How ambitious are you? More importantly, how ambitious do you want to be in different areas of life and work? Today’s guest, Kathy Oneto, takes the long view on goals, especially for those who are naturally inclined to overwork until we burn out. Instead, we can be more intentional by toggling the dials of right ambition, right effort, and right time up and down as we move through different seasons.
In this conversation, Kathy and I discuss managing ambition anxiety, how to know if you’re bumping up against what Gay Hendricks calls an “Upper Limit Problem” versus your “truest fit reduced ambition,” mapping energy vs. urgency, and how to know when ambitions or life seasons have truly shifted versus handling a short-term setback.
More About Kathy: Kathy Oneto is a strategy executive and life-work coach who is passionate about helping people succeed on their terms at work and in life. She is the host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast. Kathy champions being consciously ambitious and crafting fulfilling work from decade to decade without sacrificing your life or yourself. She is the author of the Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook and Planner: Your Life plus Work Resilience Prescription and My Little Book of Curiosity: 26 Inquiries to Inspire What’s Next for Your Life and Work.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
Is this an ambition I want? How much effort do I want to put into it? What you wanted at once time might not match where you are now in your life and career. You might need to re-evaluate your ambitions, and dial the effort you are putting towards them up or down.
Sometimes ambition can clash with what we’re capable of, and that contributes to not feeling like it’s worth the effort. Looking at it through the lens of sustainable ambition: we can add structure to support our ambition and current capabilities.
Four areas to consider: your vision for your life and your work, what your core values are, what you want to give and contribute in the world and your community, and what it is that you love. If you’re starting to have to “grind” then one of those 4 elements as probably shifted.
✅ Try This Next: Dial-in your ambition. For any given goal, task, project, or area of your life, decide: How good do I want to be? Good, very good, the best? How much effort do I want to put into this?
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Kathy on the web, IG: @sustainableambition, LinkedIn, YouTube
Kathy’s podcast: Sustainable Ambition
Article: Reclaim Ambition on Your Terms
Jenny’s private BFF Community for Heart-Based Business owners
📚 Books Mentioned
Cathy’s book: Sustainable Ambition 12-Month Workbook and Planner: Your Life plus Work Resilience Prescription, My Little Book of Curiosity: 26 Inquiries to Inspire What’s Next for Your Life and Work
Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation by Ayelet Fishbach
The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World by Dorie Clark
It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The world's best-selling book by Paul Arden
🎧 Related Episodes
Sustainable Ambition: E93 on Dialing in Your Ambitions with Kathy Oneto, 48. On Yes! to Free Time & High Net Freedom with Jenny Blake, 60. On The Success Factor: A Blueprint for High Performance with Ruth Gotian
Pivot: Pivot x Career Pathfinder Playlist, 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert
Free Time: 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo, 035: The Long Game with Dorie Clark, 143: Exploring Time, Money, and Energy Capacity with Tara McMullin and Charlie Gilkey (Replay), 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin
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