Ambition: noun //A strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.

I believe everyone has an ambition of some sort. It doesn’t matter what it is, there’s SOMETHING that you’re ambitious about. The problem is, though, is that some don’t know how to pursue that ambition or maybe they’re just struggling with it. I get it. I’m in the midst of pursuing my ambition, which of course you know is to blog as a career and have my own little business. I’m not there yet by any means, so I’m right with everyone else struggling to pursue their ambition. It’s not a walk in the park, but I believe there are steps that can help you all and myself. These steps are my own and they’re what I personally think could help.

First, go back to the beginning of this post and read the definition of ambition.

Pay attention to only the first half of the definition.

“A strong desire to do or to achieve something.”

The first step in pursuing your ambition is to figure out exactly what you’re ambitious about. Maybe you’re someone who knows you’re ambitious about something. It’s just this feeling that keeps you going but you don’t know what it is, or maybe you do know what you’re ambitious about…just not if you should pursue it or not.

This brings me to the next step.

You’ve thought about what it is…now think about why it is. Think about why you’re so ambitious about this certain thing. What about it makes you want to go after it the way you do? Knowing the answer to that question will help along with the next step.

Now, look at the second half of the definition.

“typically requiring determination and hard work.”

At this point, you know what you’re ambitious about and why you’re ambitious about it. Now comes the hard part…doing the work. I think this is the part where you either sink or swim. Either you let the challenges of pursuing your ambition drag you to the bottom to where you give up and stay there or you ride along with the wave. Sure you may struggle a bit, but keep going and you’ll get there in the end.

In order to get there to the end, this entails:

1. a plan 

2. a budget 

3. motivation/ determination

This might not be everything, but again, these are just tips from the top of my head. This advice is from my own perspective.

Having a plan is very important. In fact, you should have multiple plans in case doing one thing doesn’t work and you have to go a different route. Remember the road to success isn’t linear and neither is the road to pursuing your ambition. Get a journal, write down your goals and the steps you plan to take to get to each goal. If you prefer to put it down in a digital form, then that’s fine, but you need to put it somewhere. You can make a vision board even. You just need something you’ll go back to when going after your ambition.

Everyone has a different ambition they’re pursuing, and not every one requires money. If yours doesn’t require money, then you can skip this area. For the ones who will need to put a little (or a lot of) money towards their ambition, then budgeting is very important. For example, blogging is completely free and doesn’t require money. However, my ambition is to blog as my career and have a business, so I want to take this further. Taking it further requires a bit of money if I want to do more with my site. I have to budget (and that’s not easy within itself). Figure out what you need and what you have to do to get there. It’s almost like you have to be ambitious about doing the things required to pursue your ambition. Sounds like a lot of work? You might want to read the second half of that definition again.

The biggest of them all. Without this, you won’t be able to pursue your ambition. What helps you become healthy? What keeps you waking up every morning? Your motivation. Go back to looking at the why. This will help you when your motivation is low and unless you’re someone who just stays motivated 24/7, your motivation will get low. I personally struggle with motivation quite often, but this blog has been the only thing I’ve been able to continue to work on without stopping. It’s because on my days that I’m feeling like giving up, I remember what I’m working towards.

I hope this blog post was able to help you guys pursue your ambitions! Did you find it helpful? Let’s discuss!