A is for Ambition

/ legreene515

Today is a little bit different. I’m starting the A to Z Challenge, in which I blog through the entire alphabet in the month of April. It will be interesting to see whether I can complete this. There are about 1700 other bloggers joining me.

Today is brought to you by the letter A. I wanted to blog about ambition last night, but I was busy working on a flash fiction piece, and then my wonderful, beautiful daughter would not go to sleep.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the definitions of ambition is a desire to achieve a particular end. Ambition is the key to drive. My son is ambitious at gymnastics. He pushes himself. He doesn’t accept failure. He keeps going, even when the going gets tough, or even when it’s an event he doesn’t like. My ambition (defined as: a particular goal of aim) is to become a successful author.

Sometimes, ambition doesn’t seem like enough though. So many things can get in the way of success, including real life, day jobs, attitude, mental blocks, and that little “p” word, procrastination. I am the queen of procrastinating when I don’t want to do something. And all it does is hurt me. Procrastination takes my ambition, crumbles it up, and it throws it in the toilet. My ambition this week is to finish editing “The Devil Within,” so I can send it back to my editor. And it’s slow going, because I don’t really want to do it!  I lack ambition when it comes to editing. I have plenty of ambition when it comes to writing, but that’s only part of the story. It’s sort of like, you can’t take the good without the bad. I need to train my mind to believe that in order to be a successful published author, I must edit.  So this week, I’m striving to be an ambitious editor–we’ll see where it gets me.

20 thoughts on “A is for Ambition”

  1. Ambition – this was a great way to kick off your A to Z posts! I think ambition can be good or bad… it can drive us to succeed, but can also interfere with what’s most important in life. As long as we keep things in perspective, I think we could all use a healthy dose of this!

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  2. I agree with John Mark–“ambition” is the perfect word to kick off this challenge. I’m terrible with procrastinating as well, and my goal for the month (besides posting for the A to Z challenge) is to write an epilogue for my first novel and revise it. I have ambitions of being a prolific novelist, but I’m not going to get anywhere if I don’t see the process through from start to finish at least once! Good luck!

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  3. Hi, Lauren! Visiting from the Challenge and from the Writer’s Retreat blog. Thanks for coming by today.

    Good luck on your journey! Ambition can be a potent ally.

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  5. Ambition is a great thing but I hear you – I always get side-tracked by procrastination. And excuses. There always seems to be other priorities with the kids. Best of luck with the challenge!

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  7. The neat thing is …your ambition will carry you through your procrastination–and that’s a good thing. We’re big procrastinators in my family also, but wanting something helps! Are there really 1700 of us? Wow!

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