High ambitions.

My girlfriend in high school had great ambitions for herself. She had her whole life planned out, wanting to move to NYC and live in a rooftop apartment on Manhattan in her 30’s. She worked hard with her studies, and did some stuff on the side as well to get some more leverage.

In the place where we lived, that type of ambition was quite unusual. Yet, as most teenagers, she had a hard time understanding why other people didn’t have their ambitions set as high as she did. So one day in a conversation with a classmate, she was furious. His biggest goal was to become a welder. That was his ambition.

The thing with ambitions, which has taken me a long time to understand, is that they work similar to ideas. If you’re not going to put in the effort of making them true, they’ll probably just bother you.

So when my classmate set his ambition for becoming a welder, he knew exactly how much effort he’d have to put in. He also knew how talented he was as a welder when he won a competition in it without having any experience.

My girlfriend thought she was ready to put in the work for moving to NYC, but it has then become apparent that she wasn’t. And that’s ok, as long as the ambitions are recalibrated.

In order to be happy, I think we need to adjust our ambitions to the level of execution we’re ready to be on. High ambitions require hard work. Some require sacrifices which most people aren’t ready to make.

Make sure to calibrate those ambitions.