Even I'm Embarrassed by My Level of Ambition

Dr Joyce Levitt

Sometimes I wish I weren't so ambitious. There. I've said it.

Not because ambition has harmed my career. Quite the opposite. It's given me opportunities I could never have imagined. It helped me become a dentist as a mature student, build a successful dental practice, publish research, teach, speak internationally and, more recently, reinvent myself all over again.

But ambition comes with a cost that few people talk about. Loneliness.

I've noticed that when I talk enthusiastically about my passion for building my business people seem to become uncomfortable. It's subtle. A change in expression.

A defensive comment. A quick reminder that they're "happy just as they are."

I get it; my enthusiasm has accidentally become someone else's measuring stick, that was never my intention.

So, I hide my ambition.

I work quietly, often before dawn when no one is watching. While other people are asleep, I'm reading, researching, listening to audiobooks, learning, writing and thinking. Almost everything I consume is connected to becoming better at what I do.

Not because I have to but because I genuinely love it. It's how I'm wired.

Years ago I saw an advert featuring an elegant older woman striding confidently through a city. The voiceover said something like, "Most women stop caring how they look at a certain age."

Her response?

"I wonder when that will happen."

I remember smiling because I recognised myself.

I'm still trying; still growing; still learning; still dreaming

I'm not interested in slowing down.

Even at home this ambition can create tension. My husband occasionally says, "I just don't understand why you want to do this."

It's a fair question.I've asked myself exactly the same thing.

After all, I already built a successful business. Haven't I proved enough? Isn't it a little greedy to want another chapter? Another challenge?

Perhaps that's the wrong question.Maybe the real question is this:What if growth isn't greed?What if some people are simply energised by creating, learning and becoming?

I've also realised how deeply this ambition spills into other parts of my life. I exercise because it gives me the energy to keep going. I want to look healthy and confident if I'm on camera or speaking on stage. I almost never tell people my age when I'm networking because I worry that, in a split second, I'll be mentally filed under "past it."

The irony? I don't believe that for a second.

I know twenty-five-year-olds who are exhausted by life and seventy-five-year-olds who are just getting started. Yet the fear still whispers.

If the technology fails during an online presentation, my mind instantly tells me people will think, "She's older. She can't cope."

It's nonsense, of course.Technology humiliates everyone eventually.

Our invisible stories don't need evidence. They only need opportunity. That's why psychology fascinates me.

The stories running beneath the surface are often far more powerful than the facts sitting in front of us.

Lately I've started wondering whether I'm violating some unwritten social script. Is there a point in life when women are quietly expected to become smaller? Less visible. Less ambitious. Less willing to put themselves forward.

If there is, nobody ever sent me the memo.For years my identity felt comfortable. Professional. Academic. Reliable. Competent.

Now I'm asking people to notice me; hear my ideas; invite me onto stages. I believe I have something worth saying, which feels frighteningly vulnerable.

Perhaps that's why I sometimes find myself explaining my ambition through something my daughter once said to me: "Mum, you just aren't finished yet."

She's right. I'm not. And maybe that's the thought I want to leave you with.

What if the part of you that still wants more isn't greedy? What if it isn't delusional? What if it isn't trying to prove anything at all?

What if it's simply the truest part of you refusing to believe that your best work is behind you?

Perhaps the greatest act of courage isn't becoming less ambitious.Perhaps it's finally admitting just how ambitious you really are. Yikes!

Biography

Dr Joyce Levitt

Making the Invisible Visible

Dr Joyce helps female founders uncover the hidden psychological patterns that shape their business decisions.

Many business owners don’t have business problems. They have thinking problems disguised as business problems.Joyce specialises in the less visible but often more powerful: the thinking patterns that shape a founders decisions, confidence and leadership.

Dr Joyce is a retired dentist from Canada who has built two very different, successful businesses in two different countries; she marries this experience with her Masters in CBT to bring a unique perspective to the challenges of building a successful business.

Psychology-informed coaching for the thinking patterns behind founder decisions.

Find her at:www.joycelevitt.comlinkedin.com/in/joyce.levittcalendly.com/drjoycelevitt3Joyce is at her best when she’s sharing ideas with a crowd