The 7 Principles of Aligned Ambition
Many of us have a complicated relationship with ambition.
We put our heads down and worked hard through school and grad school and our first few jobs — following the rules and earning gold stars as we went along.
And then somewhere along the way, we started to get disillusioned.
Maybe it was a well-deserved promotion that got denied.
Or burnout that made you question why you’re even doing all this.
Or bad leadership that made you run in a direction you didn’t believe in.
Or layoffs that made it clear the company doesn’t care about you.
Or even achieving the big milestones and then realizing…you’re still the same person you were yesterday.
Whatever the trigger, many of us are stepping back and asking: “Wait. What is this all for again??”
But even as we question the rat race we’re running, we’re not ready to give it up 100%.
Quitting your job and watching Netflix for the rest of your life doesn’t sound that appealing either.
So what the heck are you supposed to do?
Let me offer you a third way.
It’s time to dump the traditional ambition that is burning you out and not fulfilling you.
Not so you can replace it with doing nothing…
But so you can replace it with aligned ambition, which fills you up with joy and purpose and gives you energy rather than depleting you.
Here are the 7 principles of aligned ambition.
Principle 1: Choose what to be ambitious about
Traditional ambition gives you a very narrow set of things to be ambitious about.
It’s pretty much: Career. Promotions. Money. Power. Getting the corner office. Having your own private jet. You get the idea.
It’s all the stuff that a white-dominated, male-dominated, shareholder-value-maximizing, capitalistic culture values the most. And in this way of thinking, every other pursuit is a second-class citizen.
Aligned ambition says you can be ambitious about ANYTHING.
EVEN the stuff that isn’t traditionally associated with “ambition.”
You can be ambitious about creating a warm community around you. Nurturing your friendships. Learning how to relax. Making your spouse smile. Writing fanfiction. Caring for your aging parents. Getting sober. Decorating your home.
Whatever pursuit lights YOU up and has you itching to get started.
There are so many things that are left out of the realm of traditional ambition — things that are seen as “soft skills” or “part of your personal life” or “not real work.”
But all of them are worth being ambitious about — as long as YOU are excited about them.
Principle 2: Pursue things from a surplus mindset, not a deficit mindset
Traditional ambition says: “You are currently below baseline. You are not wealthy enough. Not smart enough. Not prestigious enough. Not powerful enough. Etc. etc.
And if you achieve this goal, you will be above baseline. You will go from 0 to 1.”
This is what I like to call a deficit mindset. You start out in a deficit, or below baseline, and then you strive and scramble and hustle and claw JUST to get to baseline — to finally flip from “not good enough” to “good enough.”
Deficit mindset is exhausting. Pursuing goals from this mindset makes you feel anxious, tense, and desperate the whole time you’re working toward something — even if it’s something you genuinely want.
This is the cycle that deficit mindset typically puts people in:
You make an aggressive, unsustainable plan (because you MUST get there asap)
You burn out trying to follow the plan — not because you’re lazy but because the plan is not realistic for you
You feel even worse about yourself for not following through
You make another, even MORE aggressive and unsustainable plan and repeat the cycle again…
…OR you just give up (and feel even worse about yourself)
This is a miserable way to pursue your goals.
Aligned ambition says: “You are already above baseline. You are smart. You are hardworking. You are wealthy. You belong. You are everything you want to be already.
Achieving this goal is just a fun challenge to take on. A cool opportunity to express all the good things already within you. It’s the joy of going from 100 to 110.”
Surplus mindset is energizing. You don’t save all the good feelings for the end point. You feel flow, accomplishment, pride, and fun every step of the way.
This is the cycle that surplus mindset typically puts people in:
You make a doable plan that you’re excited to complete
You knock the plan out of the park
You feel even better about yourself for following through
You make another fun, doable plan and repeat the cycle again…
…and any obstacles or problems that come up are just interesting challenges to be solved
This is a way of pursuing your goals that makes the journey so fun that you don’t even care when you reach the destination.
Principle 3: Find the middle states. No all-or-nothing thinking.
Traditional ambition says, “No days off. Leave it all on the field. Rise and grind. If you’re not working till 2 am every day, do you even CARE??”
And if you’re not putting your career on 100, you have to put it on 0. Burning out? Quit your job and go to a month-long silent meditation retreat.
Aligned ambition says, “Find the middle states. There are soooo many places you can go between 0 and 100.”
Gunning for the corner office or quiet quitting aren’t your only two options. There are so many shades of gray in between. Explore the middle ground and find the exact mix that works for you.
Principle 4: Build a multifaceted identity
Traditional ambition pushes you to build an “all eggs in one basket” identity. (This is an extension of the all-or-nothing thinking.)
And the basket you put all your “identity eggs” in? Your career, of course!
What you do professionally is your primary identity. And if anything threatens (or even just changes) your job or career path, time for an identity crisis!
Aligned ambition says: Build a multifaceted identity that extends across multiple areas of your life.
You’re not JUST your job. You are also just as robustly a friend, sibling, partner, parent, son or daughter, community member, and friendly stranger on the subway.
