GO YOUR OWN WAY
How to discover your true ambitions
When I was growing up, I was pretty sure I knew what ambition was: Joan Collins as
Alexis Colby in Dynasty. Big hair, big earrings and even bigger shoulder pads. There were plenty of these glossy role models around in the 1980s: Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting, the cast of Working Girl and then, in the late 1990s, the Sex And The City foursome. I had it all figured out. I would have some kind of amazing job, probably in New York, with a corner office and a paper clip holder customised with my initials. And I would have awesome hair.
It wasn’t until much later that I realised ambition is more personal and less glamorous than the TV version. And that the best ambition might be to have a job where no one cares what your hair looks like, because instead they care about your expertise and your brain (I know: dream on). I also realised that no one needs a paper clip holder.
I started off being ambitious for the old-fashioned idea of the big job and the big promotion. But as soon as I worked in an office in my early twenties, I realised that kind of working life was not for me at all. I had very little interest in meetings or sucking up to the right people or having a special title on a business card. In fact, all these things made me feel trapped and murderous. Fate intervened, the newspaper I worked for got bought out and I was made redundant aged 27. At the time, I thought it was the end of the world, but eventually, working freelance as a writer, I found out what I really was ambitious about: being able to plan a life around my work. I now have three children and have been married for 20 years. I was ambitious to make my job work around me.
I also realised that sometimes you have ambitions you didn’t know you had. I host the podcast How To Own The Room, which has featured interviews with more than 50 women, including Hillary Clinton, Julie Andrews and Margaret Atwood. This wasn’t really planned, it just sort of happened. Initially, there was an idea I was obsessed with: getting women talking about what power looks like and how they plan their public speaking. I thought we would talk about breathing, posture and index cards – and sometimes we do. Mainly, though, it ends up being a much bigger discussion about how to assert yourself, take up space and understand what you are really ambitious for. It turns out that owning your ambition means different things to each of us. Nigella Lawson talked about not being afraid to say no to things. Trinny Woodall talked about being ambitious for different things at different times in her life and knowing that there are phases when you take a step back from work goals completely. Hillary Clinton talked about remembering that you stand on the shoulders of the women who have come before you. Business guru Margaret Heffernan talked about maintaining your own ambition while championing others, underlining that there is space for everyone.
These ideas couldn’t be further away from the artificial belief that ambition means a hefty pay rise, an all-expenses-paid trip to Davos or all the Louboutins you want, although lots of interviewees have mentioned the importance of markers like that. What keeps shining through is how individual our definitions of ambition are. As Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain explained brilliantly, ambition can mean knowing that you want to create a beautiful home and be with your children as much as you can. Or it might be about putting your mental health first. Ambition is not, and should not be, confined to work.
Hosting the podcast has made me think more deeply about what exactly I am ambitious for in my life right now. Freedom means the most to me – especially the freedom to say no to things I don’t want to do. And I’m ferociously ambitious about not answering to anyone but myself. True ambition is letting go of anxiety about what others think of you and knowing what you really desire in life, in all things big and small. Like my hair, for example. I haven’t cut it since I started that podcast and I haven’t dyed it in nearly a year. Because I don’t care if it looks perfect any more. And I want to embrace my silver roots. I’ve finally ditched my inner Alexis, who was always more of a young girl’s picture of ambition, and replaced her with something more real and grown-up. It doesn’t look like any kind of ‘ambition’ I’ve seen before. But it looks like me.
‘Know what you desire in life, big and small’