Sustainable Ambition Forum - 1.30.24
Back in January 2023 I declared that this month was going to be “Slow January.” I was determined to have the holiday season and month feel different for me this year after experiencing two years of a November-December-January period that was too full and where my end of year to-do's extended too long into the new year.
That was my intention and I accomplished it for the most part, keeping holiday tasks efficient and completing them early, being deliberate about creating holiday experiences, protecting time and space to write and complete the full manuscript of my book (whew!), and turning down a project to not overload or overextend myself.
Yet, come mid-month I longed for space. I had paced out my projects and to do’s but was still wanting. And I knew that I was going to need space to step back, reflect, and synthesize to finalize where I wanted to put my attention and focus for this year. I needed more creative thinking and time for clarity to form and to align to my Sustainable Ambitions for 2024.
So, I looked ahead in my calendar and blocked out a day for fun, joy, and ease. I ended up calling it my Soul Day as I was telling someone about it. It lasted only 9 hours—from 11 am to 8 pm—and it was perfect all the same. It started with a short meditation and then went like this…
This was one of my offices for the day. I’m lucky to live near Golden Gate Park and learned that residents have free access to the Japanese tea garden. A soul-full place indeed. And a place to embrace awe and wonder (read more below).
It’s here that I allowed myself to pause and slow down my mind.I was happy to have picked up the bookBuoyant (read more below) that had an exercise on contour drawing. Contour drawing has you draw the outline of an object in one continuous line. What’s brilliant about the technique is it forces you to stop, focus, and quiet the mind. When you’re contour drawing your mind is focused on the object you’re drawing, not wandering to random thoughts. I loved it! Here are my two attempts.
I’m also a believer in getting out to get inspired, and Buoyant advises the same. So, I took myself to the deYoung museum and was delighted to find a fashion exhibit to explore. Talk about creativity!
I then took myself on a 45-minute city walk (a favorite thing!) to a great coffee shop (another favorite!) to enjoy a local neighborhood and to take in what I’m grateful to have around me, like these Seven Painted Ladies houses off of Alamo Square (many people know one of these houses from the old TV show, Full House).
And to enjoy drinks and dinner out with my best friend, my husband, enjoying Dry January at a restaurant whose bar we knew had great non-alcoholic cocktails.
A soul-filling day for sure. And it did what I hoped—helped me recuperate, get unstuck, and allow ideas to flow.
I share this in hopes of giving you inspiration to create your own soul-day or slow minute, hour, day, week, or month. And to be amazed at what can show up when we are able to create a bit of space, get quiet, be inspired and in nature, allow our minds to wander, or make time for whatever else fills your soul.Your time might not look like mine but can have the same intended effects. Where and how can you create a break, pause, or space to be generative and find clarity?
What’s my declaration as I look ahead to next year? I’ll keep Slow January, but I’m adding that I want it to have a chunk of time with no f@#$*ing deadlines! That’s what I started to share with people at the end of 2023. What I mean by this is that I’m longing for more creative space and time for exploration and experimentation after years of creative production. Now creative production is a value for me. But like many things, it takes getting it just right. Too much of a good value can make Kathy, well, not dull but a little dead inside. And too much of a good motivator (deadlines!) can become an irritant, too. What might be a declaration or intention you want to set for yourself now for how you want your end of year or next January to feel for you?
I hope you’ve had a good, whatever-pace-works-for-you start to the new year! Because it’s been slow, I’ll be slowly but surely getting into my rhythm here and look forward to being in communication with you all.
Cheers to your new year!
Kathy Oneto
Founder, Sustainable Ambition
The Monthly Round-Up: You+Life+Work
Inspirational reminders to help reset and gain insights.
The power of creativity. It’s not like championing creativity is new, but so few of us adults allow ourselves to be creative and cultivate it. It doesn’t take a lot, but research shows that the number one barrier to us being creative and innovative is believing we aren’t. I’ve had the book Buoyant all year and finally in my Slow January picked it up, doing so at just the right time. It gave me the inspiration and the exercises to tap into my creative self to unblock insight. While the book is written for entrepreneurs, it’s full of exercises that I think can be used by anyone seeking to get clear on what they want and a path forward.
The power of meditation. Just like creativity, meditation isn’t new, but is a practice to help us shift our mindset and, to put it simply, positively change our brain. Here are two of my favorite easy, free, go-to meditation sources: one from Apple Music and the other from my former podcast guest, KC Carter, on Insight Timer.
The power of awe and wonder. Listen to this On Being episode between Krista Tippett and Dacher Keltner to learn more about why experiencing awe and wonder can support our whole being and wellness. Keltner is the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.
The power of slack. A good re-read (Why time management is ruining our lives) from Oliver Burkeman of Four Thousand Weeks fame featuring Tom DeMarco who worked in software engineering at places like Bell Telephone Labs back in the day. DeMarco advocated that more slack, not time efficiency, was required to create. He’s quoted saying, “The best companies I visited, all through the years, were never very hurried…. Maybe they used pressure from time to time, as a sort of amusing side-effect. But it was never a constant. Because you don’t get creativity for free. You need people to be able to sit back, put their feet up, and think.” Put your feet up. Sit back. Think.
“But it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.”
— Pico Iyer