What is ambition at work? Areas of manifestation of ambitions. Good or bad

Each of us understands the meaning of the word ambition in our own way. Some believe that this is one of the best human qualities and is the main component of career success. Others believe that ambition is important in life in general and, they say, people who do not have this quality are bums. Still others, on the contrary, say that ambition is more a flaw than a virtue, and almost classify it as a human vice.

What is ambition? Positive or negative trait character is ambitious? Let's try to figure it out.

If you turn to explanatory dictionaries, then the meaning of the word ambition has the following meaning - a thirst for achievement, a desire for power, a sense of self-superiority. Knowing about a person’s aspirations and plans that he wants to bring to life, as well as the ways in which he achieves all this, you can always recognize how ambitious a person is.

The one who builds big plans for the future and is confident in their implementation, the one who sets goals and achieves them is ambitious. While in a person who is always satisfied with everything and who does not even try to change his life for the better, one can state a clear lack of ambition.

Each of these situations, of course, has its own backstory: ambition, like any other character trait, is formed in early childhood and depends on the reaction of others to the child’s success.

As a rule, children to whom their parents often say “you will succeed” and are always praised even for minor successes are more confident in their abilities, and accordingly their ambitions are higher.

But in those families where they do not pay attention to the child’s efforts, or even vice versa, they underestimate the importance of his achievements, people often grow up to be completely unambitious and insecure.

Although it happens, it also happens that a person who did not receive words of approval in childhood tries to challenge society and strives in every way to prove that he, too, is worthy of praise and everyone’s attention.

Thus, ambition can safely be called a person’s need to be successful. And this need, as we have already seen above, can be caused by a variety of life circumstances.

It should be said that healthy ambition is very good quality. Judge for yourself: such a person sets goals for himself and achieves them, striving to live each day better and better than the previous one. Such people know how to compare their desires and capabilities; they realistically assess their strengths.

But excessive ambition, as a rule, does not lead to anything good. Unhealthy ambitions force a person to set impossible goals for himself, because... he exaggerates his capabilities too much (the fact is that it is difficult for him to admit, even to himself, that he may not be able to cope with something). They usually say about such people: “his ambitions are out of nowhere.” This means that a person loudly declares himself and promises to move mountains, but in reality nothing works out for him. It happens that such people behave as if they have already achieved a lot (they allow them to talk to people arrogantly, point out their shortcomings to everyone, emphasizing their superiority), although in reality their treasury of awards is still empty.

Interestingly, a person’s healthy or unhealthy ambition can be determined by listening to the form in which he uses verbs when talking about his achievements. Truly ambitious people in a good way of this word) talk about their successes using perfective verbs. Verbs of the imperfect form more often indicate only that the person was only standing nearby and has a very distant relationship with the success that he is trying to appropriate for himself.

And, of course, we cannot help but say that it is always useful and informative to communicate with ambitious people. Firstly, you can learn a lot of new things from them, and secondly, looking at their successes, you always have a desire to start acting and strive for something. But it’s best, of course, when healthy ambitions are inherent in oneself. Still, it’s much more pleasant to rejoice in your own successes than to open your mouth and listen about others!

Good day, dear reader. In this article you will learn about what an ambitious person means, what characteristic manifestations of this quality. Find out how ambitions affect a person’s life, figure out how to manage them. You will learn how to develop ambition in yourself.

Definition of the concept and classification

Nowadays, ambition is seen as a strong need to act, to go towards a goal, to success, to strive for prosperity. When wondering what ambition is, you need to understand that there is no single definition. However, they all have the same meaning - to get what you want in any available way.

An ambitious person is a person who has no doubts about achieving success; there is confidence that he will be able to easily cope with any task. Such a person does not know the words “impossible”, “I can’t”, “it won’t work out”. He confidently says that he is capable of achieving any goal. The only difference is how much effort he will need to achieve the result. There are also the following definitions of an ambitious person:

• an individual for whom his superiority is not so important as his ability to prove to everyone that he can achieve a lot;
• a person who sets goals and successfully achieves them;
• an individual who can make a certain amount of self-sacrifice in order to prove to everyone that he can achieve what he wants;
• a successful, strong-willed person who achieves a lot in life is an accomplished person.

