Sustainable Ambition Forum - 2.27.24
We may not think we need to be proactive and strategic about building our resilience, but we do. It’s especially true for those of us who want to live with Sustainable Ambition.
I talked about building resilience with my recent podcast guest featured below, Dr. Marie-Hélène (MH) Pelletier, author of The Resilience Plan: A Strategic Approach to Optimize Your Work Performance and Mental Health.
In her book, MH advocates doing an honest accounting of all our demands across life and work and including outside stressors and then taking small, consistent action to build our supply to meet those demands. We need to actively manage these to have resilience and keep things sustainable. If we’re not intentional about this, many of us can too easily get caught in an over-extension, over-exhaustion loop.
I champion a similar approach and suggest we create a personal sustaining plan to restore, protect, and support our energy. To me, this is about being able to manage our effort and energy so we don’t deplete our resources and instead can sustain the pursuit of our ambitions over time and not sacrifice our well-being.
To share just a few ideas...
One strategy is to help with this is to be clear about those factors that give us energy and fuel our quality of life (restore with these!) and those that drain our energy (protect from these!).
Another is to pace ourselves, as Cal Newport wrote about in a recent New York Times article, reminding us to think about seasons, like the hibernation time of winter (support with this). I think about this both in the long term (plan in arcs, pace ambitions out) and also pacing ourselves day-to-day.
Or add activities that offer enjoyment and distract your mind or help turn it off. I've been delighted to see how many people are taking advantage of these types of activities that are popping up in my neighborhood: a game parlor, a pottery studio, and places to take sewing or art classes.
It pays to be strategic about our resilience. How can we manage our demands and build up our supply to create more sustainability? Let’s enjoy going the distance.
Cheers!
Kathy Oneto
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
The Monthly Round-Up
A round-up of ideas on becoming consciously ambitious and thriving in life and work
⛰️ Right Ambition: I re-watched the movie Hidden Figures this month, and I saw it as inspiration and encouragement to wholeheartedly embrace ambition. Since it's Black History Month, I appreciated honoring these women who fought for their right to be ambitious, use their talents, live their dreams, and make huge contributions to our world.
The lesson: Be bold and take small steps. What is an ambition you want to pursue this year that will move you closer to the vision you have for your life? What’s the first action step?
🗓️ Right Time: Right Time to me is about prioritizing what’s most important now across your life and work. I appreciated this article by Stella Garber offering an example of making a career transition and how she anchored in the question, “What is most important for me right now?” We change, our lives change, the world around us changes. So, what we want changes. When planning for what’s next, consider this important question. And I also appreciated how she asked: How can I try things out in a low-risk way? We can’t always know for certain what we want next, and it helps to take small steps and test things out.
The lesson: What is it time for now? What’s an ambition you want to take on this year, because its time has come? What’s the first action step to experiment and test it out?
🔋 Right Effort. If we are ambitious, we might just be builders. I’m just getting introduced to Dr. Gena Gorlin’s work. What I appreciate about this post and her idea of “the middle way” is to get clear on what is worth our effort. I think about this with dialing in our Right Effort, to consider our motivation around our ambitions, our aspiration, and aligning out effort accordingly. What is worth the hard work? She notes in terms of operating from the builder's mindset: What, if anything, are you trying to build? What will it take for you to build it? Is it worth it?
The lesson can be applied with different levels of effort (we don’t have to drive hard on all our ambitions):
What’s an ambition this year that’s so important to you it is worth the investment of your hard work?
What’s an ambition this year you want to put a little bit of energy against to keep the flame burning?
What’s an ambition that is a seedling of an idea against which you can put a little effort for creative exploration and experimentation?
📚 Reading: The Resilience Plan: A Strategic Approach to Optimizing Your Work Performance and Mental Health by Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier
This book is a wise, practical guide to putting in place a personalized action plan that will keep you operating at your best. Written with professionals in mind as a quick read with steps that are infinitely doable. Learn more here.
🎙️ Listening: The Art of Feel Good Productivity with Ali Abdaal on Everyday Better with Leah Smart
I appreciated what Ali Abdaal is championing in this episode around helping us find joy in our work. It's very aligned with Sustainable Ambition with him thinking about productivity along the lines of making our efforts intentional, enjoyable, and sustainable. Yes!
The Sustainable Ambition Podcast
Join me for conversations with experts, authors, and friends on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.
🎙️ E126: Building Resilience: Practical Strategies for Personal and Professional Well-Being with Marie-Hélène Pelletier
Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed or burned out? Rather than push or grind through it as so many of us try to do, Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier offers a different approach: a resilience plan. A resilience plan is a proactive strategy for managing our resilience so we can operate at our best and achieve our goals and ambitions without burning out. With over 20 years of experience in clinical psychology and advisory workplace psychology, Dr. Pelletier sees firsthand how this practice can benefit workers and teams.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
🎙️ E124: Navigating the Fluid Future of Work with Connie Steele
The world of work is changing, and it’s more important than ever to be clear on who we are and what we want in order to navigate the evolving landscape. In this conversation, Connie Steele, a future of work and life expert and management consultant, discusses the fluid future of work and what it will take to succeed at leading ourselves and others in 2024 and beyond.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, and more. Get it here.
Work with Me!
I have a few openings in my spring coaching schedule, and I’d love to work with you!
You might be:
Exploring what’s next for work as you stand at an inflection point
Looking to plan your next life and work arc
Seeking to better align life and work
Wanting to dial in your ambitions and your effort
Wanting to make a bigger impact at work and understand your leadership brand
Let’s talk! Schedule a FREE 30-minute Exploratory call.
“Building resilience in a strategic way will allow us to navigate the demands that we’re facing from a place of higher strengths and health.”
— Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier, author of The Resilience Plan