Ambitious for what?

Wake-Up Call #6

Ambition has always been a fraught concept, layered with equal helpings of disdain and admiration.

If you want to get ahead, you’ve got to be ambitious.

Caesar died on the sword of Brutus in the name of being overly-ambitious

Those pesky Zoomers and younger Millennials, got no ambition any more.

Oh, yeah, that person, their ambition is getting the best of them.

Ambition is a necessary source-fuel for anything worth doing.

When it comes to ambition, you kinda can’t win.

Is it a good thing, a bad thing, just a thing?

Dictionary.com defines ambition as, “an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment.”

Even there, we see a mild moral overlay, a slant toward ambition being connected to self-interest. And, sure, it often is. But, I’ve been seeing an interesting shift in the conversation around, and the expression of, ambition. Especially when it comes to work.

Over the last decade, I’ve heard a similar refrain from leaders in organizations, decrying an utter lack of ambition in the“rising” generation. Unmotivated. Quiet quitters. They' just don’t work hard, in the way generation before them did. What is “wrong” with them?

Turns out, not a damn thing.

And, if you’ve been paying attention, it’s not just about the up-and-comers any more. We’re seeing a broad-based, trickle-up rewiring around work and ambition.

It’s not that people have become less ambitious, it’s that they’ve become differently ambitious.

Ambitious for ease

Ambitious for peace-of-mind

Ambitious to effect real, lasting change

Ambitious for simplicity, stillness and calm

Ambitious for freedom from, as well as freedom to.

Ambitious to not be easily tracked, found, and expected to be on

Ambitious for a planet that remains vital and sustainable down the road

Ambitious to be seen and celebrated, and not have to perform other identities

Ambitious to feel like who we are, and what we do, really does matter

Ambitious for a more humane mix of work, love, peace, and play

Ambitious for time and space to do everything, or nothing

Ambitious for belonging and the embrace of community

Ambitious to surround ourselves with people we love

Ambitious for enduring health, in body and mind

Ambitious to not feel like our days are brittle

Ambitious to help others be lifted up in life

Ambitious for agency and meaning

Ambitious for a sense of security

Ambitious for genuine hope

Ambitious to breathe

We’ve become ambitious for what, if you believe thousands of years of wisdom, science, and poetry, truly moves life’s needle.

If our work supports the life we want to live, even better, integrates the full expression of our changed ambitions, that’s fantastic. There are many amazing workplaces, people and experiences that not only support, but celebrate this more expansive ethos.

But, increasingly, if yours does not…

• Rising up a ladder that was never quite built for you, buh-bye ambition

• Surrendering years in the name of something you care little about, nope

• Expected to give it your all, while feeling perpetually dispensable, oh please

• Contorting yourself to fit your weirdness into their uniformity, nah

• Surrendering your life to a culture of exploitation, nuh-uh

• Surrendering meaning, mattering, and joy, gah

• Trusting the system to be there for you, ha

The ambition for these has waned, because the belief they were “just the way it has to be” has been eviscerated. And the ripple of disillusionment is rapidly tumbling into an ever-expanding mosh pit of disaffected X-ers who still have a meaningful amount of work runway ahead of them. Boomers? Jury’s out.

Thing is…

In a post-pandemic world, where our non-negotiables have become far more visceral and existential, we’re just not okay walking away from our humanity based on the promise that a portion of it will one-day get dealt back to us, if we just stick it out long enough.

Yes, we all still need to live in the real world, where money and security and stability and some level of expectation of growth and progress along a path matter.

But, so does our humanity. Not someday, but today.

I’m ambitious for that.

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And, that brings us to…

Wake-Up Call Prompt #6

Simple question today - what are you ambitious for?

And, how has that changed over the last 5 years, if at all?

Journal about it. Ask the question of someone close to you, listen and share.

And, if you’re inclined, drop your thoughts in the comments below.