People around them see arrogance and selfishness in the character of ambitious people. However, these qualities are more typical of individuals with high ambitions.

Some people admire the ambition of others, especially their desire to achieve their goals and overcome all obstacles. People try to be like them, develop ambitions, and strengthen them. However, there are also individuals who do not consider ambitious individuals normal people, do not strive to be like that, they are sure that they can achieve considerable heights if they perform their standard functions.

A person who has good ambitions is very energetic, sets goals for himself, gives himself motivation to further development. Changes in the life of such a person occur quite often, because he is very active.

I bring to your attention examples of ambitions:

• a girl from a village comes to the metropolis in order to break out of her backwoods and achieve great heights;
• the guy who entered acting, strive to become a famous actor;
• a girl who has set herself the goal of seducing a rich guy does everything in order to get him.

Ambitions include:

• destructive and healthy;
• imperial and political;
• adequate and overestimated;
• careerist and champion.

There are big and small ambitions:

• major goals and plans - situations when a person sets himself very high bars, for example, dreams of becoming a director of a company in which this moment works as a courier;
• small ones are mainly formed due to low self-esteem - a person does not see his merits and deliberately underestimates his status. For example, a situation where an individual is an excellent specialist, they want to give him a promotion, but he refuses, as he considers himself unworthy of the new position.

Every person has some level of ambition, some don’t show it at all, some have it too high. Everything depends on the specific abilities and capabilities of an individual.

1. Low ambitions. Such individuals very rarely manage to achieve good results and be successful. As a rule, these are shy, modest, insecure people. They have practically no desire to achieve anything, to strive for something. Such a person will rejoice in what he has. Difficulties that arise along his way will be frustrating, and he will try to avoid them.
2. Adequate. Synonyms for such ambition are ambition and arrogance. Such a person strives for heights, however, sets goals that are quite achievable. This individual is able to adequately assess his capabilities. When such a person completes a given task, he does not stop there, sets new goals for himself, and tries to conquer them. Having healthy ambitions in a person contributes to self-improvement. These individuals are interesting conversationalists, it is pleasant to communicate with them, they are good listeners, listen to what others say, and do not impose themselves. A person with this level of ambition will prove to himself the validity of his image, but will not demonstrate himself by pointing out his own superiority.
3. Elevated. Such a person is overly self-confident, often exaggerates his capabilities, does not know how to adequately assess his own abilities, rarely completes assigned tasks, and often does not finish what he starts. When something doesn't work out, blames others or external factors, but not yourself. In the team, such people are not taken seriously; they are not assigned important tasks. Unhealthy self-esteem of these personalities pushes people away; it causes problems with communication and loneliness.

Characteristic manifestations

If a person is ambitious, ambition will manifest itself in various fields his life.

1. Career. In order for a person to have the opportunity to advance through career ladder he needs integrity. For ambitious individuals, their financial situation and high social status, which is what they strive for.
2. Professional activity. Even if a person has in his professional activity there is no opportunity to move up in his career, then his ambitions will still come in handy. After all, he wants to be good specialist, will improve their skills, engage in self-development, deepen their interest in a certain area, and develop in it.
3. Marriage. Ambition is not positive trait for family relationships. The problem is that ambitious individuals can overwhelm their partner with their countless aspirations. In order for the ambitions of one spouse not to interfere with the life of the other, it is necessary to learn to control them.
4. Children. Parents often make a mistake when they try to realize their ambitions in their children. And everything must be done to ensure that the child develops a desire to achieve goals that are interesting to him, to persistently pursue victory. Only in such a situation will he be able to grow up strong, self-sufficient and independent.

