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People seem to think there’s an ambition crisis in our world these days. Our young people have lost all ambition. Those damn kids and their technology. They don’t have to work hard for anything – they have instant gratification at their fingertips. The freaking millennials and their entitled attitudes. They’re not able to comprehend the word “no.” No one knows how to work for anything anymore. They have no drive, no vision, no ambition!

Sound familiar? Luckily I’m not going to pull at that particular thread. In fact, I am going to challenge the idea altogether and suggest we’re looking at it all wrong. I don’t think our problem is lack of ambition at all. In fact, I think ambition is finally making a comeback. I think we’re on the edge of a new era. The start of something I call empowered ambition.

Let me explain.

Remember the good ol’ days? Back before the bills and the full-time job, the mortgage payment, car repairs, and dependents. Back when you had ample free time, frivolous spending habits you weren’t in the least bit ashamed of, and big, big dreams. What did you dream of back then? What did you want to be when you grew up? More importantly, what did you want to DO when you grew up? Were you bold with these dreams?

Now flash forward to today. Did you grow up to be what you wanted when you were younger? Did you grow up to do the things you dreamed of? Are you bold in the way you live your life today? If we’re being honest with ourselves, most of us would answer with a quiet “no.”

Why is that? Where did those dreams go? Where did those plans fall apart? Why did you allow yourself to stop working towards your ambitions?

I hope you notice that I never once asked “where did your ambitions go?” I didn’t ask you why you lost your ambitions. Know why? Because they didn’t go anywhere! You didn’t lose them! They don’t just fall out of your pocket when you pull out your phone, doomed to being trampled by sidewalk stompers for the rest of your life. They don’t get eaten by the dryer along with your missing socks. Your ambitions don’t go anywhere. You silence them.

Before we keep going let’s make sure we all know what ambition is. Ambition is simply a strong desire to do or achieve something. It’s a determination to succeed. It requires hard work and dedication. It’s exciting and invigorating and self-motivating. Ambition is what gets you happily out of bed earlier than usual. Ambition is what keeps you in the zone working later than usual. Ambition doesn’t take “no” for an answer, because ambition will always find a way. Ambition wants the success bad enough that the hard work is almost fun – or at least worth it.

Do you have something like that in your life? Are the things you’re spending your time and energy on ambitious? Do they fill your cup while somehow simultaneously exhausting your resources (in the best way possible!)? Do you look forward to getting out of bed to get to work? Do you find yourself bringing friends and family into the fold on the exciting new projects you’re working on?

Do you even like what you’re doing?

If the answer is no… then I’ve got one final question for you. Why the hell are you still doing it?

Maybe it pays the bills. Maybe it’s what you thought you wanted. Maybe you’re good at it. Maybe you feel it’s too late to change paths. Maybe you’re right. But maybe… just maybe… it’s time to start thinking a little differently.

We don’t ever lose our ambition, but we do make choices every single day to sell it to someone else for their cause instead of our own. Our ambition is our dream, our vision, our determination, our passion. Are you using your time and energy to work towards your own visions with determination and passion or are you spending all your time draining yourself working toward someone else’s? If you find that your day is draining you, it’s usually a good indication that what you’re spending your time and energy on isn’t filling your cup. It doesn’t align with you. You don’t care.

We need to stop spending our limited time on this earth on things we don’t care about. We need to stop selling our ambitions to other people in service of their dreams. We need to stop being too afraid to chase our own ambitions. Why is your boss’s ambition more important that yours? Why is your friend’s opinion on worthy causes more valid than your own? Why are you letting your in-laws, your parents, your friends, people you don’t even care about have a say in what you decide to dedicate yourself to? Why are you busting your back and killing yourself over someone else’s dream?

Enough is enough!

It’s time we start looking past the ambitions we’ve allowed others to put on us and tapping back into our own ambitions. We need to realize what we truly want and what we are willing to work hard for. And then we need to go after those dreams with abandon. We need to be a little more like those young people and millenials that are willing to say “no” to things that don’t light them up. We need to stop thinking that if someone isn’t working hard on something it means they’re not a hard worker. That’s faulty thinking. You shouldn’t do it to others and you definitely shouldn’t let others do it to you.

