When You Can’t Be Ambitious
You are one of the lucky ones: you love your job! The problem is that you like it so much that you are not really very ambitious. And you worry that in the era of workism, you will regret not trying your best to “move forward.” Is satisfaction a problem?
Dear employees,
I am a lawyer in a large firm and I love my job. I am rewarded, challenged, motivated and motivated. I like Mondays. I’m that person.
However, I need career help and pressure to be ambitious. In particular, I have no particular ambition. I don’t feel the need to compete with my peers for engaging assignments, communicate with older partners to ask me to work with, or actively seek development opportunities. I love the job I do, the lifestyle and balance that I feel in my current position. (By the way, I’m over thirty, I’m married, I have two small children.)
It worries me that I limit my career prospects without putting in a lot of effort. If I don’t take advantage of promising opportunities now, perhaps 10 years from now, I’ll regret doing “cooler” jobs, but find myself lacking skills that I didn’t bother to develop in my youth.
On the other hand, why should I race, compete and hustle when my current role is satisfying and could possibly be fulfilling forever? I do see that I will be very happy with what I do in the long run.
Any wisdom or guidance you provide will be graciously accepted. Many thanks!
Ambition is definitely critical to achieving an outstanding career. But perhaps the problem is not that you lack ambition, but that an outstanding career is not your top priority. Maybe other things are just more important to you. And that’s okay.
It’s easy to forget that this is normal because we live in a culture and media environment largely centered around the assumption that everyone is absolutely obsessed with getting ahead at work, all the time: find your calling, keep your passion going, bend over. crush it.
In a recent essay in the Atlantic , writer Derek Thompson noted that the very concept of scratching their way to senior vice – president, or whatever, in which – the individual sensor values is an early 20th – century invention. And this gradually led to the emergence of what Thompson calls workism, an almost religious approach to the importance of work: “the belief that work is not only necessary for economic production, but is also central to the personality and purpose of life; and the belief that any policy aimed at improving the well-being of the people should always encourage more work. ”
You can give up workism and live to tell stories! In fact, at some level, everyone should probably consider becoming at least the occasional heretic of workism.
Stay in the game
To be clear, I am not telling you to quit your job. On the contrary, be vigilant in doing what is expected of you and seek clear feedback from your managers.
The difference is that you don’t get hung up on some grand long-term plan to dominate your career. You don’t need to get carried away with books and podcasts that reveal tactics and strategies for maximum productivity. You can just do your job.
In some work scenarios, your managers may expect you to show great ambition. But it’s more likely that they really want to be sure of your engagement. For example, a manager may really appreciate that you take on some thankless task that your more ambitious colleagues have avoided – not because it’s a hidden step forward, but because you pay attention and are serious about the organization and its goals. …
It’s not good to say openly, “I’m just not that ambitious.” But when talking to managers, in review sessions, or just in casual conversation, think about how to get this message across: you are satisfied with your job, you care about getting it done right, and you are open to learning. new things. But you believe that you are ultimately happy and effective as a role player, not as someone trying to get to the top.
Betray hard work
Once you figure out how to make sure you don’t accidentally broadcast total indifference to the concert, you can calmly focus on Workism’s defection.
The pressure you feel to be ambitious probably doesn’t come from your boss. It comes from culture in general, and from all gurus, who assume that if you don’t strive to reach the very top in your field, then you are in some way a failure. So you better start forming those super-productive habits that these gurus think will somehow allow everyone to rise to the top. We can all be number one if we try!
In fact, it is this apparently impossible version of the Lake Wobegone effect that makes so many people unhappy. This is one of the reasons why burnout has become such a popular topic lately . And this is one of the reasons that job dissatisfaction is so widespread among the so-called “educated elite” who have been so carefully prepared to be the best. There is the argument that this pressure is even more acute for millennials like you, and is further exacerbated by technology in the workplace; thanks to the tools like take away we not only work, we carry out the work hard.
But we cannot work hardest; we can’t all be the best. In truth, even not being an elite NBA-level star in whatever profession guarantees happiness. (Many real NBA stars end up unhappy .) Writer Matt Haig, outlining an argument for not taking work too seriously , quotes Bertrand Russell: “One symptom of an impending nervous breakdown is the belief that work is extremely important.” …
So sometimes we’d better admit that if we cannot be great, then it’s perfectly okay to be good . We must all do our best and play the role that we are called to play . It’s okay to be okay. Remember there are other things to get carried away with. I can think of some. Hope you can too.