Ambition: Why It's Good to Want More and How to Get It (eBook)

Rachel Bridge (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-85708-634-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Be bold, Be brave, Embrace your ambition,

Ever have that nagging feeling that you are better than the sum of your current achievements? Do you have a secret desire to be achieving much more, to change the world or to reach the top of your game?

Then it is time to use your ambition to your advantage, It has been proven that ambitious people achieve greater levels of success, whether that be a higher level of education, a more prestigious job, a higher income or more satisfaction in life, Grounded in scientific research and with contributions from people at the height of their success in business, music, the arts and sport, Ambition will help you to harness your aspirations to achieve your lifetime goals, It will give you practical insights into how to use your talents and learn from others who have done it before, so that you can get to where you want to be,

If you want to get that promotion, achieve that big life-changing goal, start your own successful business, receive that distinctive acclaim, or make a positive difference to the world, then the good news is that you already have the fuel of ambition in you, This book will show you how to use it to drive your success,

• Reveals how you can do more than you think with what you've already got
• Helps discover your true motivation using a psychology model and shows you how to use that as the fuel for greater success
• Contains insights from successful people in all fields including John Torode, Myleene Klass, Will Greenwood, Katie Hopkins and Gavin Patterson
• Shows that the world is an exciting place and you can do anything if you use your ambition to help you

Rachel Bridge is a best-selling author, journalist and public speaker specialising in personal development, smart thinking and entrepreneurship, The former Enterprise Editor of The Sunday Times, Rachel now writes for The Times and The Telegraph, She took a one-woman show to the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe comedy festival, and will be taking another show there in 2016 which will be based on her book Ambition, She also holds an MA degree in Economics from Cambridge University,

Inhalt

Introduction 1

1 Be Clear About What You Are Trying to Achieve 5

2 Make Room in Your Life for Your Ambition 15

3 Make a Plan 25

4 Supercharge Your Motivation 35

5 Use the Skills You Already Have 49

6 Get the Other Stuff You Need 59

7 Use Your Time Better 71

8 Focus Your Energy Better 81

9 Do Your Research 95

10 Get Out There and Make It Happen 107

11 Create a Support Team 121

12 Eight Ways to Improve Your Chances of Success 135

Conclusion 145

About the Author 151

Acknowledgements 153

Index 155

Textauszug

1
Be clear about what you are trying to achieve

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

Dr Seuss

Goals can come in all shapes and sizes. So before you start, you need to be very clear in your mind about where you are trying to get to. What do you really want to do? Become a best-selling novelist? Be promoted to a high-flying role at work? Build a school in a poor underdeveloped part of the world? Start your own business? Win a gold medal at the next Olympic Games? Get to the top of your academic field? Be a professional deep-sea diver? Whatever it is, if you are going to successfully use your ambition to achieve your ultimate goal, you need to have a very strong sense of where you are heading before you begin. Otherwise you will get lost long before you reach your destination.

By taking the time now to think hard about what your ambition looks like, you can dramatically improve your chances of success before you even start. Just make sure your ambition has these six essential ingredients:

1. Your ambition should be big
2. Your ambition should be measurable
3. Your ambition should be personal
4. Your ambition should make a difference
5. Your ambition should be achievable
6. Your ambition should be something you really, really want to do

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

1. Your ambition should be big

It may sound counter-intuitive but having a big ambition actually improves your chances of success. If the ultimate goal you are trying to achieve is too small, it can be easy to feel that you don’t need to make much of an effort to achieve it. Which invariably means that you don’t make any effort at all. So inevitably, nothing changes. And your ultimate goal never gets reached.

If, on the other hand, you have set yourself a big challenging goal, then if you are to have any chance of achieving it at all, you know you must face it head on and be fully prepared. And leave nothing to chance because it is going to take every ounce of your focus and energy to even have a shot at getting anywhere close to it.

In the 1960s, American psychologist Professor Edwin Locke did a lot of pioneering research into the link between goal setting and performance. After reviewing a decade’s worth of laboratory and field studies, he found that in 90% of cases, setting specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than setting easy goals or “do your best” goals. He concluded that the more difficult a goal is, the harder people will work to achieve it.

This is why people might successfully build a house from scratch when they have never even put together a flat-pack bookcase, or run a marathon when they have never found the motivation to join a gym. Big becomes easier to achieve because it sits itself right in your sight line and flatly refuses to budge until you do something about it.

There is a wonderful children’s story by Jack Kent called There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon. It is about a small boy called Billy who finds a small dragon at the end of his bed when he wakes up one morning. He goes to tell his mother about it, but she refuses to admit that the dragon is real, even as she cleans the house around it, climbing in and out of windows because the dragon is in the way. So the dragon grows and grows and grows, until it has grown so big that it walks off with the house attached to it. It is only when the postman has to chase after it down the street and Billy’s father has to climb up the dragon’s back to get into the house, that his mother is finally forced to acknowledge its existence. “Why did it have to grow so big?” she asks. “I’m not sure,” says Billy, “but I think it just wanted to be noticed.”

Make sure your ambition is big enough for you to notice it.

