Every career conversation I have right now is secretly an existential one.
These are conversations about priorities, values, anxieties, things clients and friends have internalized along the way. People who might categorize themselves as “high achievers” are examining the price of ambition, more focused on avoiding burnout than chasing satisfaction.
I was already trial-running a hot take on the concept of ambition, before I saw this:
I was lightning quick to jump in and share my thesis:
I’ve been noodling on this and drafting a newsletter on the topic because that’s how I think things through lol — I have been thinking of it as taking back the concept of ambition. Identifying as “ambitious,” has so many implicit assumptions:
- it’s about work. the life is what you get around the ambition, not a part of the ambition
- it requires you to sacrifice of something you really care about (time for family, your authenticity, or real connection)
- it’s insatiable.
Ambition is always climbing. That kind of ambition, in our current extraction economy, is a scam.
Ambition should be for us and not fueling someone else’s bottom line.
Then maya watson suggested something brilliant:
Well.
This is interesting.
The Etymology of a Scam (A Quick History Lesson)
Thank you, Maya, for sending me down this very helpful rabbit hole.
The ancient Roman origins of ambition is pure ego and power. A popularity contest, literally. “a striving for favor, courting, flattery; a desire for honor, thirst for popularity”
Of course, there’s the literal definition and there’s what we actually mean when we say a word. In this case, the connotation of “ambition” was sneaky. Negative. Manipulative.
It’s giving every creep you loved to hate in literature. Littlefinger. President Snow. Delores Umbridge. The worst.
The middle ages brought the piousness of christianity to the concept and in early Bibles ambition was linked to the very origin of sin itself in the Garden of Eden. Pride. Greed.
In his book on the topic, William Casey King wrote, “Ambition was inveighed against in official Elizabethan homilies read by order of the state in pulpits throughout England; defined as “the unlawful and restles desire in men to be of higher estate then God hath geven or appoynted unto them”; identified as one of the major causes of rebellion; and associated with Satan, madness, damnation, and sin.”
Ambition as a concept was vilified because it threatened the order of power. You want to stop serf-ing? That’s satan’s doing.
Enter colonization, when, King writes, ambition “suddenly transformed from a vice, ever blind and destructive, into a virtuous undertaking.” Ambition as way to rally people behind the cause of conquering and destroying other cultures.
Look at the pattern: the definition of ambition has always been manipulated by whoever holds power to get people to do the dirty work.
There’s been some serious ambition evolution since then. Within my lifetime alone, there’s been the Gordon Gecko, “greed is good” model of ambition, the girlboss era, influencer/image as ambition, and in silicon valley we had first computer nerd ambition and then the bro billionaire version, which includes massive resource hoarding at the expense of literally everyone else.
Today, we are deep in an extractive economy amplified by AI and widening inequality. Professionals who chased traditional ambition are finding themselves running faster on the treadmill just to stay in the same place while fueling someone else’s bottom line.
The ambition isn’t leaving our bodies because we got lazy. It’s leaving because we’re done being extracted from.
Running Out of Cheap Fuel
Let me tell you about how I ended up with the coaching practice I have.
I had built and run a lucrative communications business by tapping into the startup ecosystem through a network of VCs, other founders, other comms people. There’s a big river of work (and money) there and I stepped in to break off my tributary. It was great! But I knew I wanted something different.
I decided to go back to school. I became a therapist and now work part time in community mental health. I backed into this career change.
When I knew I wanted to marry my skillsets and create a coaching business, I thought -- why not tap into that selfsame VC network? Create programs for corporations and executives focused on performance, personal development, communications skills, etc. This is a tributary I’ve got experience tapping, after all.
But every time I started to think about building that business I’d get stuck. The wind would fall right out of my sails and I’d be sitting there on still waters, just waiting for inspiration, but none would come.
Why?
Lots of reasons. But a big one? I no longer was motivated by any of the same things I was earlier in my career. Not motivated by money (I mean, I want to make money, but it’s not my motivation). Not motivated by status, not motivated by the title, the team size, or the logo on my resume.
As soon as I tried to line myself up behind those type of goals (which had always worked SWIMMINGLY for me in the past), I was dead in the water.
What changed? I did. The more myself I felt, the more regulated, the more, dare I say, I healed the ambition drained out of me.
At least that’s what it felt like.
Not All Motivation is Created Equal
Psychology makes a clean distinction between two types of drive: extrinsic motivation (money, titles, status, external praise) and intrinsic motivation (doing something because the act itself is rewarding).
When you run purely on extrinsic motivation, your sense of control shifts outside yourself. You aren’t moving toward what you actually want; you’re moving toward whatever carrot the system is currently dangling. And that goalpost never stops moving.
Extrinsic rewards work fine if you’re managing simple, repetitive output. But for complex, creative, and strategic work, heavy external pressure actually degrades your performance. It narrows your focus, spikes anxiety, and forces your brain out of creative play and into risk management.
When high achievers say they’ve “lost their drive,” they haven’t lost their capacity to work hard. They’ve just run out of the cheap, dirty fuel of external validation.
From Ambition to Ruthless Alignment
I stopped trying to force myself down the lucrative path and started to align myself behind what I actually want in my life -- not just my career, but my whole life. I articulated my values, I tapped into who I am when I am at my very best. I ruthlessly aligned to my best self.
Once I started from that place, the ideas and excitement poured out of me.
I envisioned a world where I could help people do the same thing. To experience the energy and peace that comes from putting a career in its place: behind the goal of a great life. It wasn’t as simple to build as my old business, but the energy behind it was self-sustaining. It didn’t take life force from me; it generated it.
When you shift from external ambition to intrinsic alignment, you are one step closer to exiting the the extraction trap. You stop treating your life as a ladder to climb for someone else’s benefit, and start treating it as a series of possibilities to explore on your own terms.
Ambition is climbing higher in a system that burns you out. Ruthless alignment is having the courage to create a whole life worth striving for in the first place.
You can start this shift today. It all starts with tapping into the truest elements of yourself -- you can find free tools on my website, including a values sorter, an exercise to tap into your best self, and more.
Thank you for this. 🙏🏾
Love this, Rebecca. Ruthless alignment is what I am aiming for in my life!