The Triple A's, or why Aspiration is more fulfilling than Ambition
On purpose and fulfilment, and the role they play in our lives.
Purpose and fulfilment are fascinating to me. Some people place a lot of emphasis on finding meaning and fulfilment through their work. Others care little for what they do to make a living and feel a sense of fulfilment from other factors in their life; their family, their friends, their hobbies. Some are fulfilled by a deep sense of self-improvement, and some need to feel that they are serving others.
I often worry about making the “right” choices and that I’m investing my time and money going down the “right” road that leads me to personal fulfilment in life. I want to work with people and on things which feel meaningful and make a positive impact in the world. At the same time, I want to have good friends, good finances, good connections with my family. But how can I know if I’m getting it right and going in the right direction? What if instead of fulfilment I find regret?
The combination of my fascination with this topic and my own concerns led me to read the latest book by Marshall Goldberg, “The Earned Life”, in which he takes a stab at defining “fulfilment” as well as setting out an approach to how we can tackle this complex topic for ourselves. One particular part of the book stuck out to me, summarised in this quote:
“Deciding what you do each day is not the same as who you want to be right now is not the same as who you want to become.”
In the book, Marshall gives the example of his peer, Frank Wagner, who took the exact same path as him in life. Same age, same school, same mentors, city, job title, life philosophies (hence the same career choice as coaches). And yet, their key difference is found in their ideology. Frank aspires to have balance in all things - his career success is only as important as his physical fitness, his family, his hobbies. Marshall thrives when he dives deep into his work, or on whatever topic strikes him in the moment. When he tries to force himself to only work certain hours and increase the time for home life (because that’s what he “should” do), he’s miserable. Frank loves balance and control, Marshall loves imbalance and chaos.
The reason they can be the same, and yet so different, is due to a combination of three independent variables that we all have in our lives - Action, Ambition, and Aspiration.
Action is what we are doing right now. The time horizon for action is immediate. It’s the things we do every day, moment to moment. Depending on the person, our actions may be synchronised to our Ambition and Aspiration (for example, if you’re highly disciplined). For most of us, it’s probably mostly aimless and wandering depending on the day and the time, or may even be counter to the objectives we set (eating a piece of cake when we want to get fitter, or taking a vacation to recharge but still taking work with us).
Ambition is what we want to achieve - our pursuit of goals. It is time-bound and probably contains many multitudes of goals at all levels - physical, mental, financial, spiritual, avocational. A stereotypical “successful” person is good at following their ambition and subordinating their actions to their Ambition.
Aspiration is who we want to become. It’s our pursuit of a greater objective above our time-bound goals. There is no clear finish line or time-bound aspect to Aspiration. It is infinite. It is an expression of our purpose, and therefore can’t be turned off or sent away. In the background, there’s always something we aspire to, we just can’t measure it. It may change with time, and that’s okay.
Marshall’s point is that we should not treat Ambition and Aspiration as synonymous. It can be easy to think that achieving goals (Ambition) is what makes us happy and fulfilled. We often lack clarity on what we aspire to, and our goals are tangible, so this is a particularly easy trap to fall into. The catch is that there’s always another goal waiting right behind any that you achieve. Achieve all your goals without any Aspiration and you’ll be left with is the question “is this all there is?”
The hard part with Aspiration is that we do not know in advance if we’ll actually like what we aspire to. This can create a lot of uncertainty and fear to even set out on a particular path in the first place.
If you aspire to being a lawyer, you may spend multiple years in classes, experiencing various detours and hardships along the way, only to realise at some point down the road that it’s actually not what you signed up for and that practising law makes you miserable. You also might absolutely love it, it might surpass all of your expectations, and you may decide to devote the rest of your life to being the best lawyer in the world.
The only way we can know if an aspiration is right for us is by engaging in the aspirational experience. This is the most important thing to realise: We will only know if a particular aspiration will lead to fulfilment by trying it out. Every step further along an aspirational path will reveal more about our efforts and whether they’re leading to satisfaction or futility.
Aspiration is how we privilege our future over our present, and this is why chasing Aspiration, not Ambition, is the only path to actual fulfilment.
The bonus win is that by following the things which feel aspirational to us, we naturally prevent regret. We do not regret trying the things which feel intrinsically aspirational to us - we regret not trying and never knowing.
The second key element to this process is to celebrate quitting. It is too easy to fall victim to the “sunken-cost” fallacy and think we have to finish what we started, or else we fail. If trying out our aspirations is the only way to know if they’re right for us, then quitting is the only sensible thing to do when we see that they’re not. As soon as we see that an aspiration is actually bringing us misery rather than fulfilment, we can celebrate letting it go. This is growth, and it’s the opposite of regret - trying is the only way to know.
I will leave you with more of Marshall’s words: “Your self is a countless series of selves compromising old self and current self and future self, changing from one to the next with every breath you take. Aspiration is the mechanism that best supports and clarifies this paradigm. (That ‘aspiration’ stems from the Latin ‘aspirare’, meaning ‘to breathe’, is a delightful illumination.)”
See you next week.
-Mike.