In the pursuit of personal and professional success, ambition fuels our dreams, motivates us to strive for greatness, and pushes us beyond our comfort zones. However, like any powerful tool, ambition should be handled with care.
Ambitious people crave accomplishments, and they’re willing to take more risks and spend more effort to reach their goals. So the more ambition the better, right? No.
Ambition doesn’t guarantee success, and too much of it can do more harm than good. Excessive ambition can cause catastrophic failure and damage reputations and relationships. Meanwhile, lack of ambition usually leads to inertia, laziness and under-achievement.
Let’s take a closer look at the dual nature of ambition.
What Is Ambition?
Ambition is an ardent desire for achievement, success, prestige and/or the ultimate fulfillment of one’s aspirations. It’s a yearning that drives individuals to work toward their goals and persevere in the face of adversity.
Ambition can be healthy or unhealthy. Healthy ambition is the moderate striving for achievement or distinction, while unhealthy ambition is the immoderate striving for such. Healthy ambition is individually enabling and socially constructive, while unhealthy ambition is inhibiting and destructive–more like greed.
The Benefits of Ambition
1. Motivation and Drive
Ambition ignites motivation, dedication and persistence, pushing us to embrace challenges, stay focused and work through obstacles.
2. Continuous Growth and Improvement
Ambition fosters a mindset of continuous growth and improvement. Ambitious people seek opportunities to expand their knowledge and acquire new skills that promote personal and professional development.
3. Self-Confidence
Accomplishing goals provides a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that boosts self-confidence and self-esteem.
The Pitfalls of Ambition
1. Burnout and Stress
The relentless pursuit of success may cause individuals to neglect their well-being by sacrificing crucial aspects of their personal lives, such as relationships, self-care and leisure time.
2. Tunnel Vision and Unethical Behavior
Extremely ambitious individuals can develop tunnel vision, becoming excessively focused on their own ambitions at the expense of others.
3. Unrealistic Expectations and Dissatisfaction
When people become fixated on the next milestone and neglect their achievements, ambition can lead to a perpetual sense of frustration and dissatisfaction, as well as constant feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.
4. Disproportionate Fear of Failure
Excessive ambition can cause people to be so obsessed with success that they’re terrified of failure. They see it as a devastating loss from which it would be impossible to recover. But success can’t be achieved without the willingness to accept and learn from our mistakes.
The Right Balance
According to Forbes, developing a healthy level of ambition involves focusing equally on three key areas: performance, achievement and growth.
Performance ambition focuses on realizing greater results for ourselves and our organization and emphasizes setting realistic goals. Achievement focuses on desired rewards, what we hope to gain from our efforts, such as wealth, security or recognition. Finally, growth ambition emphasizes improving technical and personal mastery in order to better achieve other goals.
