If you are asking yourself whether you can become ambitious if you are not, the answer is most definitely yes.
Ambition, when rightly ordered and healthy is the desire to make the best use of your skills and talents and it is something that can be learned, cultivated and developed.
While some people seem to be naturally ambitious, born with an insatiable drive to achieve greatness, others may find themselves lacking in this department.
But you can develop ambition even if you are not inherently inclined towards it.
Do You Even Want To Be Ambitious?
If you are not ambitious but feel that you should be, the first question to ask yourself is why do you want it.
Do you genuinely want to achieve great things but lack the will to do so? Or do you just feel like ambition is something society wants you to have and you feel bad that you don’t have it.
The second question you should ask yourself is what does success look like to you?
Perhaps it is not that you are unambitious. Perhaps your ambition is just not the conventional things that most people tend to aspire to.
Perhaps you have been put off by the things that are considered traditional ambitions and you have not yet found something that motivates you.
The Problem With Ambition
Ambition, when rightly ordered can be a good thing.
But ambition to excess is a vice.
Developing our skills and talents and putting them to good use in the world is an admirable and honourable thing.
But being ambitious to the point of seeking validation, recognition and reward for their own sake rather than achieving those things as the natural outcome of success can be a problem.
In our culture the vice-like ambition is often glorified, particularly in the workplace. Society tells you that you should get the best job with the biggest pay packet so you can get the respect of your peers and buy all the nice things.
But if you don’t want that does it make you unambitious?
No, it just means you don’t want to pursue ambition to excess. Perhaps you are happy with more modest goals and want to focus on what makes you satsfied in life.
There is a name for this alternative, it is magnanimity.
Magnanimity Is Rightly Ordered Ambition
Magnanimity is a virtue that is defined as “greatness of soul.”
It is about the pursuit of greatness with humility, avoiding the twin pitfalls of ambition to excess and wasteful mediocrity.
Being magnanimous means you recognise your skills and talents and you pursue them to the fullest extent of your ability.
But you are motivated by the typical external metrics that our culture associates with ambition like promotions and pay rises. Instead you are motivated by being the best person you can be and contributing to the world in the best way you can.
How To Cultivate Well-Ordered Ambition
First you need to accept that it’s okay not to have the traditional aspirations of our culture. Not only is it okay, but it’s actually very healthy to reject those stereotypical desires.
Secondly and most importantly, you need to take the time to figure out what it is that you want. This is not a quick process and will take a lot of introspection. But once you know what excites and motivates you, you will feel like you have some healthy ambition.
Lastly, you need to develop a success mindset. This is where your natural way of thinking is inclined towards the possibility of achievement rather than the fear of failure. Quite often a lack of ambition is down to the insecurity and fear of failure. Once you reorient your mindset towards success, goal setting becomes much easier.
Conclusion
Some people seem to ooze ambition and it can be a little intimidating if you are not one of those people. You might think there is something wrong with you.
But ambition is not something inherent. It is something that is cultivated and developed.
Some people might acquire it easily from a young age and others might need to work hard on it in their adult years.
But the mere fact that ambition can be developed will hopefully give you the motivation to pursue it further.