There are a number of advantages of ambition:

• the need to achieve great success;
• self-development;
• assistance in achieving the goal;
• motivation that allows you to overcome all the difficulties that arise along the way.

How to develop ambition

1. Learn to give an objective assessment of your abilities and actions. To do this, you need to try to look at yourself from the outside, think about the topics “what are you like,” “can you change?”
2. Understand your desires, clearly formulate them, think through acceptable ways to help implement your plans.
3. Be completely confident in yourself and your abilities, do not be afraid of mistakes, realize that they are given to us for experience, draw conclusions from them.
4. Set priorities, do it right, set only achievable goals. When results are obtained from them, set even higher standards for yourself that were previously beyond your means, and try to achieve them.
5. Learn to respond adequately to mistakes, admit them, listen to what others say, and do not be offended by their criticism.

How to communicate with an ambitious person

Sometimes among your acquaintances you may find a person with high ambitions and with whom it is quite difficult to communicate. If you still want to maintain contact with him, you need to follow certain tips to help improve your relationship.

1. When you are with such a friend, do not mention the success of other people.
2. Don’t talk about your achievements, try not to remember them when an ambitious person is nearby.
3. Point out to your friend his uniqueness, beauty and genius.
4. If you know that this person There are some awards for his victories, ask to demonstrate them.

When ambitions are too high

If a person notices that his ambitions have gotten the better of him, he needs to learn to suppress them.

1. You realized that you have inflated ambitions, let them be inside you.
2. Take more time to think, meditate, acknowledge your own emotions and feelings.
3. Love yourself. Then you will be less likely to look for love in someone, and you will stop controlling everyone.
4. Decide what works for you great value, understand that you don’t need to argue with someone about anything, realize your tasks and goals.

Now you know what ambition means and who an ambitious person is. As you can see, with a normal level of ambition, a person achieves considerable heights, however, inflated ambitions interfere with normal life activities and affect relationships with other people.

There are a lot of options for interpreting the word “ambition”. From Latin the word “ambitio” can be translated as vanity, ambition, passionate desire. In Russian the word appeared in early XVIII centuries and meant “swagger, arrogance.” “For a penny of ammunition, for a ruble of ambition,” they said in the old days about a person with heightened pride and great self-esteem.

But over time, the word began to acquire a positive connotation. IN modern world ambitions most often mean determination, readiness to achieve set goals, desire for self-realization and higher standards of living.

Thus, ambition is the degree of a person’s aspirations. They force a person to move forward, explore new horizons and strive to achieve his dreams. But ambition can only be considered a virtue if it is backed up by something.

Ambitiousness as a character trait

The presence of a certain level of ambition in a person is called “ambitiousness”. This is a rather specific character trait, since everyone interprets this concept in their own way.

An ambitious person always tries to set new goals for himself, strives to achieve more, even if currently does not have sufficient means or abilities for this.

Ambitiousness: good or bad

There is no clear definition of whether it is good or bad to be ambitious. Depending on the capabilities and abilities of each specific person his ambition can be:

• understated;
• adequate (healthy);
• overpriced.

People with low (or even non-existent) ambitions rarely achieve success. As a rule, these are shy, timid, unsure of their abilities. In their lives they are content with little, being wary of any difficulties and obstacles.

A person with high ambition due to his self-confidence and tendency to exaggerate his own abilities, he rarely achieves his goal. But this does not bother him and he does not draw conclusions from his mistakes, attributing failures to external factors. In most cases, overly ambitious people do not enjoy authority in a team, since their painful pride does not allow them to seek advice from a more competent colleague, which, of course, affects their work results.

Healthy ambition. A person with adequate ambitions strives for high but achievable goals, as he is able to proportionately assess the level of his capabilities and abilities.

Having reached the planned milestones, he will continue to climb to new ones. Having healthy ambitions makes a person strive for self-improvement, to take a daily step forward. Such people are always pleasant and interesting to talk to. They always listen to the opinions of others, do not stick their nose into other people’s affairs, and skillfully and timely adjust their goals. An ambitious person first of all strives to prove his worth to himself, and not to demonstrate his superiority over others.

