Your Ambition Can Be Dangerous
Find out when ambition is negative and how to deal with it
Many entrepreneurs describe aspiring entrepreneurs as a terrifying beast, you may wonder how it is possible to describe the dreams and creativity at the core of their ambitious work as negative! Isn't it the main driver that drives them towards success? Doesn’t everyone advise us to aim high when we lay out our future plans and to strive towards what we want while exerting all our strength and devoting all our time to achieving it?
In fact, the answer to the two questions is complex and it is not enough to answer them with yes or no, so instead of giving you a vague answer, we will analyse together in this article the idea of ambition and its components, and we will give you a small test consisting of a few items to discover whether your ambition pushes you toward the abyss instead of leading you To the top, we'll conclude with a set of simple solutions.
What is ambition?
Ambition is generally defined as the constant and continuous pursuit of success and achievement and tends to be a personal matter that varies from person to person. On the surface, ambition seems to be a positive thing and a recipe that everyone should have, but as we will see, there is a fine line separating positive ambition from negative ambition, which tends to become greedy.
How do you discover that your ambition is negative?
We have put in this paragraph a set of factors that may indicate that your ambition has begun to slip towards the negative side, what you have to do is to hold a paper and a pen and put a sign every time you find that what we wrote already exists for you, if you have at the end of the paragraph more than 5 signs Beware! Your ambition has become toxic and you have to start recalculating and paying attention to what your ambition is.
- You feel bad all the time but you hope the future will be better
When you start imagining your dreams and ambitions and enjoy your future successes, the future becomes your awaited destination and you ignore the fact that you are living now in this moment, so you start to redouble your efforts and do more because you want to reach that abandoned picture and the pink world you built.
- You don't care about the road, all you care about is the destination
When you set a goal and become obsessed with reaching it, you become prone to two things, the first is that you forget to enjoy your progress and lose your passion little by little, and the second is that you may do anything to achieve what you want and it may start sacrificing your time and health to harm the people around you on the pretext that you will compensate them when you achieve what you want .
- You are always anxious and panicked
Because of your constant desire to feel that you are accomplishing something, you are constantly afraid of not achieving or failing, and you may start to follow the method of intimidation with yourself; Every time you slow down or try to do something else, you start imagining your failure, causing you to be tense and anxious all the time.
- You feel envy and put more pressure on yourself
Nowadays, the feeling of envy is very available to all of us; All you have to do is grab your mobile phone and browse social media to see that one of your friends got an upgrade and the other bought a new phone and so on... It might make you ask, "Why haven't I got an upgrade yet?" Or you want more money to buy a new phone and that will lead you to double your effort more, but you will open your mobile phone again and see that another friend bought a house, so you want to buy a house even though you weren't even planning to do so, and you continue to do so convinced that your ambition is what moves you, but the truth Envy and greed are your drivers.
- Constantly get rid of activities and people that make you feel unfulfilled
Every time you sit down to watch TV, you hear a voice inside you reprimanding you. Every time your friend calls you to invite you to watch a game or a movie, you apologise because you have work you want to do. Little by little you decide that this activity and that person are a waste of time and obstacles that prevent you from reaching your goal in a way. Quick, and you decide to completely dispense with it, provided that you make up for everything you missed later after you achieve what you want.
- You find it difficult to relax and waste time, which reflects on your health
Every time you try to do an activity that is fun but doesn't move you toward your goal, you feel remorse and try to immediately return to activities related to your goal. You may take it so far that it affects your physical and mental health.
- When you have a constant feeling of failure
No matter how many things you accomplish, you always feel that you are not doing enough, and that you can make more effort to achieve something else, so you feel a slight improvement, but the feeling comes back to you, so you make more effort and so on, little by little nothing comes back to satisfy you and you become stuck in a whirlpool of effort Excessive dissatisfaction.
- Do not accept criticism and deal with it negatively
The constant feeling of insecurity and the need for positive feedback can lead you to reject anyone who offers criticism for work you have done, even if they are right in what they say you don't even want to hear.
- Your social relationships are in constant decline
Often a person begins to harm those around him, either because of his constant tension and constantly reacts to them, or he immerses himself in work and constantly ignores them, and the negatively ambitious person often becomes more selfish and pursues his goals, ignoring his family and friends, and what may reach his goal in the end but he will find himself alone there.
- You just make it go around you and you drown in the ego.
It is a given that what motivates us most of the time is our desire to be the best for ourselves, wishing for higher salaries, more important positions, and greater successes, but what we are talking about here is the transformation into a completely selfish human being who runs after a limited goal that is linked to his interest alone in a way that is harmful to others.
A set of solutions to transform your ambition from a negative to a motive
Now, how many points did you score in the previous paragraph? More than 5 points, do not worry, we are all vulnerable to this, but the important thing is to realise this and try to improve the quality of your ambition and lifestyle. Here are 5 effective methods that we hope will help you on your way:
- Always make sure your ambition makes sense, use the SMART Planner
Our imagination often wanders whenever we think about what we want to achieve in the future and often this leads to stress or frustration. I do not advise you here not to dream, but make sure that your dream is achievable and logical; Perhaps the best way to do this is by using the SMART chart which you find explained in detail here.
- Take a deep breath and look around
Pause for a moment and look at the world around you. Enjoy the little things and try to do some activities that used to bring you joy such as preparing your favourite meal calmly and focused, going for a walk with your best friends, or making something handmade; It is important to regain calm and calm so that you can think more clearly.
- Enjoy what you do
It is true that results are important, but it can take years before you reach them so it is important that the path towards your goal is fun as well, so make sure that you choose to do something you like; You don't have to be enjoying it every day but if a month goes by and you're feeling down and bored, is that what you want to do for the rest of your life?
- Celebrate your accomplishments
People with negative ambition have less value in achieving and reaching goals, so you have to bring the feeling of joy and pride back into what you are doing. Start by celebrating every achievement, even the small one, and allow yourself to feel proud and satisfied each time you do a task in the right way. Don't forget to take a break after each task and give yourself a small reward.
- Start dedicating a part of your time to others
One of the most important factors that push you towards excessive negativity is indulging yourself in what you want alone without caring about those around you, so you begin to isolate from your family and friends, and the solution is to always set aside time to force yourself to stop work or personal activity and pay attention to those around you, while ambition is an important aspect Many studies consider building peaceful relationships to be more important, and you can read this article to read more about the link between strong human relationships, happiness, and ambition.
It is absolutely important to be ambitious because without a desire to develop and grow, you will be stuck and stuck in a dreary routine, but what you have to do is always make sure to monitor yourself, your thoughts and your ambitions and not allow them to slide into negative ambition and greed. We wish you a life full of positive ambitions and inner satisfaction.
About the Creator
Judith Isidore
I'm happy to share my stories with Vocal media community.



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