Jeff DeGraff Ph.D., writing for Psychology Today, says that somewhere along the way, ambition turned from a virtue to a vice. “Once a cornerstone of the American ethos—synonymous with self-reliance, upward mobility, and personal agency—ambition is now more often associated with selfishness, power-hunger, or hollow striving. We’re suspicious of those who want too much, push too hard, or dream too big.”
(Double this if the person in question is female.)
Caricatures of ambition in literature and television (The Talented Mr. Ripley, House of Cards, Succession, – almost any political movie or series) have painted ambitious people as ruthless, cruel, and relentless in pursuing what they want at any cost. These characters make for compelling antiheroes, but they’re seldom seen in real life. (Sadly, real life politicians and online influencers being the exception.)
What ambition really is, says DeGraff, “is something quieter and more enduring: self-authorizing behavior—the drive to make something of oneself without waiting for permission.” Author Seth Godin often talks about this idea of picking yourself. He says you don’t ever have to wait for someone with power or authority to decide you or your work is worthy. “If you want to be responsible for making music, make music. If you want to be responsible for writing, speaking, making change happen, go do that. Waiting to get picked is a form of hiding, not realism.”
DeGraff writes that Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most powerful American voices for self-reliance, and by extension, ambition. “[Emerson], one of ambition’s greatest advocates, called for bold thinking in his essay Self-Reliance. His message? Stop waiting for external validation. Trust your instincts. Cultivate your unique gifts. Live from the inside out.”
In other words, choose your path and pursue it. It doesn’t matter whether others believe in you; it’s your belief in yourself and your abilities that will determine how far you get.
We see this all the time in sports. The underdogs, the 199th pick in the draft. Mr. Irrelevant, who goes on to play in the Super Bowl in his second year. We see breakouts in the arts because they’re visible and compelling. But underdogs and those who are underestimated go on to succeed in every venue. Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, wrote a college paper on the need for reliable overnight delivery in a computerized information age. His Yale professor found the premise improbable, and to the best of Smith’s recollection, he only received a grade of C for this effort, but the idea remained with him. (As I write this, a FedEx truck just stopped at my neighbor’s house.)
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was rejected by 12 different publishers. The first book Stephen King wrote, Carrie, was rejected 30 times. King finally gave up on it and threw it in the garbage bin. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to keep trying. (So it helps to have someone who loves you and is ambitious for you.)
The power to succeed is yours. So is the responsibility. Ambition as a virtue means you don’t blame others when you don’t get what you want the first time. Or the second. Emerson believed that ambition is what drives flexibility, growth, and adaptability – the qualities that help you persist and change in order to achieve your goals.
DeGraff sums up the value of ambition: “The best kind of ambition is self-determined, not externally driven. According to Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (2000), people flourish when their goals are internally motivated—when they reflect personal values, autonomy, and purpose. In short, ambition that grows from within—not from competition or comparison—creates not just achievement, but meaning.”
What do you want? What’s to stop you from going and getting it?
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