On why it is necessary to identify the positive and negative factors that make an ambitious person…

So the issue now is ambition. Psychology is varied in its approach to different human traits, and like any other attribute that defines humans, ambition could be explained by different psychological theories. On the one hand, ambition could be closely related to motivation, especially achievement motivation and could be defined with Maslow’s theory of human motivation. Abraham Maslow presented his theory of the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ in 1943 in which he distinguished between basic physiological or bodily needs such as sleep and hunger, security needs such as home and work, social needs such as love or friendship, esteem needs such as achievement and recognition and self-actualization needs or the higher needs for truth/enlightenment and wisdom. Ambition could be included in the “esteem needs” in Maslow’s theory, so, according to this theory, ambition would be a need for greater self-esteem and achievement.

Ambition could also have psychoanalytic explanations and the libido or life drives are considered the basis of ambition in men and women. High sexual or life urges would translate into a high level of ambition. Self psychology or a branch of psychoanalysis developed by Heinz Kohut in 1977 provided explanations of ambition as the core of personality development. It’s important to understand what ambition really is, why people have ambitions in the first place, and what types of personalities are most likely to be ambitious.

Ambition can mean many things

– a burning desire to achieve success in life, a desire to achieve personal or professional advancement, a desire to achieve fame, power, money, rank, position, or a desire to achieve a particular end or complete an activity or achieve the fruits of an activity. Ambition is, therefore, a “desire” similar to any other type of desire. Where are the roots of such a desire? Freud explained that desires are in our unconscious and we are motivated by our life urges and our sexual urges. So if you have a great life or sexual desire, does this mean you will also have great ambitions? Psychoanalysis will answer positively, so that ambition, being about desire, is also about the desire to live, and an ambitious person also necessarily has a strong life force or survival instinct. We could call this a kind of psychological Darwinism or a struggle to survive in a competitive world that is at the root of ambition. Therefore, ambition is inherently positive and is oriented towards the general development of a person. However, this is not the end of the story, we have to understand the underlying factors. Ambition is a complex process and trait in humans and can be triggered by both negative and positive factors:

positive factors

– greater confidence

– social and financial needs

– creative impulses

-competitiveness

– emotional and intellectual needs

– Sexual and life impulse.

– survival instinct

– personal motivation

negative factors

– fear of failure in professional or social life

– fear of rejection in personal life

– feelings of inferiority

– feelings of superiority

– mental illness such as bipolar disorder

– jealousy

– narcissism or self-love

– lack of trust

Therefore, a psychology of ambition is about realizing the two distinct types of forces or factors that make a person ambitious and should focus on how these forces could be used effectively. However, these are general reasons why people get ambitious and we all seem to be motivated by some of these reasons. In fact, many people can identify with most of the reasons given here, so there are several factors that seem to drive us towards achieving certain goals. We are ambitious because we want social status and we are afraid of rejection or failure in our personal and professional lives. Thus, a man may become ambitious so that he can flaunt his position, rank, or success in order to attract potential mates, a woman may become ambitious because she has deep feelings of inferiority and wants to compare herself favorably with others who display extreme competitiveness or are deeply desire to improve the condition of the world. However, I have deliberately not included the mission, the purpose, or the desire to improve the world as positive factors, because the mission or the need to change the world is about going beyond personal ambition.

Jealousy is a negative force that can be positively turned into competitiveness, and an individual jealous of a friend’s achievement may strive to excel in their own way. Again, feelings of inferiority or narcissism would be negative forces, but they can be used positively to tap into the deeper ambitions we all have. However, ambition taken to delusional levels, as we see in dictators, shows how positive forces like motivation and increased confidence can be used negatively to cause harm to oneself and others.

A person with feelings of superiority is necessarily also a person with simultaneous feelings of inferiority, since someone who thinks they are superior always has an unconscious fear that their superiority may be challenged and has an inherent vulnerability that can cause feelings of inferiority at the same time. . Mental illness, such as bipolar disorder, is also a negative, and a bipolar person may display increased energy and emotions during manic episodes where the individual undertakes various projects and displays high ambition. Many creative individuals have been considered bipolar, although pathological levels of the disorder where the individual ceases to function properly would require medical/psychiatric attention. I would suggest that negative forces such as these could reverse themselves and become positive for an individual to realize their ambition, just as a positive factor can turn negative (as in the case of the dictators described above) and cause failure/downfall or even a downfall. complete lack of realization of one’s goals. Successful people are the ones who can manipulate these forces of ambition in the most positive way, so that they can change negative factors into positive ones, and can also use positive factors to prevent them from turning negative at any point in life. Therefore, a person with a bipolar tendency should use it positively to enhance her creativity and a person with strong sexual drives can use her energies in a socially constructive way that can prevent social or personal harm.

Therefore, the ambition should be to use your energies, feelings, needs and positive or negative factors in life in the way that is most beneficial for the achievement of life goals.

The next question that naturally arises is what kind of people are more ambitious. Well anyone who is driven by these forces described above and affected by such forces is ambitious, so everyone is basically ambitious and ambition is the basic life force. However, when these negative or positive factors are stronger in some than in others, these people would be more ambitious. Healthy ambition is one in which a good balance is achieved between negative and positive factors.

Therefore, a positive extreme like overconfidence or a negative extreme like increased fear of rejection would only hinder one’s ambitions and ultimately be a hindrance to personal, social, professional and moral development. of an individual.

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