9 Tips for the Young and Ambitious at Work
It’s embedded in many of us from a young age to go and do big things. Leave your hometown. Go to a prestigious university. Get a great job. Have a remarkable career. Leave a legacy.
We live in a country that was built by dreamers and pioneers. The ambition of our ancestors drove them toward lives of opportunity.
It’s a blessing to be young and ambitious. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. said, “Oh, how blessed young men are who have to struggle for a foundation and beginning in life. I shall never cease to be grateful for the three and half years of apprenticeship and the difficulties to be overcome, all along the way.”
Opportunities and outlets to indulge our ambition are everywhere. We just have to find them. But you will realize that despite opportunity, navigating a career isn’t as easy as your college self thought. Effort and hard work is a good place to start, and as with anything in life, the fundamentals get you where you want to go.
1. Don’t Let the Job Define You
That’s all it is. A job. Tasks that pay you and require effort.
Remove the illusion that a job is anything less or more. Ideally the job revolves around a task you like doing and are proficient at, but this won’t always be the case. Even some of the best at their craft are forced to retire or lose status and have to move toward other careers. No job is ever below you.
Even if you reach the heights of your goals, it isn’t the end all be all. History forgets everyone the same. Find a source in life that gives you value outside of any results or achievements you obtain.
2. Get Over the Need for Credit
Approach the tasks at hand with the best interest of your company and the project in mind. Don’t be offended if your solutions don’t work or they can’t be used. Always aim for the best answer and totally forgo the need for credit.
Do the exact opposite of credit. Try to think towards what good solutions are for your company and your bosses. Help the organization in ways that aren’t in your job description. I’m trying to improve at this myself, and by no means am I where I want to be, but I know that thinking this way is the place to start.
Above all, remember that you’re an asset to the job more than the job is an asset to you.
3. The More You Suffer the More Your Work Does
The sages of the ancient world told us that life is suffering. Our only remedy is to embrace our suffering and transform in spite of it. If we’re destined for suffering, then we better best prepare our lot for when it comes.
This preparation isn’t just to ease the difficulties of life, but to be able to excel despite them. We need as much energy as possible to focus on the things in life that matter.
4. You’ll Always Be Looking at the Horizon
There won’t ever be a magical stopping point where you feel as though you’ve finally obtained your goals. Once you get to that big and momentous place, you’ll just make a new goal.
This is why successful people keep grinding and can’t ever find fulfillment in what they do. (This isn’t to say you can’t be proud and at peace with your efforts, but part of being human is wanting more. Even authors get jealous of what other authors have that they don’t.)
Enjoy the ability to see the horizon rather thinking you’ll get there.
5. Learn Lessons When You’re Young
Everyone in the world seems to be pumping out content about what to do, how to live, how to think, and who to be. (Yes, I’ll raise my hand and be guilty.)
But no matter what book or seminar or coach promises you a secret recipe — it’s all simple. Do the things you know you should be doing. Stick to the basics. Eat healthy. Show up on time. Take care of your mind and body. Work hard. Have a good attitude. Lions and bees and ants don’t go to boot camp and walk on hot coal at conferences to learn how to do what nature commands of them.
Even if things sound like platitudes or they don’t resonate yet, the day you need to understand the basics will come. You’ll be happy you learned them sooner rather than later.
Here’s a reminder from Marcus Aurelius. “You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.”
6. Learn How to Take Criticism
This applies to both unwarranted and constructive. Us human are more fragile than we think. We don’t handle criticism well. It’s a wonder that so many people want to be famous without realizing the heavy doses of vicious taunts that those of power or status get. Who would want that when we can hardly get over it when someone tells us we did something wrong on a project?
The truth hurts but it leads to growth. George Santayana said, “The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.”
Learn to recognize the difference between constructive feedback and unnecessary taunts. Be able to use the former and ignore the latter. The former is what we need to grow, improve, and succeed. The former is what our coworkers and bosses want to work with. If we can’t listen and adjust and be coachable, why would we ever be a prospect to get hired?
Remember what Marcus Aurelius said with precision about this. “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care about their opinions more than our own.”
7. Don’t Think Yourself Important
At this point in most of our careers, we aren’t important. If you are, and you have a title or work for a prestigious company or went to a world-renowned school, you still aren’t that important. Even important people aren’t that important. We’re all just people. The same flesh and matter that eventually decays for all time. No matter Silicon Valley’s efforts to stop biology, mother nature beats everyone. How foolish we humans are to think we can beat her.
Thinking yourself important doesn’t just get in the way of your job and personal growth — it corrupts your soul. Dallas Willard beautifully said, “The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become.”
Even if you sit in an ivory tower and attend parties with important people, what’s it matter if it cost your soul to get there? What’s it matter if it corrupted you? The biographer Robert A. Caro says that “power reveals” and Jesus warned that “what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
What will be revealed of you if you get a big break? Who will you become if you get a promotion? What are you willing to do to get where you want to go? Are the things you’re willing to do worth the sacrifice of who that means you’ll become?
8. No One is Invested in Your Career
No one cares. No one knows your goals. No one will hold your hand to get there. They’ll help, but you have to want it. You have to prove you want it. You have to be capable. You have to get over your own obstacles.
Let that scare you and liberate you and encourage you all the same. Get after it.
“Nobody cares, work harder.” — Cameron Hanes
9. Learn How to Communicate
Learn how speak precisely. Learn how to tell the truth. Learn how to communicate what you think and need. Only say as much as necessary. Don’t dilute your messages. Don’t talk just because you’re nervous or your brain is jumbled with ideas. Don’t say things that make you weak.
Effective communication is asked of any professional. Mastering communication is tough, so work at it every day.
Don’t avoid sharing ideas or providing input, but be hyper vigilant of what you’re saying and how it’s being interpreted. Even if you have a job where it doesn’t matter, the habits you build will carry with you for the rest of your career.