Among other things, an ambitious person has a sense of self-esteem.

Demonstrating ambition in various areas

The most common manifestation of a person’s ambition can be found in the following areas:

• professional activity;
• career;
• family life;
• parenting.

IN professionally healthy ambitions are essential, even if you do not strive for career heights. Inertia and lack of initiative are not welcomed by employers in the modern world. And if you want to fully realize your professional and organizational abilities, maximizing your social status and strengthening your financial situation, then you cannot do without ambition.

IN family life excessive ambition will be unnecessary, since family happiness is built on the ability to find a compromise and not put pressure on your other half.

In matters of upbringing, parents very often make the mistake of trying to realize their personal ambitions in their children. It is better to avoid this, and to instill in the child from the very beginning the ability to achieve his goals and teach him to strive for success.

How to become ambitious

Ambition - it's not an innate trait. It originates in early childhood and is formed in the process of growing up and personality development.

Parents play a decisive role in the development of ambition in a child. If they rejoice at his successes and encourage his endeavors, then adult life such a person will “stand firmly on his feet” and feel confident. If you do not show interest in his results and achievements in various fields, and constantly scold him for his mistakes and failures, then most likely with age a person will become indecisive and complex, devoid of any ambitions.

Main, encourage real achievements, and not praise the child on every, sometimes completely inappropriate, occasion. Otherwise, there is a high probability of developing in the child large, unsupported ambitions, which will subsequently be impossible to moderate.

To become an ambitious person, you need the following:

Some condemn them, while others admire them. Ambition scares some and inspires others. People have ambivalent approaches to the question of whether ambitions are supported by vanity or the thirst to achieve success. Perhaps in this issue There can be no certainty, since there are different examples of the realization of ambitions and much depends on the reasons for their occurrence.

Ambitions arise only when a person has desires. Why does everyone have them, but few achieve their goals? This issue is considered from different angles. Some learn to set goals correctly, others read thought forms to set themselves up for results, others stumble when planning achievements and direct implementation. Another important question that worries people is: what kind of goals should be set - large or small, within reach or beyond?

Often people focus on the fact that the goal should be big. “I want to fly into space” - how realistic is this in the conditions present life? Perhaps a person will fly into space, but after many years or in the next life. Why dream about something that is not feasible in the conditions of current life?

Accordingly, the goal must be set that is difficult to achieve and large, but it must be feasible within the limits of the current life. If you had all the resources available today to achieve your goal, would you be able to achieve it now? Flying into space is not accessible to every person, but buying a car is accessible to everyone. Thus, you need to put big goals, but available for embodiment within the conditions in which you live.

Set realistic and big goals, but at the same time there should be examples that there are people who have already achieved them. If there are people who have already achieved the same goal that you want to achieve, then you can achieve it too. But the higher you raise the bar, the more interesting and active you will be. This is called ambition.

What is Ambition?

What is ambition? Ambition cannot be described in one word. This is more a complex of factors that overlap in a person:

• Great desire to achieve certain goals.
• Ambition.
• The desire to receive respect and honor.
• Pride and dignity.

When talking about ambition, people understand a person's great, enormous desire to achieve goals in the professional or interpersonal sphere. The higher a person’s goals, the more of them he has, the more he acts, develops, makes efforts, the more ambitious he becomes.

Small ambitions are those desires that do not require a person to great effort. If an individual is content with little, he is considered unambitious.

Ambition should be understood as what is given when translating this word - “ambition” - vanity, ambition, vanity. People's attitude towards this phenomenon is ambiguous:

1. On the one hand, people become arrogant, arrogant, deceitful, go over their heads, proud, arrogant, arrogant. Often people encounter upstarts - people who actually only dream of achieving certain goals, but have not yet done anything for this. Upstarts do have ambition, but they don't achieve their goals.
2. On the other hand, people achieve success and their goals. IN in this case ambitions are perceived positively because we're talking about about the use of one's potential by a person. He really acted, gained knowledge, developed in order to achieve what he wanted.

