not indulge in everything that interests us? I appreciate books such as, “Refuse to Choose!,” an oldy but goody from Barbara Sher, and “Range” by David Epstein that encourage us to go broad, not narrow. And, I’ve appreciated recent guests who speak this wisdom, too, like Jessica Wan of The Ampersand Manifesto podcast on E99 and Christina Wallace, author of the new book The Portfolio Life on E104.
Explore multiple sides of yourself. Go broad. Feed your curiosity.
Right Time: What’s your learning budget?
I’m constantly investing in learning and have over the course of my career, not relying solely on an employer to provide such knowledge building. This is because I love to learn, but it’s also because I’ve known the value of expanding my skills and exploring my curiosities.
Think about this in time more than dollars. Learning doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. There are plenty of free resources to expand your knowledge (e.g., library books!, free webinars and events, podcasts).
To set ourselves up for what’s next, I champion that we always be learning.
Determine your learning budget for the rest of the year and take one action to get your learning in motion.
Right Effort: Make it enjoyable.
If you’re committed to a goal, make the pursuit of it enjoyable. Research has found that we are more persistent in pursuing a goal when we enjoy what we are doing.
Or, resisting doing something you must do? Add an element you love to the task to make it more motivating to you.
Process and experience matter in goal motivation. Instead of stopping or dropping what you want to go after, add something you love.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
— William Faulkner