Day 94 (Ninety-four) of 365 days

Ambition, achievement, striving, and risk-taking are highly valued by our society, but they have also come with a dark side. High achievers typically believe in setting themselves ambitious goals and working hard to achieve them, but how do you know when you are pushing things too far?

There are two ways that over-ambition can bite. The first is skipping steps. Most times, we need to complete appropriate training and develop our gear placement skills through large amounts of deliberate practice. Focusing on the basics first is one of the keys to success, skipping it might lead to an exhilarating rather than tragic experience.

The other type of over-ambition is setting unattainable or highly improbable goals and occasionally claiming that anything is possible notwithstanding. If I were to set myself the goal of becoming the best footballer in the world, the odds of success would be functionally equivalent to zero.

While skipping steps often entails risk, the most common problem with setting unattainable goals is the opportunity cost — that is, while you are working towards the goal you will never achieve, you are missing out on the opportunity to do something else at which you might be more likely to succeed, or which you might enjoy more.

If you are sacrificing your health, sanity, and peace of mind to succeed, then you are too ambitious and need to take a step back. Over-ambition involves a significant amount of hubris. You want to do things not because it will benefit you or the people around you, but because there will be a neat label saying “[your name] did it”. It also involves stepping on others to get to where you want or only thinking of that goal concerning yourself, ignoring other aspects of life.

Ambition fits into a happy and fulfilling life, over-ambition does not. There should be a limit to certain things in life, and that’s because it’s safer that way.