Perhaps the attitude towards the ambitions of others is formed on the basis of the ways in which people realize them. If someone suffers because of a person's ambitions, then his aspirations are viewed negatively, and if he does not bother anyone with his actions (and perhaps does good), then his ambitions are good.

Ambitions themselves are good because they push a person to achieve goals. They give energy and the desire to act. While some people only dream of achieving goals, ambitious people act and do not sit idle. Ambition gives you confidence and purpose. There are these types:

• Healthy and destructive.
• Adequate and inadequate (overestimated).
• Imperial and political.
• Careerist and champion.

Reasons for ambition

Why are some ambitious and others not? The emergence of ambition involves many factors that must be combined with each other. The reasons for the emergence of ambitions lie both at the genetic level and at the psychological and social level.

1. Genetics. Temperament and structure nervous system is laid at the time of intrauterine development. Even then it is determined how active a person will be, which depends entirely on the genetics of the father and mother.
2. Example of parents. It is noted that in families successful people The same successful children grow up. This is often due to the desire of the children themselves to keep up with their parents, who have achieved a lot.
3. Unfulfilled childhood desires. Psychologists have noticed that people from large families often become ambitious. What is this connected with? With the fact that parents could not make the wishes of all their children come true. When a child constantly has to infringe on his own desires, he develops an internal desire to grow up and do everything to ensure that this does not happen again.
4. The spirit of competition. Not only in men, but also in women, one can see the spirit of competition. “Who is the smartest?”, “Who is the most beautiful?”, “Who is the most worthy?” - if a person has a developed spirit of competition, then he is more inclined to be ambitious.

Ambition is a goal with a great desire to achieve it. In the good sense of the word, ambition manifests itself in determination, when a person really understands his strengths and weak sides. However, an ambitious person will not always be able to do only good deeds, since difficulties will often occur on his way, where he will have to ignore the feelings and desires of others.

Ambitions are:

• Overpriced. They make people think of themselves as successful, but without real evidence of their success. They only talk, they put themselves arrogantly, although in fact they do not have the qualities and successes that they boast about. Here the cause is fear of appearing weak or stupidity.
• Understated. They make people settle for little. Often such individuals dream of a lot, but achieve practically nothing. The reason for this is internal fears.
• Adequate. They allow a person to constantly progress, develop, set goals and gradually achieve them.

The following psychological factors play a role in the formation of ambitions:

1. Self-esteem - the higher it is, the more ambitious a person is. However, it must be adequate - a person is praised for what he really possesses. Self-esteem is formed from childhood by parents, who program the child for success or constant failure.
2. Personality type – extrovert or introvert. Previously, only extroverts could achieve success. However, in the world of technology, introverts can also become successful.
3. “Family Legacy” is the desire of parents to see their children succeed by inspiring them and instilling in them the idea of ​​what they “should.”
4. Readiness for self-development. A person must understand that he does not know and can do everything. This means that achieving a goal may require acquiring new knowledge and skills.

Constant failure can make you give up on achieving your goals. If, from childhood, parents instilled in their child the idea that any difficulty should be overcome and not give up, this mechanism will stick with him for a long time. If a person does not have it, then it is necessary to develop it.

Examples of ambitions being realized

Ambitions manifest themselves in various areas of life that are important to a person. Clear examples of the realization of ambitions can be:

• Professional activity when a person wants to climb the career ladder or develop his business to the level of worldwide recognition.
• The monetary sphere, when a person dreams of multimillion-dollar wealth.
• Family life, when a person dreams of finding an ideal soul mate, building strong and happy relationship, creating a family and having healthy and successful children in the future.
• Raising children when parents demand that their children be genius in everything. Kids should develop quickly, grasp everything on the fly, be geniuses and the smartest.

