My Ambition

I have been reflecting on my ambition these last couple of months. 

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Miki is now at daycare 4 days a week, and J and I alternate the Wednesdays – which gives us quality 1-1 time with her. With the daycare drop off done, a second coffee and a snack to reset – realistically, I start my day around 10.30am. Sometimes I fit a load of laundry in; I do a grocery shop if I step out to get lunch; it’s 4.30/5pm and I wrap up the work day so I can start on dinner. Between meetings, phone calls and deadlines, the work days whizz by!

For a while when I first returned to work mode, I found myself being a lot more efficient in the available hour. There is a sweet spot of motivation, focus and enough time for the task at hand. But recently, this efficiency has started fading. 

In the eagerness to “work” again, I put a bunch of things out there, said yes to a whole other bunch, and in a blurry fashion – I found myself with a whole lot of (other people’s) deadlines to meet, and not actually spending time on the work I want to spend time on. 

And it is taking a lot longer to recalibrate this imbalance!

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In my limited hours of a work day, I am (now) very conscious of spending my time towards my goals, and not someone else’s goals. 

Even though my immediate domestic life has contracted in a day to day way, in the timescale of a/your child’s life, my ambition has found new vastness, and my convictions new strength. 

So then, what are my goals? And what of this ambition? 

[What am I excited by? / What do I care about? / What do I not yet know? / What is a story only I can tell?]

I care about people, the planet, and our collective humanity. 

I am excited by the multiple ways in which we (can) move through this world – and how to foster new and different ways to keep moving through this world. 

I value self-reflection and to constantly (un)learn what we understand about ourselves and the world around us. 

I believe in the power of storytelling, in our agency to tell the stories we know, and in the urgency to listen to the stories we don’t know. 

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This October, I spent ten days away on a work trip. And dived straight into an intensive project week. 

These 3 weeks probably pushed back the administrative work which then tipped the balance of I am now needing to recalibrate time wise – but it was a glimpse into what is possible! Of the ways I spent my time on “work” that I would like to keep going (sans the leaving J to solo parent part).

I attended ANAT Spectra up in the Sunshine Coast; spent a few days in Brisbane visiting Kith and Kin at GOMA (it was like going to church), and had a planning day with Scotia and Creative Recovery Network; was a provocateur at the GenerateGC lab supporting the artist cohort in the development of their practice and ideas. I came back to Melbourne and spent a week immersed in deep research and thinking with new collaborators along the Birrarung.

Some big highlights that I have been processing still –

1. For the first time in 10-12 years, I was not involved in the conference at all! Not part of the team planning, or facilitating or speaking; not representing any organisation; and not knowing a lot of the other attendees and therefore not needing to be “on!” I could participate as little or as much depending on my capacity for the day. And I found myself to be more curious and there was space to ponder and wonder! 
2. I started my days with a swim at the Sunshine Coast. And I ended my days with a swim at the Gold Coast. God, I love the ocean. 
3. I love the river just as much. We spent time at Garambi Baan (Laughing Waters) and along the North Bank in the city. What a privilege to move between the lushness of nature and the bustle of the city! And to do this for “work!”
4. The awe of being on Sea Country with Gubbi Gubbi Elder Lyndon Davies on a boat with the whales around us, the awe of witnessing Kith and Kin, and the awe of sitting with Birrarung and all the layers of Country here where I have made home. No words. I can only recommend we continue to make space for these experiences as a regular. 
5. For 3 weeks, I was in community with artists and thinkers and organisers who care about people, place and community. What a privilege to be included in these communities, even if they are sometimes temporary ones. 

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This year, I have also started the Mastery of Systems Leadership with Small Giants Academy. I was hungry for a space to hold some of my thinking around big complex ideas. I was hungry for someone else to hold that space for me (instead of being the one to hold space for others). And I was hungry for more and new people to have these conversations with. 

In the homework tasks from the last class, we were asked to reflect on how we exercise our agency in the state of the polycrisis we are living in. 

There is something in the way I have meandered through that particular 3 weeks of work that feels like this big exercise in this very agency, like an antidote to the polycrisis, though I’m not sure I know how to articulate it fully, or that I’ve yet to completely join the dots.

But it is there in my gut, it is intuitive, it is fluid, it is easy, it is stretching my capacity, it is warm, it is full, it is nourishing, and it is joyful. 

Like my ambition.

And I am going to enjoy that.