It’s been my experience that when one person shares a challenge they’re facing, five more will follow in short succession to share the same challenge. Nobody knows of the other person’s struggle, and inevitably, each person feels like they’re all alone in it. What I know for sure, is that they never are.
Over the past few weeks, the pattern that’s emerged again and again is this:
How do I manage the tension between my ambitions and my reality?
This is a common struggle that most of us face at some point.
As strivers, high achievers and people looking to make impact in the world, it’s natural that we’ll often find ourselves wishing we could do more and be more. We see what’s possible, and yet recognize that our current reality might not set up to support it.
I’ve felt like this so many times over the years: when my kids were small, when my client load was too full to allow for anything else, when I took on too much extra-curricular work. I know the pull – the inner tugging – of more, while living through a season of life that simply wouldn’t allow for it.
Oh, the frustration, FOMO and sense of urgency I’ve felt in those moments, wishing I had more to give and more time to give to it.
The pandemic seems to have amplified this for many of us.
As we trudge on through this period where we’re all feeling the fatigue right down at a cellular level; where we’re hitting the wall for the fourth, fifth or 10th time; and where we’re operating in the world with a chronic, low-level hum of stress that just won’t go away, it’s inevitable that the dreams we have for ourselves can feel at odds with the reality we’re living.
And in many ways, they are.
This year has required so much from us all, in profound and heavy ways – from the pandemic, to an overdue racial reckoning, to ongoing violence against women, to financial insecurity and to increased polarization at all levels.
I don’t think we’ve even begun to process the grief and stress we’ve all been living with – at varying levels depending on everyone’s individual situation. Many of us are operating with reduced time, limited childcare, work from home challenges, job changes and less demand for services. We’ve had to get scrappy and creative in the margins, while still attending to the daily demands of our lives. It’s a lot.
Of course many great things continue to happen: babies get born, businesses get built, connections get made, promotions get offered and successes continue to happen. I’ve talked to many people who have found this year to be incredibly clarifying. And I imagine that many will go through a profound period of post-traumatic growth over the coming years.
But for most of us, this year has added a load to our shoulders that makes the gap between our ambitions and our reality feel so much wider. And our capacity – both time-wise and heart-wise – to close that chasm isn’t perhaps what it used to be (or is that just me?).
And so, if you relate to this, may I offer you a few grace-filled, imperfect ways to support yourself as you live in the limbo.
Look for the cracks
As the legendary Canadian singer/poet Leonard Cohen shares in his song, Anthem…
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That ambition you wish you could fully realize? Turn it down a few notches – or 10. Find small, doable ways to move forward and let go of the grand plans you made once upon a time. It’s easy to get stuck in all-or-none thinking, the kind that tells you that the only way to pursue your goals is by jumping into the deep end and committing fully. It’s not true though, and a toe or two into the shallow end to start might be just enough movement to shift your perspective, while keeping it all manageable.
Ask yourself: what is the smallest, lowest-pressure way I can begin?
Decide to not decide
Last fall when the kids were home 24/7 and I effectively became a full-time teacher, I quickly realized that spending ANY decision-making time around my ambitions was a fool’s errand. It simply was not possible. There were no cracks to let the light in, no capacity to even do the minimum. And so I decided to take any decisions around my ambitions off the table completely. It helped immensely.
Our struggle is in the tension itself – the push/pull feeling we feel when we’re in the middle of it, wondering how we can make our plans work or when we’ll get more time. But we can remove that ever-present tug by making a conscious decision to no longer engage with it. We can choose to press pause and remove the stress of deciding, of acting, of wanting.
This doesn’t mean we lose our ambitions, but rather we put them into a safe storage unit until we have the desire AND the capacity to revisit them. The weight of our unrealized potential is a burden we don’t always have to carry.
Ask yourself: what can I set aside for now, trusting that I can bring it back when I’m able?
Embrace the good
For ambitious people, identifying the next big thing often comes easily. We see opportunities everywhere and have lists of plans and ideas just waiting for the right time. We have goals and bucket lists and dreams we hope to achieve. We look out in the future and wish we were 10 steps ahead already.
If I’m honest, I’m not sure how to turn this off. I’ve always been future-oriented, which is one of my superpowers with clients – I can see possibility for them, often before they can.
But, and this is a big but, because of this tendency to look ahead, I often miss out on all the good – right here, right now. I am too caught up in what I wish I could do or be, that I forget to notice what’s working now.
And so, while I have 86 gratitude journals I’ve never kept up, I can’t help but wonder if this time calls for their return. That tension between our ambitions and our reality comes from a focus on the future – an imagined state where things are better, easier and more rewarding. And while we can continue to dream, I reckon that we’d find ourselves happier if we embraced the good happening right now too.
Ask yourself: what is good right now? How am I living my ambitions today?
Your ambitions are never finite, nor are most time-bound – there will come a time when you can give them the attention and care they deserve. And in the meantime, may you give yourself the gift of patience and grace as you go.
Steph (she/her)
x
p.s. This month I’m hosting a 4-part Leadership Lab workshop series on how to Communicate with Confidence. If you’d like to participate, you can sign up here – you can choose between a ticket to the workshop alone, or as part of a membership to LEAD.Well.
💡 FRESH, HAND-PICKED RESOURCES
Curated links from around the web to help you work well, live well and lead well.
Where Did My Ambition Go? “Where does ambition go when jobs disappear and the things you’ve been striving for barely even exist anymore? And what if the things for which you’ve been striving no longer feel important because they’re the spoils of a rotten system that needs a complete overhaul?”
This is your brain on pandemic: What chronic stress is doing to us. Published today, a CBC report on the impact of feeling the hum of stress over the long haul. “Just shy of one year into the pandemic, a national survey of Canadians suggested that more than half of all respondents — 56 per cent — said they were feeling increased stress or anxiety as a result of COVID-19.”
On the subtle relief of narrowing our plans and ambition. “Narrowing can feel claustrophobic, but reducing what we do can help to centre our focus and attention. It can help us take notice, it can be the nudge we need to enact the own endings we seek instead of waiting for them.”
An older series, and naturally missing the context of the pandemic’s impact on our ambitions, but a reminder that for women, ambition has always been a nuanced thing. The Ambition Interviews: Seven stories about women who were all set to rule the world—and how their careers shook out.
How Ramona Quimby Taught a Generation of Girls to Embrace Brashness. Thank you for a lifetime of stories Beverly Cleary.
I know, I know – here I am again with a Brené Brown reference. But this episode was such a delight – bringing together three people I hold in such high esteem: Brené, Roxanne Gay and Debbie Millman. This podcast is a winding, varied conversation and I didn’t want it to end.
My mom turned 70 on Monday and I put together a surprise 40-minute video montage of all her friends and family wishing her happy birthday and sharing memories. She loved it and she now has this heartfelt keepsake of the people she cares most about. The tool I used was Vidday, and they made the process so incredibly easy, I wanted you to know about it. A perfect pandemic gift when we can’t all be together.
“Grace meets you exactly where you are, at your most pathetic and hopeless, and it loads you into its wheelbarrow and then tips you out somewhere else in ever so slightly better shape, which feels like a miracle.”
~Anne Lamott
🌱 INSIDE LEAD.Well:
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Here’s what we’re up to in LEAD.Well:
- New theme for April! – Communicate with Confidence
- Leadership Lab: Communicate with Confidence – April 13, 15, 20 & 22 (a 4-part workshop series)
- Curiosity Club Discussion – reading Brag Better by Meredith Fineman
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💥THE WEEK IN A GIF
Ambition vs. reality
