Ep 30 – Ambition: Yay or Nay

 

 

 

What can you expect from this episode? 

• 02:23 – What is ambition?

• 03:30 – The thin line between ambition and greed 

• 04:25 – Consequences of prioritizing ambition

• 07:38 – The art of balancing ambition 

• 08:30 – The one question you must ask yourself on your ambitions What is ambition? 

A drive that propels us into action towards achieving our desired goals be it wealth, fame, glory, power – whatever your poison is. Ambition is that fuel that keeps a lot of our engines going, we want to achieve more, w e want to be our best. For a lot of us who have strived hard to get where we are, our ambitions are dear to our heart. We wear our ambitions proudly cause they are a part of our DNA, that fighting spirit that fuels us to keep at it against all odds to keep going, they are our precious resources we swear by, cause who would we be if not that right? 

According to Psychology Today, Ambition can arise from multiple factors from parental role models and expectations, our birth order and sibling equations, feelings of inferiority or superiority, fear of failure and rejection, intelligence, past achievements, competitiveness, envy, anger, revenge, and the list is endless. 

While we may all have started with small ambitions – Oh god let me just win this race on sports day, get that house cup for my team, top the class in my board exams, get the best job offer in placements, secure admissions in the top 3 not top 5 B Schools, obviously get placed in Day -1 or 2 or 5, and then get the pre placement offer and then the quickest promotions and hikes year after year, a 1 bedroom house in Nariman Point, a Mercedes C Class maybe, a farmhouse in Alibaug. Do you see where I am going here? Is there an end to these wants? More often than not, no. Because you achieve something and then you see someone else in your circle 2 steps ahead and you suddenly aspire to be 4 steps ahead. 

Like that quote by Mahatma Gandhi,

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” 

There’s a very thin line between ambition and greed and once you cross over, the consequences of that drive can quickly turn unpleasant.

There is a price you pay for putting success over all else and it starts becoming costlier. 

   #1. Self-neglect

The first person to pay the price for this ambition is of course you but you pay this price unknowingly unconsciously for a really long time. It is like that auto debit mandate you are not even aware of any more. You neglect pausing from your ambitions to unwind and slow down instead you load up on more caffeinated drinks, sacrifice good hours of sleep, and compromise your physical health and mental well-being in your pursuit to glory. 

 

   #2. Perfectionism

We all know this, we set ridiculously high standards for ourselves which leads to burnout, loss of self-esteem every time we fall even a little short of it. You then try to overcompensate by putting in more efforts cause surely that cannot go wrong, but of course that just accelerates the downward spiral. The same ambition that was a motivation now becomes a detractor. You lose your will to do anything but the drive for perfectionism keeps pushing your hollow body to exert itself more and more. Because if you don’t achieve all that you aspire to, who are you really? Every piece of your identity, self-worth, and being comes from achieving that external milestone.

 

   #3. Poor Relationships

This one is a hard one to digest, but our closest family and friends are often who pay a heavier price for these never-ending ambitions. Excessive ambition can make us throw away our relationships by not giving it enough time, by taking it for granted, or simply by not putting any effort or making it a priority. Journey to success eventually becomes lonely closer to the top if you don’t pay heed to the people around you. This is often one of the largest regrets successful people have. 

  

   #4. Constant Insecurity

When all of your identity and worth is measured in material achievements and belongings in comparison to those around you, there is constant insecurity. A feeling of not being enough, a feeling of needing to be the best. 

I’ve seen this pattern most in B School graduates. Having been toppers individually in our respective small ponds, when you put them together, chaos is exactly what happens. Our self-inflated egos take a beating – really someone else can be better than me? Instead of learning from them, we make it a mission to bring them down so we can feel secure. The same ambition causes anguish and despair. That is not healthy to say the least. 

Does that mean we all have to become monks who are desireless? Well, the scriptures do call such a yogi a person of perfection, but maybe there is a path in between. I Believe that transformation is possible in smaller doses than trying to move mountains in the first attempt. 

So no for those of us who have thrived in the material world of success for so long, we cannot become overnight monks, but there is something we can still do in the interim. 

Like Aristotle’s take on ambition – He says,

 “Virtue is a disposition to aim at the intermediate between excess and deficiency, which, unlike the excess or the deficiency, is a form of success and therefore worthy of praise.”

We can begin by asking ourselves a simple question, for every goal we set for ourselves, why do I want to achieve it? 

This simple question can give you clarity on what forms the basis of your ambition

Is it based out of insecurities? He has that so I want this and that – an excessive list of wants fuelled by greed or is It based on more collective intentions? Or is it based on a genuine need from within – one that actually takes you up the top of Maslow’s Pyramid to self-actualization. 

Thanks to our parents the needs for food, water, security, were taken care of, so we didn’t really start from the bottom of the pyramid there. But what we fail to realise is that it doesn’t mean we can directly go all the way top to the self-actualisation needs. There are steps in the interim of love and self-esteem that are reasonably important for us to feel secure before we go into actualizing otherwise we only are attempting to self-aggrandize ourselves and bloating our misplaced ego further. 

So instead of being ambitious for all the wrong egotistical reasons, let us choose to channelize that drive towards needs that serve beyond just us. Every time you set a goal for yourself ask why it’s important and what you will gain if you were to achieve it. If the answer is good enough then fuel that ambition and go after it. If it is not very convincing maybe let it brew a little in your subconscious mind until you shape it in a way that serves you in the long run. 

Are you uplifting yourself and the people around with your unique skill sets to make a mark in this world – that defines ambition for me. The power is always in the collective. But that’s my personal preference. 

Like all things in life whether ambition is good or bad is simply defined by your attitude. You can use it as a constructive tool to motivate you to keep going, or it could be a destructive tool to feed your ego over and over again. The choice is yours and you must choose wisely for these decisions to have severe ramifications, if not today, someday soon. 

What are your thoughts on ambition? Is it good, acceptable, holy or something you can live without? I’m curious to know – Drop me a message across wherever you are following my journey and I would love to debate this further. Or Join the Being Meraklis Tribe, a community of like minded peers on the journey to self-development, and share your thoughts there.