Ambition needs balance and it might take a while to get there. ”
There’s no doubt that the pace of our modern lives, especially in cities, is fast and demanding. It’s also inevitable that one of your desires, more often than not work, will become all consuming, particularly in a competitive field or an economic climate where jobs aren’t easy to find. But if you only feed that strand in your life, what will happen to the other areas? If you had a garden and only looked after the roses and ignored the rest, it wouldn’t be a very pretty sight would it?
Recent research by the National Institute of Mental Health1 in the USA showed that the more successful people are, the more key parts of the brain tend to ’talk’ with each other during a resting state. In other words, success and satisfaction with life boosts the brain and makes it stronger.
You can start thinking success and boosting your brain right now. Can you learn something new? Can you improve your finances by striking new deals for your utilities? Can you give yourself a new mental challenge like learning some basics in a new language so you can speak when you’re on holiday? Can you make a simple lifestyle change that will make your days even marginally better?
As a coach working both in business and the arts, Dannie-Lu Carr observes people exhausting themselves hoping this will lead to what they want. Yet she’s adamant that ‘over-focusing’ is counterproductive and working to the point of exhaustion is not what gets you from ambition to success. ‘It could take time to achieve your main dream, so you need balance in your life in order to keep going and not give up. Things have to be in balance: love, self-respect, leisure, self-nurturing, friends.’
Anyone who has made the transition from unhealthy to healthy probably recognizes that balance is far from easy. Getting into the habit of shopping for fresh food, learning to make wholesome food, finding a fitness routine that doesn’t feel like a regime, resisting anything digital before sleeping – none of this is easy when it’s new. On a larger scale, a balanced life requires thinking, planning, trying, doing. The process can feel a little sticky to begin with, but then this is what you will want to embrace all the time.
By addressing all areas in your life, what you are effectively building is a sound foundation that will boost the bit that might be toughest to achieve. In other words, you are creating an inner support system that nurtures you.
Are we really saying that ambition can be nurturing?
Real Ambition Is Nurturing
Old-style ambition doesn’t nurture us as individuals, nor does it nurture a healthy work environment, community or the world at large. Real ambition, however, can not only sustain our dreams, it can sustain our wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.
Before you wonder whether we’re getting all abstract and New-Agey, bear with us a little. Have you ever done any of the following?
• Made an effort to recycle
• Sponsored someone who was raising money for a cause
• Taken care of a sick relative or friend
• Donated goods to a charity
• Taught somebody something you know
• Made somebody a birthday cake
• Treated a friend to a night out.
What we’re getting at is that it’s likely that you’re already doing something nurturing. You’re already not selfish. As Baker puts it, we’re aware that we’re ‘over-taking from ourselves and the environment’. We know we have to put something back in to ourselves as individuals – and to the planet as a whole.
“ Ambition is having drive and enthusiasm towards a clear goal for a positive purpose. ”
We live in very difficult times politically and economically. We watch the news and more often than not it’s gruesome. But we also live in very exciting times of change. Carr points to the new wave of ‘social-preneurs’ like former jewellery business couple John and Cynthia Hardy who set up the eco-friendly and holistic Green School2 in Bali, Indonesia: ‘Social preneurs are creating new paradigms for success in business on an individual level and community level, so it’s a win-win for everyone.’
One of the reasons we felt it was the right to time to write about ambition is because of these new paradigms that are emerging. Ambition might not be new, but it’s not static. It’s ever-changing.
Ambition Is Human – And Humans Evolve
We know from anthropology that wherever there are communities of human beings, there will always be humans who want more. In a Time Magazine cover story on ambition in 2005,3 anthropologist Edward Lowe at Soka University of America was quoted as saying that ‘Ambition is an evolutionary product’. What’s more it has always differed. ‘No matter how social status is defined, there are certain people in every community who aggressively pursue it and others who aren’t so aggressive.’ Lowe spelt out for the magazine that people want more than the basics. ‘It’s fundamentally human to be prestige conscious,’ he said.
In an article we published in 2012,4 ‘Is ambition a dirty word?’, our big question was whether conflicted attitudes were holding women back. What our journalist Anita Chaudhuri found through her research was that both men and women want to achieve recognition. However, whereas men don’t have a problem owning up to being ambitious and thrive on competitiveness, women shy away from being seen as ego-driven. Men tend to focus on one ambition, while women have more of a variety of goals.
A central question in this article was why there were fewer women at boardroom level. Fewer women seemed driven to succeed in male-dominated worlds like finance; instead they seemed drawn to more ‘caring’ or ‘female’ areas like charities or fashion. Yet the piece concluded by pointing to a change in attitudes as a result of the recession, with a younger female generation feeling more comfortable about ambition and older generations of men realizing that old-style ambition comes at a price
“ Success for me now is about hanging out with my kids (aged 8 and 10) when they come home from school. I know that when I’m stressed I don’t switch off and so I don’t engage with them. ”
In just four years since we ran this piece, we believe the meaning of ambition has shifted and changed even more for both men and women. Both genders are seeking ambition that is acceptable, natural and positive.
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