What will our world look like when people chase empowered ambition? What will come of our efforts at work and at home when we’re spending our time on things we care about and projects we feel are worthwhile? When are you going to start empowering yourself to chase your ambitions wholeheartedly? I hope the answer is NOW.

How do you uncover your ambitions? Try to answer the following questions:

• Make a list of things you love to do! What do you find yourself lost in? What tasks seem to make the time fly?
• What did you want to be when you grew up? Why? What was it that appealed so much to you? Can you find a way to bring that into your life today?
• Make a list of things you believe are worth working hard at (being a great parent, cooking an amazing meal, running a sub-7-minute mile, traveling the world, etc.)
• If you couldn’t fail, what would you be doing?
• If money wasn’t an obstacle (you don’t need to work for money – you have as much as you’ll ever need), what would you spend your time doing?
• Solidify your why. Why is this your ambition? Knowing your why will help with others try to persuade you away from your ambition.
• Share your excitement with your friends and family! Update them, keep them involved, ask them to keep you accountable.

I really suck at emotional self-management.

There. I said it. The cat’s out of the bag, friends! The truth can be ugly, and there it is.

I’m really not skilled at managing my emotions.

If you know me personally that may come as a surprise to you. You may even disagree altogether. Or maybe you see right through me and are thinking, “duh Amanda. Is this supposed to be new information? C’mon now.”

Don’t get me wrong. I can be very good at suppressing my emotions. I am a master at setting my emotions aside, especially in emotionally-charged situations. In college I had a roommate that would get so, so angry with me when we had disagreements. One time she blew up in the middle of a “conversation” about taking the garbage out and started yelling about how whenever we had a confrontation I turned so condescending and holier-than-thou and cold.

She called me a bitch.

I was flabbergasted. Never in my life had I heard those words in relation to myself. No, on the contrary I was used to hearing that I was far too emotional. I was too touchy-feely. I was crazy. I was overly dramatic. I was a sap. I let my emotions run me. I was too nice. I was a pushover. I was a bit much.

I have been told in many ways by many people through the course of my life that I am emotional – and it always seemed to be a dirty word.

Eventually I started to realize they had a point. “I have always been someone quick to tears.” “I could probably stand to put my foot down a bit more often, and definitely more firmly.” “I do come on a bit strong if I think about it. It probably makes some people really uncomfortable.” “They do have a point that no one else seems to be so sensitive.”

By my early 20’s I started to associate a lot of negative things in my life with my overcharged emotions. “If I wasn’t so emotional I wouldn’t have these damn depression issues. I wouldn’t have anxiety in my life.” I made decisions with my heart, and those decisions led me into situations I never intended to be in nor was I proud of.

Emotions became dangerous. So I learned to manage them.

Well… that’s not actually true. I didn’t so much learn to manage them as I learned to suppress them and that’s a completely different thing. I learned what it feels like when my emotions start to rise (heart beat quickens, cheeks flush, butterflies in my stomach, tightening in my chest) and as soon as I noticed those “warning signs” I shut it down. I learned how to remove emotion from my reactions and take the feeling out of it.

Fast forward to my roommate yelling “you can be such a bitch!” and storming out of the room and you can see how well that worked out for me.

It sucked to hear that. A lot. It hurt and I cried. But I am also so thankful she said that because that single comment made me self reflect enough to realize that emotional suppression is NOT emotional management.

I can’t shut down my heart in a conversation or a situation and respond outside of my emotions. Just because I’m not expressing or displaying the emotion I’m feeling doesn’t mean I’m not expressing or displaying something. And usually lack of emotion can come across as cold, heartless, condescending. Bitchy.

See I thought my emotions bothered people. I thought my emotions were driving people away from me and making my life harder. In reality, emotions are what bond us together and it’s when we remove that human element that we start to feel disconnection, loneliness, and conflict. If people ever found themselves bothered by me it wasn’t because of my emotions, it was because of how I was displaying them.