Remember, if nobody laughs at your idea and tells you that you must be mad to even think of trying to do it, you are setting your sights too low. Much too low. Any successful person will tell you that at some point in their lives, probably more than once, someone has quietly taken them to one side and told them firmly to give up their ambition because they will never succeed at it. If everyone nods their head in approval and tells you what a great idea it is, you are doing it all wrong.

2. Your ambition should be measurable

Every weekend in Scotland, dozens of enthusiastic climbers set out to pursue an activity known as Munro-bagging. This is the act of climbing a Munro, the name given to the 282 highest mountains in Scotland over 3000 feet. They are named after Sir Hugh Munro, a Scottish mountaineer who first catalogued them back in 1891. It is possible to bag several Munros at a time, or even to try and tick them all off in one go – the current record for climbing them all in one continuous round is just under 40 days.

It is an immensely popular activity, and with good reason. That’s because goals are much more satisfying to achieve when you can measure them. Whichever Munro you choose to bag, you’ve either climbed the mountain, or you haven’t. There is no middle way and no room for doubt. (Check out www.munromagic.com or www.walkhighlands.co.uk/munros for more information if this sort of thing interests you.)

The fact is people are more likely to achieve their goals if they are measurable, simply because they are easier to see, and easier to aim for. And because you know for sure when you have got there.

3. Your ambition should be personal

When he was a child, Edward Peppitt fell in love with lighthouses. He says: “My love of lighthouses came from holidays spent at my grandma’s house. I had the attic bedroom, and the lighthouse at Dungeness nearby flashed through my bedroom window and lit up my bedroom wall. Aged about six, that left quite an impression. It made me want to stop and look at lighthouses on other holidays, which in turn led me to want to visit them all.” 

As he grew older, Edward promised himself that one day he would cycle around England and Wales, visiting the 203 working and former lighthouses built along the coastline. But work and family commitments meant he never quite got round to doing his trip. Then in 2012 at the age of 43 he was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, a debilitating condition that caused him to go temporarily blind for three months and his legs to go numb. Edward, who ran a publishing business, also had chronic fatigue, which left him unable to work, and debts started to mount up. He says: “It never crossed my mind that things would ever be the same again. I was in complete denial for six months and hit rock bottom.”

Fortunately Edward discovered Shift MS, a social network and support community for people with the disease. With their support he realized that just because he had MS it did not mean he had to give up on life, or indeed on his long-held ambition of visiting the lighthouses. So he started training three times a week, cycling 15–20 miles each time and in May 2015 set off on his 3500 mile journey, with the additional aim of raising £25,000 for Shift MS. As well as the lighthouses on the mainland, he planned to visit the islands, including the Isle of Wight, the Scilly Isles, Lundy and the Channel Islands, and beg for ferry crossings and fishing fleets to visit the rock lighthouses too. Much of the trip was over rough and inhospitable terrain and Edward nearly gave up several times, overwhelmed by the rain and wind and the loss of his iPhone. He also missed his three children. But he kept going and three months later achieved his ultimate goal. You can see his journey at www.thebeaconbike.co.uk.

Edward is clear about why he undertook such a huge challenge. He says: “I spent a lot of time at charity coffee mornings, where lots of people with MS would sit around a table and moan about their latest symptoms. I hated that. So if I have achieved anything, it’s to demonstrate that MS does not mean a life sentence of ill health. One may need to make compromises, but someone with MS can still achieve pretty much anything they want to. I want people with long term conditions to be inspired and stay positive.”

He adds: “It is not about weathering the elements, it is about a personal challenge. Life goes on. Just make the most of every day.”

4. Your ambition should be achievable

One of the main reasons people don’t achieve their ambitions is because their ambitions are unrealistic. If your ultimate goal doesn’t have any chance of becoming reality, you will be wasting your time. If you are over 30 and still dreaming of becoming a professional footballer, for instance, it is time to find a new goal.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by letting your ambitions get bigger than your abilities. Your ultimate goal has to be attainable otherwise you are just kidding yourself.

You also need to avoid goals that depend on the actions of others – or which require technical advancements beyond that which you can achieve yourself. Otherwise you will not only set yourself up for immense frustration as you wait for someone to get on with inventing or creating the thing you need, you will also give yourself the perfect excuse for procrastinating indefinitely.

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Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.2.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Bewerbung / Karriere
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Planung / Organisation
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
• Schlagworte: achieving more • actionable ambition • ambition strategy • Ambition: Why It's Good to Want More and How to Get It • Becoming Successful • being ambitious • Business & Management • Business Self-Help • changing the world • driving success • Entrepreneurship • exceeding goals • fueling achievement • fueling success • getting rich • getting what you want • How to Succeed • How to win at Life • leveraging ambition • life planning • material gain • personal achievement • Personal development • professional achievement • professional development • Rachel Bridge • Ratgeber Wirtschaft • Self Help • Thinking big • unleashing ambition • using ambition • Wirtschaft /Ratgeber • Wirtschaft u. Management
• ISBN-10: 0-85708-634-0 / 0857086340
• ISBN-13: 978-0-85708-634-1 / 9780857086341