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I stammered something along the lines of, “Um, well,
where I am now. Or maybe I’ll do something else, but
I’ll see what when I get there.”SOMETHING YOU WANT
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with ambition. It
ensures that you take action. Nothing happens without
ambition. So basically, it’s a good drive that gives you
the power to achieve things. An aspiration to grow, to
improve and move forward. Fine, it’s how we develop.
But ambition has also become a loaded word, career
jargon. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines
ambition as ‘an ardent desire for rank, fame or power’.
That makes me think of elbow grease and a ruthless
drive. But you can define ambition differently, says
social psychologist Barbara van der Steen: as a dream
or wish. Straight away that sounds a lot friendlier.
Anyway, the ‘ambitious seed’ is planted early. Even
earlier these days. In my time at kindergarten, I had
little more to do than color in pictures. Try doing that
nowadays. My children had to sit their first national >Once a month, five of us meet up. We’ve been doing
this for more than twenty years. We were colleagues
once, and got to know each other in our first jobs in the
magazine world. Two of us are now editors-in-chief,
until recently the third was a manager, and number four
works as a coordinator in another job. As for me? I’ve
been a freelance writer for more than fifteen years. I
have no action plan, no goals; I let myself get swept
up by whatever comes my way. Clients come and go.
Some stay. I’m usually happy with what I do.
But sometimes, every once in a while, I wonder:
Am I ambitious enough? Do I not stay too much in
my comfort zone, where I let things run nice and safe
and wait to see what comes my way? For example,
I recently learned on a course that I’m actually an
entrepreneur, not ‘just a freelancer’, the way I always
present myself. Because, as the course leader
explained, an enterprise oozes ambition and success.
Terms like ‘setting goals’ and ‘long-term planning’
came up in the course. And questions like: Where do
you want to be with your enterprise in ten years’ time?Freelance journalist Anneke Bots is pretty content
with the way things are. She doesn’t have any
career plans or future goals. ‘Is it a lack of ambition
and, if so, is that really so bad?’ she asks herself.