Don’t get me wrong – I am under no impression that I will ever be able to find an emotional display that will make everyone happy, nor am I interested in doing so. However I do realize that I found relational (and personal) strife in the extremes of emotional display, but as I learn to truly and actually manage my emotions instead of letting them run wild or suppressing them I have found deep, meaningful, and beautiful connections with those around me. And isn’t that really all we really want?

Do you find that your emotional management could use a little polishing? Here are a few ideas and resources to start you out:

• Take a break from the situation
  • Even just a couple deep breaths as you count to 10.
• See the bigger picture
  • What do you want to come of this situation? Keep that goal in mind as you move through it.
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0
  • A fantastic book that includes an assessment and personalized pointers
  • Available pretty much anywhere – book stores, Amazon, etc.
• Find friends or family who are emotional safe spaces
  • It’s important to find people you don’t always have to regulate with, people who are willing to remain objective and provide honest perspective so you don’t stay stuck in an unproductive emotional state.
• Find a counselor!
  • It’s amazing how beneficial it is to talk out your thoughts and feelings with a professional who can provide new and additional ways to think about a situation.
• Find a physical outlet
  • Take a walk with a friend, dance it out in the bathroom stall at work, go for a run, weight-lift, kick-box. Exercise pumps your body with feel-good endorphins and a little time and space away from the situation can help clear your mind.
• Journal
  • Do a mind dump to get your thoughts and feelings out of your head and onto paper in front of you. It’s far easier to make sense of them that way.
• Pray, meditate, reflect
  • Connect yourself with your faith or spirituality. It’s always a good idea.
• Forgive yourself
  • Emotions are hard and messy. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Feel your feelings and do your best to

Just write the damn draft! 

That’s what I’ve been yelling at myself all day. Well… actually I’ve been yelling that at myself for years. I recently saw a FB memory pop up from 7 years ago in which I declared I was starting a blog, and was looking for ideas on what to write about. 7 years, guys.

7 YEARS.

You’d think I would have figured out what I want to write about by now, but spoiler: I haven’t. Haha! But I’d rather just start writing then spend another 7 years wanting to but being afraid. Isn’t fear such an incredible thing? What else can ruin relationships, break dreams, derail careers, and end lives so quickly and efficiently?

I have spent a lot of years being afraid. Maybe all of my years being afraid. I used to be terrified of dogs. I avoided meeting new people and hated the potential of being trapped into making small talk with those I didn’t know. I never slept a wink at sleepovers as a kid and eventually had to start medicating my fear when it manifested into full-fledged depression and anxiety. The most ironic part of it all? Most of the things I was scared of either never happened or, if they did, I was capable of managing when push came to shove. In fact, some of those things I feared are now some of the best parts of my life.

Fear serves it’s purpose in it’s time. It encourages us to run when danger is approaching. It ensures we reach deadlines that we feel are important. Fear keeps us “safe.” But our world doesn’t need us to play it safe anymore. Who will benefit from our playing small? A life lived small and scared makes no one better. A life lived in fear achieves only a fraction of what your God created you for.

This isn’t new information though, right? We all KNOW we shouldn’t be fearful. But that doesn’t actually help us in any way. Oftentimes, if you’re anything like me, that realization can make the fear expand and grow an extra head and engulf any light of hope. If you don’t know how to stop being afraid, being told that you shouldn’t be afraid is just one more pressure, one more thing you’re not good at, one more way you could fail.

I’m so sorry if you’ve read this far and think this is the part where I lay down some thick wisdom and change your life. Hahahaha… just the idea of that makes me laugh out loud. I don’t know how to overcome fear. I have battled fear and anxiety my entire life and I have tools to manage it, but I don’t know how to fix it. I do know, however, that I would have never overcome the fears I’ve battled without the people I have in my life. 

I have this theory about the meaning of life, why we’re all here. I believe that there are all these lessons we’re intended to learn during our lifetime. We all must learn these lessons, but we learn them in a different order, in different ways, and at different times. That’s where community comes in. We need people in our lives to help us learn these lessons that make life worth living. I think one of the lessons I’m working on now is how to overcome fear.

Will you help me learn?