what is your relationship to ambition?

holding aspiration lightly

My rule is to finish a notebook a month. (I’m always making up writing guidelines for myself.) Simply to fill it. That is the practice. My ideal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I don’t do that. No one lives up to his ideal.

— Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

We embark on one self-improvement project after another. We strive to meet the media standards for the perfect body and looks by coloring out the gray, lifting our face, being on a perpetual diet. We push ourselves to get a better position at work. We exercise, take enriching courses of study, meditate, make lists, volunteer, take workshops. Certainly any of these activities can be undertaken in a wholesome way, but so often they are driven by anxious undercurrents of “not good enough.” Rather than relaxing and enjoying who we are and what we’re doing, we are comparing ourselves with an ideal and trying to make up for the difference.

— Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach

There will always be a gap between who you are and who you want to be.

We’ve all experienced “moving the goal posts” for ourselves. We strive for months & years to accomplish a certain goal, to reach a certain level, and then when we’re finally there… we look to what’s next.

This ever-aspiring impulse is good. It keeps us moving. It helps us reach greater & greater heights. But it can also destroy us, if we’re not careful.

There are two potential versions of this ambition. There is the version of us that is perpetually dissatisfied with who we are, because we are not who we should be. But there’s also the version of us that is perpetually excited about who we can become, because there is always a challenge ahead of us.

Whether we are the dissatisfied or the excited version depends on our relationship to the gap.

Today’s practice is about transforming that relationship into something more nourishing, supportive, and energizing, so that we can enjoy the quest to become who we are.

the practice

For today’s practice, you’ll just need a journalling tool (a notebook, an app, or a voice note) and a quiet place to reflect.

Let’s start with the big question: who do you want to be?