Where Did Your Ambition Go?
Where does ambition go, anyway?
Ahhh......ambition. A loaded word which can be viewed as positive or negative depending on who says it and how it is used. Not always, but most times ambition is thought of in regards to career. So if we aren't charging up the career ladder, we can start to wonder where our ambition has gone. But there are so many aspects of our very full lives and a recent book I finished explained how our ambition can be identified and shift over the years into different areas of our lives. Here is the summary:
Ambition Decisions
The book The Ambition Decisions: What Women Know About Work, Family, and the Path To Building a Life by Hana Schank and Elizabeth Wallace, explores how women face crisis, transition, and decision-making over time. As the authors reached their early 40s, they wondered where their ambitious classmates from Northwestern ended up and where their ambitions took them.
So they tracked them down, interviewed them, and shared their stories. Some themes emerged and they classified their former classmates into three categories:
High Achievers - women who meet the mainstream societal definition of professional success - a C-level or similar executive associated with a "big" or "important" job, a high salary, and prominence in their field.
Opt Outers - women who chose to stop working a traditional career once they had children to be full-time caregivers.
Flex Lifers - women who didn't quite fit into either category above, who consciously scaled back a rigorous career, or chose not to actively advance their careers, for a few reasons.
As the authors point out, neither category is better than the other. They are all different outcomes based on different decisions that each of these women made in their lives.
The cool thing is that all of these ambitious women were still ambitious. They chose different paths in life, but their ambition was always there. They just channeled it into different areas of their lives at different times.
Which is such an important distinction. If you've lost some of your drive for your corporate career, it doesn't necessarily mean you are less ambitious. It could mean that your interests and focus are shifting and you would prefer to channel your energy and ambition into a different arena in your life.
Another cool thing - many of these women shifted between these categories. Which is a proof that nothing in life is set in stone.
From the book: "...perhaps our most important finding from their stories is that selecting a path is not a finite choice. Their life trajectories are not straight lines from college to job success, end of story - rather, they are fluid, elastic narratives shaped around desires and circumstances that shift over years and decades. In fact, almost everyone in our group toggled successfully across paths over the 25 years we have known them - some of them even in the duration of our first, second, and third interviews over three years' time."
Super cool.
The focus of the feminist movement of our parents and grandparents era was to achieve equal rights and opportunity. Women wanted to be able to CHOOSE their path.
But then the defacto face of the feminist movement became corporate-climbing women who were making it to the C-Suite whether they had families or not. There started to be this feeling that if you weren't climbing and clawing your way to the top of your career, then you weren't an ambitious modern woman.
This book breaks down that myth and reinforces that women have fought for the right to CHOOSE. Which means we get to direct our ambition and interests in any way we decide.
And what we decide today doesn't have to be what we decide tomorrow. It can be more difficult or take longer to reach the upper levels of your career and become a high-achiever if you take your foot off the gas - yet there are countless stories of women taking time off or reducing their work focus for a period of time and then returning to the workforce and making it to the top.
Similarly, opt outers can become flex lifers. High achievers can become opt outers. There is no limit to what you can choose. There are only your decisions of where to direct your ambition.
I think that is what I loved most about this book. The authors went into their research looking for "the" recipe for a successful life. What they found was a cookbook filled with as many unique recipes as women they interviewed, who all made different choices at different points in their lives.
There is no right or wrong way to live this life. There is no one way to utilize your ambition. There is no master plan.
We are all just humans making decisions to (hopefully) live our best lives. All we can do is make a decision, learn from it, adjust as necessary, and move onto the next one.
We don't need to worry about other people's opinions of us. We don't have to think that just because we didn't become a high achiever that we somehow didn't utilize our full potential.
All we have to do is live intentionally. Our ambition decisions will help carve our path in this world. We are the ones with the all of the power over those decisions - we hold the tool.
Use it without doubt, and know that you are creating a life that works for YOU. If it doesn't work for you, you can choose to change at any time.
I highly recommend reading this book as there were so many relatable stories from the women being interviewed about working, child-rearing, choosing not to have children, managing multiple priorities, managing their partners' careers and priorities, relationships, and the self-doubt that so many of us feel as we navigate our lives.
But if you don't have time to read it right now, here is some more detail from the book about the categories listed above. The authors acknowledge that their population is not representative as they interviewed previous classmates from Northwestern University. However there were some same-sex couples and women from various backgrounds. Based on their limited sample, this is what the authors know about:
High Achievers
Those who have kids rely heavily on paid childcare, spouses, and/or family members
They miss some events in their kids' lives, but they get over it and get on with it
Most struggle to find time for exercise or other self-care
Work schedules are rigid, especially early on, and may include frequent travel
Those who are married earn salaries equal to or higher than their spouses
High Achievers derive deep pride and satisfaction from their work
Some High Achievers purposely had fewer or no children. Those with three kids felt a bit overwhelmed.
Opt Outers
Opt Outers take on all the childcare and also all the household tasks
Opt Outers have the economic luxury of being supported by someone else - and not supporting the family financially comes with a mixed bag of emotions
They're still ambitious, and channel that energy into volunteer work and self-care
They worry about not being able to advise their daughters on how to balance career and child-raising
They relish having a well-organized home where things run smoothly for the family
Flex Lifers
Most feel pushed to the limit, but also feel this is the life that works best for them
Most try to do it all anyway
Flex Lifers love the flexibility their jobs give them, even if it means earning less or turning down promotions
They plan on working harder or changing careers entirely down the road
You don't need to fit neatly into any one category. It is just interesting to see the way in which the authors categorized their sample of women to see the differences between where they were in their lives 20+ years after college graduation.
I hope this information helps you recognize that your ambition is still there, regardless of what path you have already taken or what path you choose to take in the future.
You are YOU. Your ambition is yours. Don't let anyone tell you any different.
Cheers to YOUR ambition decisions,
Sharon
Channel Your Ambition To Your Highest Good
Get clear on where you want to utilize your gifts, talents, and ambition.
Find renewed joy and energy by taking aligned action towards the life you really want. A Life Vision Intensive will help you discover your core values and define what a successful life looks like for you, personally and professionally, which can help you channel your ambition to where it will benefit you (and those around you) most. The investment is $299 (for a limited time before it increases) and you can schedule it easily by CLICKING HERE (Choose Life Vision Intensive). For more information, CLICK HERE.
Want to talk it over first? Schedule a free, confidential strategy call by CLICKING HERE (Choose Free Strategy Session). Resolve your curiosity and let's see if this is for you. If not, then you've checked one more thing off your list as you pursue your desires for 2022!
Former clients still reference their Life Vision documents years later and have shared how much it has helped them make decisions that are aligned with the life they always wanted.
Life is too short to keep putting off what you really want. Don't stay stuck feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and unsatisfied. I've helped so many improve their happiness, well-being, and success because they chose to schedule a call and take one step towards the life of their dreams. I can help you too.