Since everyone's ambitions are different, they can be both large and small. Ambition will lead to success if a person adequately understands his own capabilities and sets real goals, but which will require effort and self-development. If a person knows how to be flexible, listen to the desires of others and takes into account the cause-and-effect relationships of the world, then he can build the right strategy for achieving the goal.

If a person has inflated self-esteem (when he should be praised for what he does not possess), and also has a pretentious attitude towards the environment (“everyone owes me”), then he is deprived of the opportunity to realize his ambitions.

An ambitious person can be distinguished by three characteristics:

1. He educates himself: he gains new knowledge and develops new skills - those that will be useful to him to achieve his goal.
2. He does not allow himself to be treated with disrespect because he has a developed sense of self-esteem.
3. He is confident in himself and his strengths, which are supported by real opportunities and resources.

An ambitious person strives for a life where he will be healthy, happy, loved and prosperous. This is quite normal if he makes commensurate efforts to achieve the goal.

Why are people afraid to set ambitious goals?

Distinguish between goal setting and simply dreaming about something. If you simply imagine yourself as a superhero without claiming such embodiment, this is not a goal, but only a dream. But a dream becomes a goal when you clearly say to yourself: “I want to realize this.” Accordingly, many people dream ambitiously, but only a few dare to turn dreams into goals. Why are people afraid to set ambitious goals?

It's simple: they are afraid of being upset. Ambitiousness indicates that at the moment a person is far from what he wants to have. How longer for a person go towards what you want, the more ambitious the goal becomes. If he could easily achieve what he wanted, then the goal was not ambitious. He is afraid of being upset that he will not achieve what he wants. It’s better to set a small goal and achieve it, rather than a task that will take years to solve (“What if it doesn’t work out? What if I change my mind? I’ll just waste my time”).

A person is afraid of being disappointed in his goal. This is quite possible if he dreams of an imposed goal. It does not come from within the person himself, it is not a rush of his personal interests and desires. He just saw something somewhere from someone, he wanted the same thing. And while he reaches her, he may understand that he does not need her. And time and effort have already been spent. What a disappointment!

A person will not be disappointed if he tries to achieve a goal that was based on his own values, interests and desires. Here a simple question arises: is a person ready to do everything possible to achieve what he wants? Often, only one thing is required of him: to change himself so much that his thoughts, words, actions and resources provide what he wants. In other words, a person must develop in himself such habitual actions, which he will do automatically, which is why he gets what he wants every day. If he cannot achieve his goal today, then he does not have the habits that would help him have what he wants.

Bottom line

Ambitions only become adequate or unhealthy in the hands of a person. The result is obvious:

1. If a person only dreams, tries to seem successful, demands help from others, but does nothing himself, then his ambition becomes inadequate. It’s good if at the same time a person does not forget to set realistic goals.
2. If an individual really evaluates his own capabilities, studies, studies different ways to achieve a goal, and uses the principle of gradual progress, then he has every chance of achieving what he wants.

It seems that ambition is an explosion of emotions that pushes a person to action. In fact, ambition refers to stable motivation to achieve goals. The explosion may come and go quickly, but the ambition will be constant.

The prognosis for the quality of life of a person who sets inflated goals is disappointing. If you can’t figure out the reasons for your lack of fulfillment yourself, you should use the help of a psychologist on the website. A specialist will help you understand the factors that prevent an ambitious person from achieving what he wants. This is often due to fears social environment and lack of readiness for self-development.

IN modern society A person's ambition is welcome. This creates a certain tension for those who are far from great ambitions. Everyone is expected to achieve success, which is promoted and valued by others. However, few can boast of successful achievements. Often people can only embellish their own achievements in order to appear successful in the eyes of others. However, this only develops internal fears and one’s own dissatisfaction. After all, a person himself understands that he is unsuccessful. This cannot be overcome with lies and embellishments.