Sustainable Ambition: How to Prioritize What Matters to Thrive in Life and Work

“A revolutionary approach to achieving goals without sacrificing well-being.”
— Greg McKeown, author of New York Times bestsellers Essentialism and Effortless

Work-life balance is a myth. We need a better, more sustainable way to achieve our life and work goals.

You want to pursue meaningful work and succeed professionally, and you know that personal pursuits matter and fuel your happiness, too. But in today's world, the pressure to do it all can leave you stretched thin and questioning everything—your direction, your choices, and even your ambitions themselves. Time-management techniques and productivity hacks aren’t enough. The endless search for balance feels like chasing a mirage.

The answer? Sustainable Ambition, a transformative method from life-work strategist Kathy Oneto that shows you how to direct your ambitions wisely. Drawing from research, expert interviews, coaching insights, and personal experience, this book reveals a proven, practical framework across three interconnected components—Right Ambition, Right Time, and Right Effort. When these elements are aligned, you can pursue your goals with more joy, peace, and ease. This approach empowers you to:

• Keep your ambitions while making space for your life

• Evaluate a goal or opportunity to determine if the trade-off is worth it

• Be strategic about where you invest your hard work

• Avoid burnout while pursuing your goals

While not a magical solution, Sustainable Ambition offers simple, effective practices to help you make confident choices aligned with what matters most to you now. You don’t have to give up your goals—you can dream big, shape the life and work you want, and thrive.

Kathy Oneto is an executive and life-work coach, speaker, and facilitator who is committed to helping people thrive on their terms, both in life and in work. She is also a strategy executive who bridges her two worlds by applying strategic approaches to life and work decisions and practices.

Kathy is the founder of Sustainable Ambition® and host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast. Her mission is to champion more expansive views of success and ambition and help people craft a personal and work life that offers more joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment—a life that lets them be ambitious with more adventure and ease and less angst.

Kathy started asking questions at a young age about success, ambition, and navigating life and work and has used her work and career as a touchstone to guide decisions at different stages in her life. As she reflected on her adult life and career, she found that she had been intuitively living and working according to the Sustainable Ambition Method. Today, she works with clients and company employees in applying the method and helping them find personal motivation in their work and goals, architect their next life and work arcs, and manage their effort for more resilience and sustainability.

As a strategist, Kathy has had a twenty-five-year career working across business, branding, innovation, and talent. In her work today, she helps organizations illuminate their most compelling value and build strategic road maps to guide sustainable action. Proud of her public education, Kathy has a BS in commerce from the University of Virginia and received her MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Her writing has appeared in Fast Company, Brandingmag, and MediaPost. She’s been a guest lecturer at the business schools at Berkeley, the University of San Francisco, Duke University, and the University of Colorado.

Kathy lives in San Francisco with her husband and the fog. As a former triathlete and marathon runner, she’s happiest building up her resilience and sustainability outdoors, where you can often find her running in Golden Gate Park, walking the streets of her city or one she’s traveled to, or enjoying the experience of reading with the sun on her face. You can connect with her at SustainableAmbition.com.