Episode 4: Your Ambition Is Not Embarrassing

I wonder what comes up for you when you think about an ambitious woman? Is there an image or a set of feelings that you might attach to that word: Ambition? 

I KNOW so many women find it really hard to admit that they are ambitious. The fear of coming across as ambitious feels really scary for us because our culture hasn’t allowed women to celebrate their desire for more.

As if wanting more for this one life that we’ve got is greedy, needy or will make us unlikeable in some way.

This episodes dives into why it's hard for us as women to own our ambition and why it's important that we begin to turn the tide on the negative, damaging tropes around women's ambitions that keep us small, embarrassed and resentful.

+ Click here to read the transcript

Welcome back to Courage Is Calling, I’m so glad you’re here – thanks for tuning in today.

I wonder what comes up for you when you think about the word ambition?

Is there an image or a set of feelings that you might attach to that word?

What about when you think about an ambitious woman? What comes up for you then?

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve painted ambition with a dirty brush. Like, we’ve taken all the toxic elements that we’ve observed about ambition and what its really about and skewed its meaning

I think – actually I KNOW so many women find it really hard to admit that they are ambitious for this very reason. The fear of coming across as ambitious feels really scary for us because our culture hasn’t allowed women to celebrate their desire for more.

As if wanting more for this one life that we’ve got is greedy, needy or will make us unlikeable in some way.

In fact, there have been studies conducted by leading research institutions such as Harvard and Columbia University, disecting the perception of ambitious women. The research shows that culturally, ambition is seen as a positive trait in men yet criticized in women. When presented with two case studies (one male one female) with exactly the same goals, ideas and personality traits the female one was found to be more scrutinised and rejected.

And I can see the repercussions of this culture effecting so many women in my work. Women often come through the programmes that I run totally terrified to admit that they have goals, aspirations and ideas that they’d like to make a reality.

They have every reason to be afraid of owning their brilliance and their desires because we a) haven’t made women feel safe to have ambitions or to expand or stretch without attaching some sort of negative connotation to it, and b) we certainly haven’t created supportive systems to enable women to do this without feeling like they have to compromise other areas of their lives when they do.

Women are fearful of coming across as ambitious with good reason. We have demonised womens appetite for more and reduced it to mean that she’s pushy, untrustworthy, competitive, maybe even undesireable to a potential partner or a bit too big for her boots.

And on the other hand, we tend to see other virtues of womanhood celebrated and elevated much more – like self-sacrifice, and caring for everyone else being the holy grail.

So what happens for women with ambition who sense that fear about having big ideas or dreams? Well, we go into self-protection mode. We end up hiding, feeling embarrassed, dumbing down our ideas, people-pleasing, apologising or not taking credit for our efforts, handing things over to other people when we’re capable and want to do things for ourselves, doubting our abilities, feeling resentful and worse than that – this resentment often leads women to judging each other and being competitive or bitchy. We fall into the trap that society has set up for us, not realising that we’re being played and it keeps us small and scared. And so the cycle continues.

Can we be done with this now? We need to normalise, celebrate and give each other permission to thrive in the ways that we want to.

To really break these cycles we need to find supportive spaces to be more fully ourselves, to own our plans and goals, to find cheerleaders to encourage us as we pursue the things we care about. And it starts with us.

It starts with us both owning the desires and ambitions we have for ourselves and making sure that we are a safe person for other women to share their dreams and desires with.

When we own our desires and ambitions and ideas and become safe places for other women to thrive how they want to, it releases other women to do the same. We demonstrate that there is plenty of room for us all, that we all have different ideas of what fulfilment and desire looks like and we can help each other to be brave. Ambition comes in all forms and isn’t something we should hand over to the stereotypes we’ve been given. And if we don’t hand it over to these stereotypes we can actually allow ourselves to be really inspired by each other.

This is how we turn the tide on these cultural tropes that paint women with ambition in a negative light.

Sure there will always be those that are intimidated, threatened or resentful when they observe or encounter a woman who is pursuing the stuff she feels called towards. There’s no getting around the risk of potential criticism or the opinions of others but it’s important to remember that other peoples responses to your ambition usually have nothing to do with you. Their responses to us only really ever tell us about them.

And so the questions I want to leave you with today are:

• Are you willing to be loyal to your own curiosities and plans? are you ready to be loyal to yourself and your amitions?
• Where can you bring those ambitions and dreams to that feels safe and empowering.
• How are you going to champion other women who are taking the risk to stretch and expand as well.

I hope this episode gives you some permission today, to be ambitious in whatever way you need to. To know that your ambition is not embarrassing or threatening – it is important and necessary for us to witness and connect with.

If any of this is resonating with you, feel free to send me a message on IG, tell me about your ambition. It would be great to hear from you.

Thanks again for listening and ill see you next time.