One lasting fallout from COVID’s enforced quiet time: the ongoing reassessment of personal values, including, for some, a reconsideration of what ambition and success mean, and even the value of these terms. As Simone Stolzoff, author of the recent book The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work, put it in a recent article, “From “quiet quitting” to the “Great Resignation,” ambition—or at least flaunting one’s ambition—seems to have fallen out of fashion.”
Well, hold on a minute. Stolzoff is one of a handful of recent authors proclaiming the downsides of focusing on career above all else, but abandoning ambition is not the solution. While working all the time and ignoring other aspects of life can contribute to burnout, depression and loneliness, you can be ambitious about a whole range of things — building ever-stronger relationships, volunteering in your community, donating to worthy causes, growing spiritually or intellectually, learning a new sport. Also, “ambition” is a word that encapsulates some very valuable traits such as hard work, vision, enthusiasm, and the pursuit of excellence, characteristics that contribute to engagement and zest for life. Being ambitious, but broadly, contributes to stamina, which you need to stay engaged in your career for the long haul.
The key to a happy, successful life might be to expand your ambition-scape. Here are three ways to think about ambition today.
Take a Flexible View of Career Success
So many new jobs, so little time. Taking a more inclusive view of ambition also applies to the career part of your life. The rapid pace of change today means that the career peak you envisioned when you were younger may no longer exist, or may not be as possible as it once was. Having a flexible view of career success allows you to let go of an old “career ladder” you might have envisioned, and be open to new types of work that come along. No one who graduated college even a few years ago entered with a vision of being an AI prompt engineer.
Similarly, if you work in an industry that has contracted. shifted or all but disappeared, holding up an old yardstick of success can leave you feeling discouraged and unsuccessful. Being flexible about your career path and open to changing roles or industries can increase your enthusiasm and engagement at work. It also expands your experience as a person. And, let’s face it, can keep you employed even in changing times.
Think about Wealth More Broadly
A broad view of ambition can also apply even with something as seemingly tangible as making money, says Jennifer Wines, a former wealth advisor turned author of the new book Invisible Wealth.
Wines spent a decade working at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Fidelity, advising ultra-high net worth individuals and families. In this role, she saw plenty of people with multi-million dollar portfolios who were not leading rich lives. “I have anecdotes for days from thousands of client conversations with people who had more money than they could literally ever spend in their lives, yet were hyper-focused on making more — to the exclusion of going and enjoying a show, spending time with family, or taking care of their own health. It is this antiquated narrative that you should work, work, work, make money, money, money—so all the other aspects that make for richness in life fall by the wayside.”
Wines came up with a new rubric for wealth, and in her book and workshops, she identifies five ways to define wealth. Money and investments are one measure, definitely. But there are others: health and quality of life; knowledge, status and influence; time, energy and experiences; and relationships with self and others. She advises people to identify what else they really care about and build a life inclusive of those assets. “Not to negate the importance of money, but you’re wealthy when you have an abundance of what you value, which is ever-evolving and dynamic. Acquiring that is what will make you wealthy.”
Defy the “Presence = Productivity” Paradigm
When it comes to leading teams, a hyper-focus on putting in long hours can detract from a broad form of ambition. Nor do longer hours necessarily mean more productive days, as Doug Dennerline, the CEO of Betterworks, recently wrote in Fast Company.
Dennerline describes a new TikTok trend: “Lazy Girl Jobs.” These are jobs with traditional working hours, a comfortable salary, and nice benefits—jobs that support your life, rather than supplant your life. As Dennerline writes, “lazy” is the wrong term for this kind of balanced, reasonable work. “Healthy” is probably more accurate. As he writes, “A common mistake leaders make is equating commitment with long hours. In reality, commitment is about output, productivity, and goal completion.”
Leaders and contributors should note the impetus behind this trend and adjust accordingly, such as by focusing on the work accomplished rather than the hours logged doing it. Leaders can help protect boundaries and create policies to protect them, as this column has covered before. As Dennerline put it, “It’s about creating a future where work is not just a means to an end but a meaningful part of our lives.”
In other words, be ambitious—about having a full, meaningful life.
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