Neha Leela Ruch gave birth to her son in 2016 while she was working at a tech startup. After her son was born, she left the paid workforce to be at home with her child. While she loved and fully embraced her shift, she noticed a problematic narrative around her transition from executive to full-time mother. “I heard the societal pushback from my peers and family. They would wonder what I was doing all day,” she told me. But those judgments felt at odds with her internal state. She wasn’t experiencing inner conflict about her choice at all. To the contrary, “I felt more ambitious than ever when I made that purposeful shift,” she said. For her, ambition wasn’t about “doing more.” It was about doing work that was important to her.
The Oxford Dictionary defines ambition as “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” Yet most studies from the last 20 years use a narrow definition of ambition: a desire to gain more responsibility within a company for a higher salary. But this definition is reductive. It is inconsistent with macroeconomic workplace trends like the pursuit of portfolio careers, the rise of contract work and hybrid flexibility.
“Ambition is not an amount of hours worked, a job title, a salary or even climbing a career ladder,” says Stefanie O’Connell Rodriguez, writer and creator of the Too Ambitious newsletter. “Ambition is the drive to create a life that reflects your skills and potential… personal and professional ambitions are not mutually exclusive.”
In other words, participating in hustle culture is not the same thing as having ambition.
And, at a time when women are still doing disproportionately higher shares of household and childcare work even when they are equal earners, this definition is especially harmful to women as it positions them as inherently less ambitious than their male counterparts.
What’s required is a change in the global conversation around how we define and discuss ambition. When our priorities shift, our ambition isn’t downshifting. Rather, our ambition becomes more aligned with our values.
Here are some actions we can all take to help shift the narrative around ambition.
Aligned ambition versus downshifting ambition
We are not less ambitious because our priorities shift. We may unintentionally be downplaying our own ambition with our language choices. Many people mistakenly consider changes or shifts to be synonymous with decreasing ambition. In fact, career change can actually reflect a more aligned ambition. Instead of saying, “I’m less ambitious these days,” try saying something like, “I’m channeling my ambition into activities that align with my values and interests right now.”
Eliminate diminishing language from your vocabulary
Too often, we inject “just” or “only” as descriptors when describing a career shift to others. You may find yourself saying things like: I’m “just” working part-time, I’m “only” an individual contributor, I’m “just” a stay-at-home-mom, or I’m “just” taking time to find a job better suited to my interests. Using these words can diminish your power and provide a dangerous feedback loop to how you view and think about yourself: the more you lessen your power out loud to others, the more you’ll believe it. Your words also shape how others think of you. So, take charge of the narrative.
Use the same language that you used about your former ambitions and map your new ambitions onto it.
When we share a new personal win with others, we often first describe the effort and then the result. You might say, “I have been working long hours (effort) and just got promoted to VP of my team (result) — I feel really proud of my accomplishments!” Use the same framework as you talk about a big shift in your priorities. You might try: “I just got the okay from my boss to go to a 4-day work week (effort) so that I can spend more of my Fridays focusing on reproductive rights advocacy (result) — I couldn’t be more excited about it!” Notice how you have taken the power back to shape others’ reactions to your shift.
Frame it as a season
Your ambitions now will not be identical to your ambitions ten years from now. This, just like in any time of change, is a season. Try using language to reflect that. You might try, “This is my season for getting my health back on track,” “I am in the season of investing in my marriage,” or “In this season, I am supporting my child as we get her the extra resources she needs to thrive in school.”
When we speak in seasons, we encourage others to do the same. Our priorities and ambitions change, and that’s a good thing.
Lean into community
When our ambitions shift, it can sometimes be isolating. Ruch founded a community called Mother Untitled to update the narrative about women leaning into family life. The message resonated — Mother Untitled has 92,500 followers on Instagram. Be intentional about finding others who are in a similar season to you. When you’re surrounded by people who share your current values and priorities, the burden of having to justify your choices lifts.
Let’s normalize the shifting seasons of ambition. Or, better yet — celebrate them.
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