Are you being honest with yourself when you think about your own ambition? Do you define ambition by the likelihood of success or by the joy that it brings you?

In Lead from the Outside, Stacey Abrams pens a heady chapter on human ambition and how easy it is to fall into the trap of those pesky imposter syndrome feelings, causing you to believe that you should set smaller goals in life.

"Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations. Its cool, rational precision urges us to believe that it makes sense to limit yourself. And when your goal means you'll be the first, or one of the few, as I desired, logic tells you that if it were possible someone else would have done it now."

Has that happened to you? You set a goal and then think to yourself, no, that's a stretch. Let's scale that back so I can actually hit the goal. Or change the goal so you can stay feeling comfortable...

Set goals that make you feel uncomfortable. Set goals that make you an outsider in your newly desired destination. Set goals that make you smile or make your palms sweat.

Stacey provides an impactful ambition exercise where she asks readers to complete the following:

What would you do if you had unlimited money?

If you could do any five things for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Rank your top five activities from most appealing to least appealing.

Would you swap anything from the "what else" list for what you wrote as your top five activities? Why or why not?

More of Stacey's exercises from Lead from the Outside can be found here.

As leaders, be aware of the ambition trap and because outsiders often make the best leaders, set goals that put you in a place where you are now an outsider.

Are you being honest with yourself when you think about your own ambition? Do you define ambition by the likelihood of success or by the joy that it brings you?

In Lead from the Outside, Stacey Abrams pens a heady chapter on human ambition and how easy it is to fall into the trap of those pesky imposter syndrome feelings, causing you to believe that you should set smaller goals in life.

"Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations. Its cool, rational precision urges us to believe that it makes sense to limit yourself. And when your goal means you'll be the first, or one of the few, as I desired, logic tells you that if it were possible someone else would have done it now."

Has that happened to you? You set a goal and then think to yourself, no, that's a stretch. Let's scale that back so I can actually hit the goal. Or change the goal so you can stay feeling comfortable...

Don't do that! Avoid the ambition trap!

Set goals that make you feel uncomfortable. Set goals that make you an outsider in your newly desired destination. Set goals that make you smile or make your palms sweat.

Stacey provides an impactful ambition exercise where she asks readers to complete the following:
What would you do if you had unlimited money?
If you could do any five things for the rest of your life, what would they be?
What else would you ask for?
Rank your top five activities from most appealing to least appealing.
Would you swap anything from the "what else" list for what you wrote as your top five activities? Why or why not?
More of Stacey's exercises from Lead from the Outside can be found here.

As leaders, be aware of the ambition trap and because outsiders often make the best leaders, set goals that put you in a place where you are now an outsider.


Stacey Abrams, in Lead from the Outside, writes about human ambition and how we need to set loftier goals and ignore the little voice in our heads.

Dare to Want More - Beware of the "Ambition Trap"

Mon Feb 01 2021

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