Ambition: Do You Consider Yourself Ambitious? You Should!

This post is a part of the Make A Change Monday series.

Learn more about Make A Change Monday here.

Ambition.

It’s a gorgeous word.

It’s a word that implies hope & opportunity.

It’s also a word that has gotten a pretty bad rap.

Ambition has been blamed for failed marriages, corporate bankruptcies, and a slew of other unsavory situations.

I’d argue though that ambition in it’s purest form is not capable of any of those destructive events on it’s own, without the presence of another word. An ugly word.

That word is greed.

Ambition without greed creates.

Ambition with greed destroys.

I was not an ambitious kid. I was content to slide through making my A’s & B’s with little to no effort. If I had been ambitious, maybe I would have gotten straight A’s. I wasn’t though. Not at all.

Even as a young adult, I was never very ambitious. Honestly I just wanted to go to work, collect my paycheck and head on home.

I had goals and I definitely wanted to accomplish things, but I didn’t really feel the need to create or innovate.

I’m not sure when that changed. At some point though, I started realizing I wanted to make an impact on this world and I wanted to improve upon it if I could.

It wasn’t conscience thinking. I didn’t say, “Okay, now I want to be ambitious and make a difference.“. It was much more gradual than that.

One day, I just realized that we had been struggling and now we weren’t. I was inspired by how we got from Point A to Point B.

I was inspired by those that helped us get there and I was motivated to help those that still had that journey ahead of them.

Ambition drove me to start something that has made my life better and made the lives of others better.

I haven’t cured cancer and likely never will (remember those A’s and B’s in high school? ;) ).

I am not very artistic or technologically inclined so I doubt I’ll create the next artistic masterpiece or the iPhone 32s ;)

I do, however, have knowledge that can help others.

Ambition has two definitions:

a : an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power
b : desire to achieve a particular end
source: Merriam-Webster

I’m not sure I have much desire for rank, fame or power, but I do have a strong desire to achieve a particular end.

If I can share what I know about saving money and how to stretch a dollar and it lessens someone else’s struggles, then I’m achieving that end goal that I have in my cross hairs.

So how can you be ambitious and change your little corner of the world?