Excessive ambition can kill your entrepreneurial experience. Scientist believe that the excessive ambition can both cause waste and harm.
One big part of the entrepreneurial society is blessed or cursed with more than regular amount of ambition. This extra amount of ambition comes in different stages in life and can also be triggered from various events in life.
Whenever the abundance of ambition hits us, we might want to become more recognized, seeking more power, money or taking unpredictable risks.
Possessing ambitions is positive quality and this should not be mixed up with various different interpretations. Naturally an entrepreneur will set up goals and will try to achieve them within certain reasonable time frame. However, this is not always the case and being too ambitious can actually blindfolds us and we often oversee critical elements in our business idea and this is a recipe for failure.
Extreme Focus on the End Goal
I have personally failed various times in particular situations. Previously, I have set up an end goal. The first side effect was that, I kept focus and continued with my focus stubbornly.
As a consequence, every single “sign”, I received that was leading me to believe that something is wrong and it is not working was ignored.
Often your mistakes are seen by others around you. However, people tend to ignore the criticism and suggestions by other entrepreneurs or friends. This whole, experience becomes one man show with a dead end. However, this is not the case. It is natural to make mistakes but unnatural to learn from them and move on.
I do believe as practice we should stop and have some mental break points. Between these mental breaks we assess the situation.
Unregulated Growth Due to Excessive Ambition
Overly eager to grow and become number one in what you do is natural. However, the uncontrolled fast growth is potential danger for any business venture.
In perspective this would involve spending money for machines, equipment and recruiting the wrong people. This becomes bad habit and over time in a long term the business is doomed.
It is completely natural to be ambitious and naturally to grow fast. It is advisable to stop and take consideration of all the business aspects to maintain perfect business ecosystem.
Negative Perception to Failure
Fear of failure is very common feeling for entrepreneurs with excessive ambition. It is completely normal to feel fear of failure, when you start your first brand or a business. However, it is not the lack of experience and knowledge that fails you in business. It is you, as an individual.For example, I have had the idea that, I will fail when I started my first business idea. I have also seen this failure as some devastating and impossible to recover experience.
Please do not mix up this. Failure is irreversible. If you are about to fail it is impossible to reverse the situation unless you have a time machine but even that will have some kind of consequences if we are following the fabricated scenarios in the scientific movies.
However, a person with less ambition, does not practice negative perception in their minds. Furthermore, they see the situation as some kind of temporary hold back moment in time and also how their journey to their ultimate goal is extended in time.
Happiness is the Real Definition of Success
A recent study from the University of Dame’s Mendoza. The discovery was not actually surprising but rather expected. The study involves two groups of people. The first group is with excessive ambition and materialistically set. The second group were not that successful and the ambition was not in such great proportion in their life.
The end result was that the group with less ambition was happier in terms of life quality and they also lived longer lives than their counterparts. The results imply that even though ambitious people are more likely that they will achieve “success”. However, those success achievements mean absolutely nothing for their health and happiness.
Without ambition you would not be able to get anything done. I think clearly personal goals need to be set and strictly followed without excessive ambition.
The perfect balance is always to have mental break form the daily life and re-asses the business strategy if something obvious is not going as it should be. Take a shot walk around in nature and try to refresh your mind and do not be so stubborn in life that might lead you to more troubles.