Work You isn’t the “real you.” ALL of those are the real you.
And when you have multiple touch points for knowing who you are as a person, it’s easier to weather storms in any one area of your life because your whole sense of self isn’t going down with the ship.
Principle 5: Call BS on broken systems
Traditional ambition is all about heroic individualism.
“We all face challenges!” it says. “It’s up to you to figure it out and make it happen, no matter what! No excuses.”
And if you can’t make it happen, that’s on you. If you had just been smarter, more hardworking, prettier, more likable, more organized, more productive, more savvy, etc. etc., you wouldn’t be facing this problem right now. Do better.
Aligned ambition steps back and calls bullshit on broken systems.
It says, “Hey! This systemic bias? These double standards? This lack of support for parents? The multiple ‘once in a life time’ financial crises and economic instability? This is BULLSHIT.”
Pressuring yourself to heroically counteract a broken system and blaming yourself when you fail…
…is like pressuring yourself to stop the rain and blaming yourself when you fail.
You are not in charge of the rain. There are things here that are genuinely out of your control, that are genuinely limiting you, and that you do NOT have to blame yourself for.
Instead, you can call out broken systems for what they are, work around them, focus on what’s in your control, do your best to change things…
And above all — stop blaming yourself for bullshit that’s out of your control.
Principle 6: Grow like a tree — not like a staircase
Traditional ambition sees linear growth as the norm.
You set a goal. You make a plan.
You progress neatly step by step in a linear, consistent fashion.
You’re always growing and progressing, and everything is very neat and orderly in how it proceeds.
Aligned ambition sees organic growth as the norm.
You can set a goal if you want. But you don’t know exactly how things are going to progress. The tree is going to grow — that much is known.
But what direction is it going to grow in? Straight up? To the right? To the left? We don’t know. You have to let the organic process unfold and see what happens.
And that organic process is not neat, linear, or consistent. Progress looks different every day because the environment looks different every day. The tree grows faster when there’s plenty of sunshine and water and more slowly when it’s cloudy or dry. This is normal.
And there is NOT constant, unending growth. (In the natural world, constant unending growth is called cancer — and it kills you.)
There are periods of flourishing followed by periods of death, decay, and regression.
Death, decay, and regression are not a problem. They are an essential part of the process. Things need to die, rot, go backwards, and lie fallow for some period of time — that death and decay is exactly what fertilizes the next period of growth.
So embrace it. Nothing is going wrong here.
Principle 7: Build in strategic underperformance
Traditional ambition assumes that there are infinite resources.
And because it assumes there are infinite resources, it tells you to get an A+ in all areas, no matter what. Work, parenting, marriage, health, family, hobbies, spirituality. Get an A+ in it all!
And if you don’t, go ahead and feel terrible about yourself — because clearly YOU were the lazy one who let one of the balls drop.
Aligned ambition accounts for finite resources.
It knows it’s not possible to get an A+ in all areas. There literally aren’t enough hours in the day or energy in your system to make that happen.
So aligned ambition says (to quote one of the most popular pieces I ever wrote)—
Be just as clear about your UN-priorities as you are about your priorities.
Deliberately set the standard of UN-success that you want to see in your UN-priority areas.
Plan to get B’s and C’s and D’s in your UN-priority areas areas — and be proud of yourself when you do!
Because the true sign of effective prioritization…
…is consistent underperformance in NON-prioritized areas.
Traditional ambition is extractive.
Aligned ambition is regenerative.
(And I don’t have to tell you that being extractive rather than regenerative has created a lot of problems for us as a species.)
I don’t want you to live a depleting life that burns you out and saps your energy.
I don’t even want you to live a sustainable life that’s just energy-neutral.
I want you to live a regenerative life — one that CREATES more energy than it consumes and leaves you and the world better than you found it.
You can use these seven principles to build up your aligned ambitions.
And you can use them as a diagnostic tool to stay aligned on an ongoing basis. When things start feeling depleting or energy-neutral, come back here. Which of these seven is out of whack?
Staying aligned requires constant management. It’s not “set it and forget it.”
It’s a daily rebalancing act as you change, the world changes, and the forces of tradition and default thinking tug at you every day.
(We swim in the waters and breathe in the air of extractive ambition. You’re going to be pulled back in that direction. It’s a current you have to consciously swim against.)
Want to do an ambition audit where we break down where things currently stand against these seven principles and figure out what changes you want to make?
AND want to ensure that you actually follow through on your plan?
You will run into obstacles along the way — there’s no way to avoid it.
Having a coach ensures that you problem-solve through every single one of them as effectively and efficiently as possible…
…And figure out how to live the life you actually want no matter what life throws your way.
That’s what I want for you more than anything.
And if you think I can be of any help along your journey, come talk to me and let’s see what we can do together.
What my clients have to say…
“If you're just starting out, you should learn this toolkit with an expert like Pooja.
Now I'm able to open up a Google Doc and make good progress on my own.
But if you want to do it the right way, you really should have someone listening to what you're saying, guiding you, and course-correcting you.”
—Client | Solutions Engineer at Fintech company
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