I’ve been sharing chapters from Conscious Accomplishment that I think might be particularly helpful. Today’s chapter outlines how to relate to and work with ambition when you’re on a consciousness path. Here’s what others are saying about the book:
Chapter 18: Ambition - Clean Fuel vs. Dirty Fuel
When you think something outside yourself is going to solve your problems, it’s common to place ambition on a pedestal. The more ambitious you are, the more you can achieve and perfect your life. This might as well be the anthem for Western culture. When you begin your consciousness work you may discover that most of your previous ambition was driven by unhealed wounds. This can be confusing. Once I recognized the source of my own striving, I wondered if ambition might somehow undermine my spiritual growth? Resolving this confusion requires a nuanced understanding of ambition’s different forms and how they can impact your consciousness evolution.
What is ambition really? A strong desire and determination to work towards something greater. There is nothing inherently counterproductive about ambition if you’re on the spiraling-up journey of consciousness evolution. What matters is where your ambition comes from.
Healthy ambition arises from sources aligned to your true nature such as inspiration, love, and a desire to contribute. When you have it, you feel a deep calling to improve the world around you to the best of your ability. This is our natural state of ambition before our conditioning and identification with unhealthy patterns.
Unhealthy ambition is when your desire to achieve emanates from unhealthy patterns created by your past. In this context, the drive for achievement is often fueled by unconscious fears of inadequacy, rejection, or failure. Rather than facing these feelings directly, people attempt to achieve their way out of suffering, which never works. Maybe you feel an incessant drive to accomplish more or constantly improve yourself so that you’re recognized by your peers. Or maybe you’re motivated to make a ton of money so that you will feel safe. The challenge for most people is that unhealthy ambition is usually driven by unconscious patterns. So you move through life with an incessant hunger for more without ever having a real understanding of what’s driving you. This might get you some pats on the back from others climbing the mountain of success, but it doesn’t really do much for improving your sense of enduring well-being or understanding.
Unhealthy ambition tends to correlate with performing actions as a means to an end instead of following inspiration. For example, maybe you opt to continue climbing the corporate ladder so that you can hit your financial goals. You tell yourself that when you have a million dollars in the bank, then you can pursue your dream of making music for a living. If you continually interrogate the context of why you’re doing something as a means to an end, it will culminate in a desire to feel a certain way. In the corporate ladder example, what you’re actually longing for is not a million dollars, but a sense of safety that will give you confidence to pursue your dreams. This instigates the question of whether there’s a more direct way to achieve the feeling you desire.
It is the context of your ambition that determines whether it supports or undermines your consciousness evolution, not the content. This means that it’s less about whether you want to make a million dollars or not, but where that desire comes from. Continuing to feed unhealthy ambition simply reinforces the underlying patterns that drive it. Although this may help you get to the top of the mountain that you imagine will make you happy someday, it doesn’t do much to move you up the spiral. Conversely, when you turn inward to investigate any indication of unhealthy ambition, you step towards a higher altitude of well-being and understanding. From this elevated vantage point, you’re more equipped to determine the best path forward.
Even if you aren’t fully sold on the whole consciousness evolution thing, there’s practical reasons to pursue healthy ambition. Healthy ambition is like clean fuel. When you run on it, you can sustain your energy and activities for long periods of time. Endurance comes naturally because you’re doing things that are intrinsically rewarding instead of needing to achieve some outcome.
Unhealthy ambition is like dirty fuel. Dirty fuel may get things moving, but it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to sustain yourself or avoid breaking down. At a basic level, this happens because you’re constantly chasing the next thing, thinking that one more accomplishment, milestone, or dollar will bring happiness. This keeps you locked in a cycle of overexertion, never quite able to recover and enjoy the present moment. On a deeper level, breakdowns occur because you’re operating from a place that’s out of alignment with your true nature. Eventually this becomes unsustainable, leading to burnout and a lack of fulfillment. One fuel source provides an enduring path to well-being and alignment, while the other keeps you spinning your wheels inside your patterns.
The path to healthy ambition isn’t driven by force or intellect, but by cultivating the inner conditions that allow it to arise naturally. The deepest part of your being already wants to uplift the world around you from a place of love and inspiration. However, there’s unhealthy patterns that you’ve become identified with that obscure your true nature. Continuously working with your response life creates the conditions for restoring healthy ambition.