Reclaim ambition: allow them to shift, change, and ebb and flow
Most of us don’t like change. We’re taught that we should hurry up and find out who we are and who we want to become. I was just reading a book that recalled a character at seven years of age being asked by his father, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As I read it, I thought, “What absurd questions we ask children! How could he possibly know at that age. We don’t know ourselves.” And yet, perhaps the young give the most unvarnished answers. Outside voices haven’t had time to intervene.
Regardless, the reality is that we are always becoming. That seven-year-old will learn more about himself and shift his thinking over time. But we aren’t always adept at allowing ourselves to step into new identities, often leaving people feeling fear and angst. I just had a coaching session where this came up, where my client acknowledged that she wasn’t sure if she would have the courage and endurance to step into something new.
To be sure, transitions can be challenging and uncomfortable and will take time. Yet they are possible and can allow us to explore multiple sides of ourselves.
Creatives and artists are great role models for this way of being. They push against being typecast. Think Meryl Streep *(*from Kramer vs. Kramer to Mamma Mia!), Viola Davis (from Fences to How to Get Away with Murder), **or Bradley Cooper (from Wedding Crashers to A Star is Born) With music, I always think of Madonna, having grown up with her music. Taylor Swift has, of course, done this in today’s era. It’s also similar to artist’s creative periods, like Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods or Georgia O’Keefe who shifted her work over time like when she was in New York and first uncovered her abstract style and later in New Mexico when she furthered that approach in connection with nature.
This concept of allowing ourselves to change over time came up in my podcast conversation with Bonnie Wan, author of The Life Brief. Bonnie is someone who has been ambitious in both her professional and personal life, and she wrote her first Life Brief when she was going through a difficult time in her family life. It has become her practice and a way she has brought sustainability to how she lives and works.
One of the things I appreciated about Bonnie’s book was that she acknowledged how our world changes and, thus, our briefs need revisiting. She said:
“So I think there’s an illusion of safety in sameness, in the status quo, and that’s not real. The forces are changing all around us. I think it’s going to be an imperative for us to be connected and tuned into our own inner truths and inner compass as the world continues to speed up and throw us curveballs.”
One way to create a cocoon for liminal time periods is to get grounded in ourselves, as Bonnie notes, to tap into who we are and who we are becoming in this new moment.
You don’t have to be locked in to who you have been. You can step into new possibilities. Your identity and your future aren’t fixed. And your ambitions can shift and change to align with what you want do, who you want to be, and who you want to become now.
What might be possible if you allowed yourself to step into what’s calling you now?
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