Ambitions and aspirations: where are you?

What if you sat down to take stock, reflect on your ambitions and aspirations, two words that fit perfectly?

Let's face it: the ambitious gets bad press. Very often associated with lawless behavior, capable of anything and especially of the worst, accused of being individualistic, selfish, sometimes even a “shark with long teeth”, it is not always well regarded to express one's ambition.

And yet, if you take the time to look at the other side of the mirror, you discover a completely different reflection. A reflection brimming with creative energy, focused on a single goal: surpassing oneself, a taste for effort and accomplishment at work. In short, an extraordinary fuel, the booster that will allow you to explore hitherto unknown territories.

All that remains is to tame this ambition in order to make it the armed — but peaceful — point of your success. To do this, only one question deserves to be asked: “What do I want to achieve? ”

This is where the two words, ambition and aspiration, come together. The first, more in action and in the desire to achieve oneself, the second, more strongly connected to meaning, motivation and the quest for oneself.

Define your professional project

To answer these two questions — “What do I want to achieve?” and “Who do I want to be?” —, you must have taken the time to define your personal project while ignoring external contingencies. A professional project is very personal and time is needed to make it emerge. You may be inspired by those of others or by trends. Your professional project can also evolve throughout your career (depending on your desires in particular) but it is crucial to take the time to define it.

The 5 important steps to develop ambition and aspiration

Create your own opportunities or seize them, surpass yourself without fear of change, dare, take risks, fail, start over, and succeed. Five important steps to follow to combine ambition and aspiration:

• Project yourself! You will thus stimulate your desire and begin to mobilize your energy that is just waiting to be served.
• Take time to think. Being constantly in action prevents you from thinking about what you want to achieve.
• Ask yourself what has always been important to you. What mattered, what did you always want to do? What are the reasons that caused you to deviate from your goals? What dreams did you have and how do you reconnect with them?
• Recognize your strengths. How can your skills and talents help you succeed?
• Set goals to reach. Go further, take the initiative, even for projects that are a bit crazy and unrealistic. Ambition always involves some risk!