on ambition
I’ve thought about ambition a lot recently.
As a kid, I was sure I was ambitious. To me it was that feeling in my belly when I lost a game, the voice that said “again”, when I needed to finish on a strike, and argue with my dad over balls and strikes during practice. This fire, which I thought was ambition was really just a feeling of dissatisfaction, but not in a self hating way (sometimes it was). It was a more of a unwillingness to accept the current version of myself and know that I needed to improve. It turns out what this was missing was a tangible goal. Did I want to be a college athlete? A professional? A coach? An executive? I wanted to “make it,” but I never articulated what that “it” actually was.
I’m starting to understand that ambition isn’t just fire. Ambition has to be more than just fire. Ambition to me is being willing to suffer more with clarity and consistency in pursuit of a specific goal. It’s delayed gratification at scale. As @visakanv put it so well, it's being serious.
To me, ambition is not loud. It’s not about announcement, titles, or posting your results. I think real ambition is quiet and relentless. It thinks long term, and doesn’t waste energy convincing people of anything. I don’t believe ambition is innate, not everyone gets to have it. You feed your ambition through obsession and curiosity Through surrounding yourself with people who make you feel inspired.
And maybe, most importantly, you grow your ambition by giving it a target. Ambition with no target is nothing more than spinning your wheels. I've done that plenty and in hindsight it's fake effort, like being a practice all american. Ambition with a target is how you make a dent on your goals and hopefully the world.
Finding your target may take years. To be honest, I still may be searching for mine (although I think I found it). So far, I've learned not to choose your ambition for vanity or status but to find a target that forces me to discover what I'm capable of and how good I can get.
My ambition is no guarantee of success. But a lack of ambition is almost a guarantee of regret. I've had enough of the "if only I". Moving forward, I refuse to be the person who looks back and realizes they're capable of more but chooses comfort and rudderlessness.
If you feel that same hunger. The constant itch to do, be, and build more, listen to it. Take it seriously.