Francis Wade | How to be productively ambitious

You are a high-achieving manager, satisfied that your accomplishments didn’t come by luck. Instead, you have worked hard to set and reach your goals.

But lately, you have felt as if your lofty ambitions weren’t enough. Perhaps your arrival in the management ranks should have brought satisfaction, but that only lasted a week or two. To stay motivated, you had to set new targets.

The bad news is that you have become, unwittingly, like the wealthy one per cent. Regardless of their millionaire status, they reported a need for a bit more money to be truly happy: an additional 20 per cent.

Pause to think what this means. For them, true happiness never arrives. Instead, they addictively invent new goals that are always at least 20 per cent away.

This isn’t bad, except that we humans get upset when our ambitions aren’t fulfilled. Whether it’s the need to have a family, be certified, have a career, migrate, or retire with a full bank account, we become unhappy when we fail to reach our aspirations.

But the fact that this dilemma is common does not mean we are stuck. Maybe there’s a way out of the trap.

We all have observed other people who, we think, should be happy but aren’t. If we were in their position, we believe, we would be fulfilled.

Continue in that vein and notice that there are many Jamaicans who actually yearn for what you have. Case in point: As a reader of this Sunday Gleaner column, you are probably in the top 10 per cent. And, therefore, in the world’s top 25 per cent.

However, despite your privilege, you remain driven. Even when people say you “should” be happy to be living in Kingston, Miami, or New York, (versus, say, Gaza) this doesn’t make you feel content. In fact, you recall moving homes to a ‘better’ location in the past, only to uncover a new 20 per cent gap.

As such, just repeating ‘You should be happy!’ doesn’t achieve much more than stirred-up guilt.

To turn that feeling around, you may have tried listing all the blessings in your life. Unfortunately, the fleeting feeling of gratitude can be quite annoying.

Here’s how to transform everyday language to resolve this challenge.

Wanting ‘a’ vs wanting ‘b’

As you read these words, you are probably either sitting, standing, or lying down. Before you change anything, actively choose, embrace, or accept your current position. Hug it up.

Notice that as you do so, you are acknowledging an intellectual fact. And adding an emotional element.

However, I am also not asking you to ‘continue’ sitting, standing, or lying down. As such, I’m not engaging in everyday speech in which ‘accepting your standing up’ means you wish to keep doing so.

This is a problem that speakers of Turkish, Finnish, and Korean don’t have. They are able to want what they are doing in the moment without wanting more of it in the future. Why? They have different words for the two kinds of wanting.

In English, we don’t.

To explain: Let’s label the traditional Wanting as type ‘a’. It starts when you don’t have what you believe to make you happy. For example, most persons desire to earn billions someday. Or to continue a career they love.

Sadly, this kind of Wanting ‘a’ entangles us in the future.

By contrast, the ‘b’ type of Wanting does not. It’s limited to the reality of this moment. Like our current hairstyle. Or the room we are sitting in. Or, to be extreme, a deadly cancer.

In this context, embracing an existing fact says nothing about wanting it to continue. For example, you can be lying down now and accept it. Then you sit up and want that position. Get up to walk and you then forget the prior two wants to accept a new one, all courtesy of type ‘b’.

What practical benefit comes from this realisation?

In business, when your company is losing money, you can want ‘b’ to do so now. It’s a radical example, but this perspective forms part of every well-run strategic planning retreat.

That is, it’s critical to accept the current status before thinking about changing it. This acceptance leads to a full diagnosis and helps attendees take responsibility.

However, when they try to avoid or ignore the bad, the exercise becomes delusional. The ambition it produces is ineffective and unproductive.

I admit that it’s easier to see this distinction applied to a company’s strategic planning than it is in our individual lives. In fact, you may wonder how this can be used on a daily basis to affect your personal happiness.

I’ll help bridge the gap by sharing a practical technique in my next column.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com