Guiding Your Ambition
What do you want to be when you grow up? What are your goals this year? How do you envision your ideal life? These questions have been asked to all of us at some point, usually around January 1st as we ring in the new year with dreamy hopes of the overhaul this calendar year will hold.
The better question, in my opinion, is "How do you know what you want to achieve?".
For years I've looked outside myself for clues about what I should aspire to. From my choice of study in university, to my career path, the reasons behind why I picked them were loaded with expectations from my parents. And as an adult, I am 100% responsible for those choices regardless of who I believe influenced them. The point here is to take a closer look at not just what you want to achieve, but to understand the guiding forces that led to those desired outcomes. Because no matter what, you'll be the one holding prize (good or bad) at the end of the day.
I believe we're all here to live life not just to its fullest, but to our fullest potential. And if you're anything like me, when you take a scan around your own life there are probably lots of opportunities for expansion. Lately I've noticed a frantic energy within myself, almost a compulsion to uplevel literally everything: my physical health, job, business, home, marriage, finances. Finally I had to ask myself where all the pressure was coming from. Ambition is no stranger in my life. The chaotic sense that things urgently needed to be better? Now that was foreign to me.
What I discovered, after some much needed time with my hands deep in the garden, was that I'd allowed myself to get caught up in someone else's ambition, and it was completely derailing me from the path I'd chosen. Actually, it was many "someones". I love a good YouTube tutorial and find it to be a platform I actually learn from. Yet lately I've found myself clicking on videos hyping up the "get rich with AI" culture, and my curious nature wanted to explore. It's one thing for me to watch videos when I need to learn how to use a certain AI tool or function but the clickbait "tutorials" that promise piles of cash instantly are an entirely different beast.
Not only are these a huge waste of time but they're so enticing they can hijack your ambition and steer it completely off course. Next thing you know, you're criticizing everything you used to love about your career or business and believing you need to catch up, or else you'll be left behind.
No one except you knows what you truly want to achieve in your life. Seeking outside validation and allowing external influences in those decisions is a recipe for disappointment. Maybe it's time we all started trusting ourselves a little more and listening to what a life lived at full potential truly means.