Reality Check no. 2: Is Sacrificing My Needs at the Expense of My Ambition Honorable?

Use to form below to fill out your answers. We will email you a copy of the completed form which you can print and paste into your Ambition Journal. NOTE: Your name and e-mail will never be published; we need them simply to tell that you are a real person and so that your completed forms can be e-mailed to you.

Name:	Email Address:
How do I give to others at the expense of my own needs and ambition dreams? How does this leave me feeling? Fulfilled and energized? Or am I exhausted?
Has it been more than a month since I've had time for myself? Am I sometimes so frustrated that I cry alone?
Do I find that some days I just don't want to get out of bed because I'm uninspired?
Do I still think it's the right thing to do?
Let’s think about what it could cost you to give up or compromise your ambition:
Are you earning far less than your peers because you passed up opportunities that initially required long hours and you felt pressure to wait until your kids were more self-sufficient? Are you bored with the job you've settled for, stuck because you need the paycheck and haven't built a competitive track record to land more rewarding work? Has your dream of earning an advanced degree been on hold so long that it now seems pointless or impossible?
How could it affect your financial security? Even if you're in a great relationship, life holds no guarantees and anything could happen. What if you were left to support yourself and your kids? Would you lose your home because your income wouldn't cover the mortgage payments? Would you be sweating each month to pay bills? Would you ever be able to retire? Would you be able to support yourself as you moved into your senior years and health problems hit?
Recall a time you knowingly ignored your ambition. What did that feel like? List five emotions.
Will you feel inferior, disappointed in yourself around friends and family who've succeeded? Will you see yourself as a weak role model for your kids as they're ready to launch their own education and careers?
How could it affect your confidence in meeting and engaging with new people? If someone says to you in conversation, “You turned that amazing job down? Why?!”, how might your self-image be compromised?

 

Now reconsider all of those things that you do for others, all the time, day in and day out, at the expense of your ambitious dreams, because you think putting yourself last makes you a good woman. And ask yourself again—and be truthful: does this really make you a virtuous person? Are you still confident that this value-system, this - set-up you’ve bought into under social duress, makes you the best person you could possibly be?

Maybe, just maybe, in order to do the things you think you must do to be your best self, you are, paradoxically, sacrificing a core part of who you are, an essential part of your being—your ambitious, big-dreaming self. And in doing so, you may actually be short-changing yourself—in a big way. You may be sabotaging your efforts to be your best self.