starting with dictionary definitions of ambition and success because we want to strip them down from all the associations you may have made about both words. Think of a house that someone has painted over again and again, and that needs to be stripped back to a shell and rebuilt to achieve a home that’s redesigned and redecorated properly as well as beautifully. The same has happened to these big concepts of ambition and success. They have become overloaded with the meanings you’ve absorbed around you. One of the things we’re aiming to do is to help you redefine ambition and success on your terms.
So let’s get to the basics. According to the Oxford Dictionary ambition is:
A strong desire to do or achieve something
Desire and determination to achieve success
On the online Dictionary.com we find ambition described 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
In the Oxford Dictionary there are various definitions of success:
The accomplishment of an aim or purpose
The attainment of fame, wealth, or social status
A person or thing that achieves desired aims or attains fame, wealth
All the above definitions are food for thought aren’t they? It’s evident that the classic definitions of ambition are about wanting to accomplish an aim that is connected to success, and that the overall definitions of success are based on accomplishing goals that are invariably connected to wealth and status.
By flagging up these definitions we may have depressed you a teeny bit. There may be a thought at the back of your mind that there are people who have a knack of rising to the top and making money and having everything, but you’re not that type. But you don’t have to be that or any type.
“ A definition of ambition based on seeking and aspiring to something gives each of us the opportunity to choose what we want to achieve. ”
Who says we have to accept dictionary definitions? Think of all those modern words that only in recent years have entered dictionaries, like Google, text and smartphone. Who says ambition has to go hand in hand with success, or that success is dependent on a certain type of ambition? If ambition is the desire to achieve a goal and that goal is happiness, or fulfilment, isn’t that success? How about if you substitute the word ‘wealth’ with ‘prosperity’, and the word ‘fame’ with ’recognition’? Think about this and it will click: you have an approachable vision of success that relates to you.
So let’s look at how you can reformulate ambition and success in a way that works for you.
Real Ambition Isn’t Ruthless
Over the decades, ambition has come to be associated with a type of ruthless, overconfident person who will stop at nothing to achieve what they’re after. Ambition is associated with dog-eats-dog environments where people are hard-nosed and heartless, self-obsessed and egocentric.
But why should a desire to make a dream come true mean having to be a caricature of ambition? We’re certainly not going to give you the secrets of ruthless successful people that work while leaving out the bad bits, because this book is about developing a holistic approach. When your ambition nurtures you, we believe that the rest follows.
Old-style ambition has simply fallen flat on its face. We know that thanks to one word: recession. The most ambitious people, those who were the most ruthless and the wealthiest, wiped out entire economies. We don’t propose to get into a discussion on economics and politics here. But we hope the brief reminder of this period in our history will help to show that you don’t need the traits traditionally associated with ambition. Being ruthless, cut-throat and hard won’t serve you as a person or your wellbeing, and won’t benefit humanity.
“ Ambition is often seen as achieving things at the expense of others. ”
Whether you have a specific dream or you’re looking for a way to create a specific life, you may be wondering whether you need a watered-down version of ruthless, some sort of healthy go-go-go. The problem with old-style ambition is that any form of go-go-go can lead to imbalance. Think of workaholics and anyone you know who works relentlessly and doesn’t have a life and you'll get the picture.
One of the blocks stopping you might even be a fear that to make your dreams happen you'll have to give up friends and hobbies and isolate yourself. This certainly isn’t the kind of success we have in mind.
Old-style Ambition is Burnout – Real Ambition is Balance
If you believe that success is either down to luck or working at your goals non-stop that’s not surprising. This is the society we live in. Our TV is dominated by reality TV stars who’ve become famous for not really doing anything, the media is full of overnight success stories, yet all around us we see people working hard to find jobs or keep their jobs.
“ We live in a dynamic, forceful, moving, active society. We have to constantly do and achieve. Yet this is a burnt out and stressed society. ”
As somebody now working to help people find inner peace and maintain this peace in their outer lives, mind-body-movement coach Kele Baker is acutely aware of how stressed people are in modern lives. Her long-time interest in Chinese medicine and philosophy helped her deal with her own stress and breakdown as a young actress in New York and she maintained this interest through moving on to different occupations as a ballroom dance teacher, Alexander Technique practitioner, co-director of a dance school business, as a choreographer and working on one of the UK’s most popular TV programmes.
Baker believes that our Western lives need ancient wisdom to realign them. ‘We need balance, rest and rejuvenation.’ It might seem odd to talk about resting in a book about achieving success. After all, shouldn’t that come later? Might rest not turn into laziness? Does rest really fit in with ambition?
That’s the thing about real ambition: you can evaluate what you want. If there’s a way to achieve your dreams without burning out from exhaustion, wouldn’t you rather do that?
“ 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