4 Questions To Help You Let Go Of Toxic Ambitions
And make authentic life changes.
Ambition altogether is considered a useful quality. Business and startup ecosystems play a role in recognizing it as a generally positive personal trait. Especially in today’s fast-growing climate.
And it really is, in many ways.
It opens the door for your skills and talents to reach a higher potential. Ambition, in fact, is often a nitrogen on a fast route to success.
However, would you recognize if it was actually hurting you?
What if ambition is your one-step-forward-two-step-back underlying instrument.
What if you are just stubborn in thinking you are actually taking a faster route? It’s tempting because it feels morally justifiable to keep up with this stubbornness…
Here are the questions I had to ask myself at one point. After I repeatedly had seen it getting better of me. The questions I believe will be of help to you as well.
#1 Are you ambitious or under a social pressure?
99% of human animals experience social pressure.
Those who don’t are wired differently. They either mentally isolate themselves or are descendants of a great ancient alien race. This race throughout millennia has found bonehead homo-idiot’s social constructs utterly absurd.
By the way, homo-idiots is how this alien race calls dominant species from the green-and-blue planet located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
Anyway, you experience social pressure all the time. Your peers, parents, friends, state, Kardashians, and even on you are the source of the mainstream squeeze.
It’s a completely normal phenomenon if you are a human animal.
This completely normal pressure process shapes your personality. Furthermore, given the lack of self-awareness throughout some life phases, it merges with your aspirations, feeling of insurgence, or… you guessed it… ambitions.
It’s crucial to understand that ambitions are often a result of subconscious personal complex.
Complex is a core and weirdly structured mix of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes organized around a theme of status and power. Meaning, your complex could be driving force behind your ambition.
Therefore, ask yourself what social pressures you’ve been under in developing stages of your life that made an impact on your complex.
Identify the areas that have been under the most influence. Is it your behavior, career, relationships, education, and so on?
See how those areas overlap with your ambitions and behaviors.
Most importantly, ask yourself if you enjoy this ambition chase? Is it fulfilling or is it draining the life out of you?
That should cover some ground in the beginning. After contemplating this and with some proper guidance, you could peel off the wrong stuff at a get go.
#2 Do you have enough resources?
By resources, I mean all the assets you have at your disposal for an effective chase.
Energy, money, knowledge, expertise, people skills, vocabulary, internet, microwave or 3,4 kW electric oven, Amazon Prime delivery, time, mom’s kitchen, and electric massagers.
Yes, electric massagers do wonder. I know it has nothing to do with the topic but buy one, please. It’s so good…
Verify if you’re supplying your ambition with enough of the resources.
I hate to be the one to break this one for you, but don’t delude yourself of being capable to accomplish anything you want in life.
You can’t have everything you desire. I don’t care what your favorite influencer said.
Mind-less self belief is a formula that has only worked for rare 0.00001% so far. And it worked only because it’s statistically improbable to not work on such a low percentage…
Go for the thing you enjoy doing and have enough resources to draw from. It’s a sure bet. Go all the way, but choose the right path that fits your skillsets and desires.
You are blessed to live in the age when almost any combination of skillsets can be combined and monetized. Write it all down and evaluate. Research it. See what options are there.
#3 Are your ecosystems suffocating you?
Realizing there are two factors in play to feed the ambition will help you understand your limits and wants. This “two-factor” assessment led me to pull the plug and cut off mindless ambition.
The first factor we just covered and its resources. The second one is your environment/ecosystem that impacts your lifestyle and ability to grow and focus.
I don’t consider a focus to be your ability to concentrate despite or at the expense of everything else. On contrary, you should aim to create a lifestyle that’d allow you to focus. Every day, in the long run.
In order to do that you need the right ecosystems that allow you to blossom.
Meaningful relationships that make your personal life wealthy and fulfilling. Peers that support you and appreciate the way you are. A community that shares and expands on your personal values.
You can have just the right ambition and plenty of resources, but end up miserably failing because of the wrong ecosystems.
A system that forces you to adapt to it’s norms against your every gut instinct will end up crucifying your soul. If you let it, it will sabotage any ambition that goes against the geoup’s collective values.
Unfortunately, even at this young age, I have witnessed these crucifixions. It happens often and you have probably been a witness too.
Fortunately, you can wank off any ecosystem. It’s even easier than you thought. Here is a three-step formula.
- Step out and say goodbye
- Don’t be apologetic. It’s your life. You make the rules.
- Find another community that feels right (use the internet)
The right lifestyle and right ecosystems are the foundation of fulfilled meaningful ambitions…
#4 What would it feel like if you had zero ambitions?
Childhood by many is the happiest time in life. Within this realm, the future is not as relevant as immediate pleasures and joy. Play, laugh, love, jumping, shortening adult’s life — all the main ingredients of a happy childhood.
Your childhood ambition went as far as your strong belief that one day you’ll become a movie star, and next moment feasting on a bowl of ice cream and packing some snacks away for later.
A complete unburdenedness is a reason childhood is consideret ideal.
If you’re keeping this up as an adult, you are not an adult. You are a Peter Pan. It’s not good.
Nevertheless, what if you took a break from your ambitions for a month or two? What if you even discontinue obligations, existential stress, keeping up with some role models or mentors, and anything along those lines?
What if your only concern for a period is keeping you and your loved one's mouthful and enjoying doing what you feel like doing?
If you’ve never done it, consider doing it. Some people call this “a gap year” and it usually refers to adolescents traveling, self-reflecting, or going wild for a period.
I know, it’s a drastic measure. There are bills, loans, work, and all the existential stuff…it even sounds unreasonable of me to suggest.
But drastic measures might be just the right one for you. A radical unburdening. It was exactly what I did at one point and found it life-changing.
It is the total opposite to what you’re used to day to day. It will provide a different perspective. It has the potential to allow You to introduce yourself to You. No restrictions, no imposed goals. Just you feeling yourself, pitying your life choices, going to theaters, playing sports, smoking Cuban cigars, crying, whatever…
A complete unburdening ultimately might help you to “come back” to your old life and experience mundane activities from a different angle. More from the do-I-really-need-this-stuff angle.
It will help you understand if it was you doing something because of you, or because you fell into a loop. A third-party imposed loop in which you unconsciously had a non-democratic-level of imposed choice.
It’s an extreme measure. Don’t plunge into this without serious consultation with other responsible adult human animals. Especially don’t listen to me, since I don’t consider myself any sort of guru or a guy who has it all together. Read it, think about it, make a choice.
Explore your Ambitions
Please do. Your life depends on it. Really, it does.
Self-explore, inner you is as vast as a universe. If you get afraid, take a break, slow down, hug the people that love you, do it again after a minute. You can even try sending an interstellar radio message to the alien race I mentioned. They enjoy helping wandering terestrians.
It’s really a straightforward process.
Just get a satellite or large antenna. Connect it to your FM radio android app. Establish Cosmic Call 1 session (google it) through FM. Send DDM, BM, AM, and ESM three times at 100 bit/s. A secretary will answer in morse code. Just ask if General Drogon is there.
Please don’t mention my name, I’ve already asked too many questions.
Where do you think I got all this knowledge from?
