Gentler Ambition
The time of high-school and college graduations is a time to remind us all that success can look different for each of us.
I appreciated what Adam Grant shared at the end of his interview with parenting guru Becky Kennedy:
“What I can't stop thinking about from this conversation is how we define success for the next generation. I know too many parents who want to live vicariously through their kids. Of course, a lot of parents know better, but still make the mistake of assuming that their kids share their definition of success. I love the idea of asking our kids, ‘How do you define success?” Because I think that’s our job as a parent, right, to figure out what our kids want and then try to help support them in achieving it.’”
What if we asked ourselves this question, too? Many of us adults have a hard time answering what success would look like on our terms. But we can all choose to step into self-authorship and role model for the kids around us that success doesn’t have to look one way or that we can find fulfillment when we align what we want with what is personally meaningful and motivating to us.
We can also be so hard on ourselves when we don’t meet our expectations for success. But success isn’t fast nor linear. How can we give ourselves more grace on our journey toward striving for what we want?
I offer a few ideas below in the Conscious Ambitious Tips for this month and ask: What if instead of ambition being about grinding it can be a bit gentler?
Conscious Ambition Tips: Gentler Ambition
Right Ambition: Self-compassion.
A friend shared how Sustainable Ambition for her lives between the polarity of what I’d articulate as striving and self-compassion. How can we dance between stretching ourselves, allowing ourselves to be on our growth curve and take risks, and not beating ourselves up if we don’t meet or reach our expected or desired goal? How can we instead acknowledge the progress we have made and what we’ve learned and then set our next goal from there and go at it again? Desires and expectations are tricky devils. They can inspire us and wreak havoc on our psyche. Let’s instead strive and couple that with self-compassion to keep us progressing on our own speed and in our own way.
Right Time: Trust you’re in the right spot.
Why am I not there yet? It’s easy to compare and despair, as some say, looking at others and wondering why we haven’t reached the same peak at the same time. But what if instead we kept our eyes on our own arc, noting what it is personally time for now? What if we can trust that we are right where we need to be in our journey?
Right Effort: Break it down into manageable bits.
I’ve been hearing this mantra a lot of late, and it’s resonated as I’ve been working on big projects. Instead of getting overwhelmed by large to do’s, break it down and move what you want to accomplish closer in to gain momentum, make progress, and keep motivated.
It’s reminded of Anne Lamott’s famous words and book of the same name, Bird by Bird:
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'”
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