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Ambitious people usually have a quality education, a prestigious job and a high income. We figure out how to stop being afraid of big goals and learn how to achieve them
What’s this
Ambition is the desire for success, status and achievement and self-confidence. Initially, the concept had a rather negative connotation and was synonymous with the words “aplomb”, “arrogance”, “self-esteem”, “vanity”. The verb ambire from Latin is completely translated as “courting”, “knocking the thresholds”, “begging” for a position or favor.
Now the attitude to the term has changed somewhat. Ambition in the professional environment is more often viewed as the ability to set a high bar for oneself and persistently move towards it. For example, Steve Jobs can be called an ambitious person. He had grandiose plans and faith in his success, thanks to which he changed the world.
What are ambitions
Psychologists conditionally divide ambitions into overestimated, underestimated and adequate. Only in the latter case, when the claims correspond to the possibilities, are they considered truly useful.
High expectations dangerous. When a person sets unrealistic goals for himself and cannot achieve them, he is disappointed in his own potential and personal qualities – ambitions remain unfulfilled. In addition, overconfidence makes it difficult to see the big picture and process feedback properly. For managers, this is a direct path to dismissal.
understated pretentiousness can talk about lack of initiative, apathy and excessive modesty. If a person does not appreciate his abilities, this attitude can be adopted by others. This condition is similar to impostor syndrome.
Professor Evgeny Ilyin, in his book The Psychology of Envy, Hostility, Vanity, shares a good example. Japanese psychologists set the task for kindergarteners to get a candy, specially fixed much higher than human height. The subjects were immediately divided into three groups. In the first, there were those who surrendered – their ambitions were defined as underestimated. The second included children with adequate claims – they began to think about how to get a treat. The third group included participants whose claims are overstated. They just ran and jumped around the candy, trying to get it at random.
How professional ambitions affect career
More ambitious people tend to have a quality education, a prestigious job and a high income. To understand why this is happening, you need to understand how pretentiousness affects different professional qualities and the attitude of employers towards employees.
In the corporate environment, ambitions can be divided into collective – aimed at the benefit of the organization, its advancement – and personal – the desire to achieve one’s own success, the ability to go over the heads. Mark Quinn, Head of Recruiting at Mercer believes that the latter will not benefit the company, and employers know about it. Therefore, for a career, it is important to learn how to correlate business goals and your personal ones.
Character traits in general are one of the three most important factors for getting the coveted offer, as polls show. So, healthy self-confidence was included in the top five most valuable qualities according to employers. Another thing is arrogance. On the contrary, it was ranked among the most significant shortcomings. Therefore, when applying for a job, it is especially important to monitor the adequacy of ambitions.
As shows research Harvard Business Review, internal cultures 89% of companies are results-oriented. Therefore, for career growth in a corporation, it is necessary to set yourself complex and ambitious goals, writes Mark Effron, an expert in talent management. This helps to gain new experience and competencies.
high ambitions have a positive effect on adaptive performance – the ability to adapt to changes at work. Moreover, this feature is more important for managers than for ordinary employees. Recently, employers are increasingly appreciating flexible specialists who are able to quickly navigate in the face of uncertainty.
Great ambition is a strong motivation to be the first in your business or to be part of a leading team. Therefore, their owners usually strive to maintain high standards of quality in their activities and the work of colleagues. In addition, such employees tend to keep an eye on competitors in the market in order to get ahead of them and adopt best practices.
What if there is no ambition
The desire to achieve something is probably characteristic of all healthy people. At the same time, in recent decades, there has been a clear growth of ambition among young people, according to researchers from the University of Florida. Complete apathy and lack of desire may indicate an existential crisis or mental disorders such as depression. With such symptoms, it is better to seek help from specialists.
It is believedthat the pretentiousness of goals is highly dependent on self-esteem, upbringing – to a greater extent the example of parents or other loved ones – and the type of your personality. But if you think about it, it’s not all that important. If your lack of ambition is holding you back, even a simple rethinking of your priorities, desires, and abilities can help.
Как It turned out that self-esteem does not have a significant impact on student performance. More confidence in the forces give actual knowledge and developed skills. It is also not necessary to look back at relatives all the time – any successful person can serve as a life guide.
For introverts and extroverts really different strengths and weaknesses and attitudes towards success, and their goals and strategies are rarely similar. But even the most sociable person can limit himself to quite mundane career plans. While introverted students with programming abilities sometimes have ambitions to create an IT empire.
How to develop healthy ambition
In order for ambition to help in your career and everyday life, you need to learn how to formulate goals correctly, monitor success and failure, and also surround yourself with the right people.
Record goals in writing and make reports
As show research, those who write down what they strive for achieve greater results. In addition, for success, it is important to constantly monitor progress. At the same time, it is more productive to focus on improving previous accomplishments, and not on working to the limit of your capabilities.
Gain confidence
To do this, you can keep logs of errors and achievements. In the first one, you need to write down your merits, attitude towards them and your actions, skills or qualities that helped you achieve success. This is helpful to start appreciating your abilities.
In the error log, you need to record your mistakes, the conclusions that can be drawn from them, as well as a look at problems from the outside. Such a table will make it easier to relate to your shortcomings.
When you tell others about your goals and get approval, it seems to the brain that you have already achieved what you want. If it is difficult to resist, in conversations you can formulate your plans so that they do not bring you pleasure. Complement them with inhibiting factors, such as: “I want to lose weight, but for this I will have to exercise a lot and maintain a diet.”
Surround yourself with ambitious people
Not only a bad example is contagious. Business coach and personal growth author Jim Rohn is famous for his apt statement: “You are the average of the five people with whom you spend most of your time.” The more ambitious your environment is, the bigger the goals you want to achieve will become.