Values blog series: Why Ambition matters for wellbeing

As the winner of this year’s ‘Ambitious’ Departmental Value Award, I was asked to write about how this Departmental value links to wellbeing. At first I felt I got the short end of the stick - much easier to relate the ‘Collaborative’ or ‘Creative’ values to wellbeing. However, after giving it some thought, there are a lot of interesting connections here.  

I do think of myself as ambitious, but I don’t take it too seriously – there are too many variables to any success that are out of our control. That said, it is fun to try new things and see where they can get you. That mindset led the Translational Health Sciences team to develop the Summer Academy for the Social Science of Health Innovation,  which was great for making connections with others interested in innovation more generally.

It’s first important to decide how we define ambition. Some definitions say that ambition is “a strong desire for power, fame or wealth”. This doesn’t really work for me. I’m not trying to step on other people on my way up the ladder – I want to strive for deeper meaning rather than surface wins.  

BUT the “desire or determination to achieve something” definition does resonate. Achieving things is fun and rewarding – literally – it gives our brains a dopamine hit to the reward centres. The alternative would be stagnation, which is definitely no fun at all.

And “achieving something” does not specify the direction or goal. Ambition might look different for different people – it is equally valid to aim to have a glorious garden or complete a crossword every day or climb a mountain as it is to clamber up the academic ladder. These types of ambitions are very compatible with wellbeing and provide a sense of purpose and motivation.

In fact, a pursuit of any kind (career-related or otherwise) is likely to involve some element of learning and growing, and probably some social interaction as well – all of which are known to improve wellbeing. A broad definition of ambition will get you a larger helping of wellbeing.

But what about the classic, ladder-climbing type of ambition? My feeling on this is that pursuit of achievement in the perhaps more classic sense (money, fame, power etc) could still be aligned with wellbeing, if that’s your bag. But please do it in a pro-social way – none of this “vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls th’ other” (i.e., Macbeth). Murdering, backstabbing or indeed, stealing colleagues’ ideas, hogging first authorship or blocking people from promotion in aid of one’s ambition will not enhance anyone’s wellbeing.

So if you’re feeling ambitious but still want to hang onto wellbeing, here is my prescription:

•  Aim high – but don’t set your heart on one particular form of success. Why not go for the top – there’s a chance you might get there. That said, so much of what happens is out of our control. If you have a rigid idea of success, and you don’t achieve it, you will be very unhappy. But if you can manage to think, “oh well, that didn’t work out but I have a few other irons in the fire”, it is much easier to cope with setbacks.

Another way to think more flexibly about success is to remind yourself at regular intervals of what you do have – i.e., some sort of practice of gratitude. A reminder of what you already possess can help to take the sting out of missing a specific goal.

•  Hold your goals lightly and don’t tie them to your self-worth. Achieving a long-held goal feels amazing – for a little while, and then it becomes business as usual. “Hedonic adaptation” is classic psychological phenomenon meaning that we easily adapt to positive things, such that they become the “new normal” and are no longer rewarding. So if you’re hanging your wellbeing completely on goal achievement, you will not be very happy.

And more than that, if you make your work goals your identity, what happens if you don’t achieve what you wanted, or worse, are no longer able to work at all? People who have a lot of different “roles” have been shown to be happier. If you can’t work, but you still have your allotment or are in charge of the local amateur drama troupe, you still have other sources of validation and success - key components of wellbeing.

• Try, but don’t push and grasp. Focusing on a goal is more likely to induce a state of flow, which is a great contributor to wellbeing. This happens when your efforts match your abilities nearly perfectly, meaning your task is absorbing. But when you push too hard, it tips over into overwork and grind rather than a wave of flow. Nobody needs that.
• Collective ambition for the win. Ambition doesn’t have to be individual. It’s possible to aim for goals that benefit your entire group or team, who will then be there for you too.  And you can go bigger than that – for goals that will help humanity or improve the planet as a whole. A sense of being a part of something bigger than oneself is a huge contributor to wellbeing.

So, be ambitious. Have a look at the cards you hold and see how well you can play them. Push for a bit more, for the whole team, and help others achieve their ambitions as well. But don’t get too caught up in the outcome. That way you have a shot at the best possible results, while making great connections and enjoying yourself along the way.