Is it ok to be ambitious?
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Ambition can be seen to be a flaw – you’re cut throat, egocentric and proud but surely it’s more than that?
It certainly feels a negative connotation for women. Women aren’t allowed to be ambitious, or that’s how it can feel sometimes. Women must be meek, small, confined and grateful but that’s just bullshit.
I think ambition can be a force for good, a driver, motivational and I want to see more women being openly ambitious.
I’m almost positive that I have played down my ambition at certain points in my life, whilst on a run I began to think about ambition, trying to convince myself I wasn’t at all ambitious… then resolutely deciding that I am and that’s ok. I shouldn’t be ashamed of it.
Embracing ambition is a good thing, let’s all try harder to do so.
Going it alone
I think being freelance shows ambition – you have decided to dictate your working conditions and rely on your skills, experience and personality to secure clients and payment, that is ambition. Without it, I may never have been able to take the jump to self employment which has been one of the best choices in my life.
Thinking back, my career ambition has always been evident and when I say I’ve had loads of interviews and many jobs, I mean it. I have always been searching to work for the best and most interesting people
That’s why I decided to write down every organisation that I have interviewed for and it’s been a fascinating process. Memories have come flooding back to me of a young woman fresh out of University with bundles of enthusiasm but a lack of ‘real job experience’. I was told a lot in those early days that my enthusiasm and creativity was refreshing but I lacked the experience and ‘please try again in a few years’. I was tenacious, driven and very ambitious – I’m pretty sure that’s reflected in that list.
It was pretty heartbreaking at times, why had I spent my entire young adult life in University, volunteering and working alongside education to be told that it wasn’t enough? I could’ve made things up, but that is not me.
Should, woulda, coulda
By far the job I have most wanted in my life was to work for the London Olympics 2012, I applied for an internal communications role and got an interview, unbelievable in itself. I looked up at the enormous building in Canary Wharf and felt like it was destiny. I went up, up, up in the lift and it was like a dream.
The interview itself was great, more like a chat and me view was the o2…. I knew my life would change if I got this job but sadly, it was not meant to be. My interviewer told I was great but the role wasn’t right for me, he encouraged me to apply for other roles but I never got an interview again.
This experiences and others liked it have propelled me to where I am today, in my personal and professional life. I may not have always made the right choices but ambition has taken to me places and people that I felt out of my reach. It’s made me as close to the person I truly want to be and continues to guide me through my life. I am thankful for it, humbled by it and embrace it. I hope you can too.
My ambition Queens
Elle Woods –
“Warner: You got into Harvard Law?”
Elle: “What? Like, it’s hard?”
Lizzo –
“I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch”
Lady Macbeth
Thou wouldst be great
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it (1.5)
Serena Williams
“Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.”
Ru Paul
I-I-I’m that bitch, I-I’m that bitch
I-I-I’m that bitch, that’s the way it is
Don’t-don’t-don’t you wish you could be that bitch?
But you ain’t that bitch
It’s unanimous
Simba
“Oh I just can’t wait to be King”