Wealth Creation Blog

To large percentages of people, the word ambition is right up there with being rich; it is a word that has many negative connotations, none of which are deserved and few of which make much sense.

What Is Ambition?

What is ambition? By definition ambition is

1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
2. the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his ambition.
3. desire for work or activity; energy: I awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition.
–verb (used with object)
4. to seek after earnestly; aspire to.

By these definitions ambition is a desire to achieve something, such as wealth. But why is that something that is negative? Why should it be viewed as negative for you to want to achieve something better for yourself and for those who depend upon you? When did ambition become something that is disdained rather than treasured? Probably about the time people started thinking that money is “evil”.

I find it amusing that even the example that is provided in the definition shows how prevalent the negative attitudes towards being ambitious are. A man strives for better things in his life and his career and his colleagues dislike him? Sounds like the next definition should be a link for jealousy .

Negativity Prevails

Once again what we have is an example whereby the word and its meaning are not negative, but the attitude that has grown up surrounding it over time has almost made it so, however illogical that is. Ambition is not at all bad; it’s the process of exercising it that has the potential to be. But then, that is your choice, and there are likely as many unscrupulous poor men and women as there are wealthy and ambitious ones!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
Aussie Internet Marketer © 2004 – 2009

Yesterday when we talked about relieving ourselves from undo pressure and stress and making room for wealth creation, I mentioned that it often helps to have not one “To Do” list, but two or possibly three (whatever works for you). Here’s the reasoning behind that.

Priorities

It’s all about setting priorities. If you can set good priorities that are well-matched to your goals and what you are trying to achieve, and you follow through to meet as many of those daily priorities as you can, then you can rest easy knowing that you are being the most productive that you can be—that you are stepping up to meet your obligations and challenges, and that progress will happen as a result. And you don’t need to “sweat the small stuff” any longer.

Your first To Do list, then, should be one of only top priority “must do” tasks. You have to keep it reasonable, though—just because there are other things needing doing in the near future does not mean they all need to happen today. Besides that, you couldn’t do it all in a day if you tried. So pick the most important tasks for the day and put them on list one, but only as many as you can reasonably expect to do.

Runners Up

Your “runner up” list is should include those things that are upcoming soon that are becoming important. You need to do them, but maybe just not today. If you have a good productive day and complete list one with enough time for more, start at the top of list two and work down. You could use the same concept for a third list for even less important things, or the little fillers that you can squeeze in that need doing (Fillers could also go on list two and fill in small gaps in list one when possible).

Focus, Not Procrastination

If this sounds like a fancy form of procrastination, it’s not. It’s a way to focus your time and energy without overwhelming yourself; it’s a way to maintain the motivation of achievement by seeing progress every day, and not being stressed at the end of it because things remain untouched on your list. As the important, pressing tasks of list one are removed, replace them with the up-and-coming from list two, and list two with those from three, and so on. The point is not to let the secondary lists stagnate, but to be progressing and resetting your priorities and focus for constant progress, leading to achievement, wealth, and success!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
Aussie Internet Marketer © 2004 – 2009