What Happens When You Have Excess Ambition?

Something I’ve always prided myself in is my work ethic. I have always been someone to work as hard as was expected of me and then give extra beyond that. I like the sense of accomplishment I feel when I tangibly exceed someone’s expectations of me. Every job I’ve had, since my first job at a Subway in my small hometown at 14 or 15 I have put every ounce of effort into my tasks. 

Normally, the response to that is overwhelmingly positive. I’m typically rewarded for my high performance one way or another and that drives me to continue pushing myself for the next best thing. Some would maybe blame this on the hyperfocus symptoms of my ADHD or the stimulant I’m on for said ADHD but I would like to think that I just have a very large innate form of ambitious thinking that I can’t quench. But no one warned me about this time in my life.

No one warned about when ambition meets a plateau of success and progression. I worked my ass off in the first few months at my new company and it was repaid with opportunity after opportunity and eventually a promotion around this time last year. Then I worked hard, again, to build a foundation for a whole new role I was forming for this company. Again, I was rewarded with opportunity after opportunity and thrived under the pressure of anticipation and expectation that I was feeling. About 6 months into that position I was offered a different position within the same company and accepted.

I have been in this position now for ~6 months and have built up amazing results and have, again, been given multiple opportunities to expand my reach and just push, push, push. About a month or two ago, however, I realized that I may have pushed as much as I could. It’s not that the opportunities ran out, they’re still pouring in and I continue to create them for myself. But I have optimized this position and have built such a system that works within the confines of the needs of the job that I now can work within that structure with little to no hassle. 

“What’s next?” I would ask myself and my boss. Every once in a while after asking this question I would be given more responsibilities or ideas on how to expand but after a certain point, I think I’ve reached a moment where I think I can live at the level I’m at. The ambition is still there and my position is still growing but I have realized that the progress now is not in building a foundation or structure for what I do but now is focused on working within that system to get the results and KPIs I have set for myself or have been set by others. 

I’m happy to be in this position. I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to a point of stability where things don’t feel so volatile and on edge all the time. But that innate part of me that is driving and pushing for something new and different is now getting bored. I’m looking for something that will occupy that part of my brain that won’t shut off. I first tried hobbies. It seems every well-adjusted adult I know has a calm and relaxing hobby that they enjoy just for themselves. I tried doing puzzles, but after a week I had less than 10% of the puzzle done. It didn't provide the instant gratification I was looking for. I tried coloring and found myself bored. I read, a lot, but felt I was always doing it for some external purpose. I was getting really down on myself for not having something that wasn’t monetized. But then I thought, “Who cares?” and I began to revive some things I have now enjoyed for years: side hustles. 

My first side hustle began when I was 16 and got a camera for my birthday. Photography grew into an actual business through the years and has garnered a certain level of success having worked with brands like Fossil, Anthropologie, and MTV. But when I left Chicago in 2015 (read my blog about that journey here), I had less commercial success and turned to family portraits which I always hated. I retired from freelance photography officially in 2019 and now only participate for work.

My next side hustle began somewhat by accident in 2014 as a freelance illustrator. I was asked to do a sign for a college coffee shop and one thing led to another and by the end of that summer I had 2-3 consistent clients, one a queer greeting card company and the other a plumbing company I did rough sketches for. I always loved drawing and did that for about four years off and on. The biggest success from that was a series of portraits I did for HBO’s final season of Game of Thrones which won me a trip to NYC to see the premiere of the final season. I still doodle sometimes, most recently having compiled a group of drawings into a coloring book in the summer of 2023. 

In addition to drawing, I’ve always loved to write. I think it’s a bit ironic that this ADHD dyslexic boy loves to read and write when, arguably, those are two things that I tend to struggle with the most (compared to others at least). But flash forward to 2020 when I was teaching and a joke amongst teacher friends turned into a half-formed idea and a fully fleshed-out side hustle. I began writing under an anonymous pseudonym in 2021 and have since gained a following of over 600 readers and self-published two books under that name with more to come. It has been so fun to express myself in creative new ways under that name without the worry of compromising my own image. For that reason, I won’t publicly share what that name is (although I’ll probably tell you in person). 

Finally, also in 2021, I began to put some of my teaching materials online for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers. I would do it slowly at first, mostly posting handouts that I’d create in Word Docs and sell them for a couple of dollars a pop. But, ironically, after leaving teaching my store and resources exploded. I was, and am now, able to focus more of my attention on the resources and pull from research things I didn’t have time to pay attention to when I was actually in the classroom. Increasing even more in the past two months, I’ve been able to gain around 40-50 followers on a new teaching resources Facebook page, I’ve increased to over 100 followers on my TPT store where I have an average review of 4.9/5 with over 20 reviews. I’ve created so many resources that I’m proud of and that I wish I had when I was a teacher and I hear all the time how real educators are using my materials to help themselves in the classroom. 

So, yes, my day job has gotten to a point where my natural inclination for ambition has begun to slow. At first, I was worried about that and it was depressing. I thought I was directionless and stagnant. But then I realized I have much more to occupy my time than just one thing. I have found fulfillment outside of my 9-5 and I think that is more than healthy. I’ve taken this innate drive and ambition and have put it into other things and have now started to see success in those areas of my life. But, in full transparency, I’m still not doing it in fully the right way. 

I’m doing all of this while neglecting certain aspects of my personal life. I’ve had some health scares recently that have shaken me and now, as I write this, I am considering trying to put some of this energy towards my health. It’s encouraging to see that when I put my mind, time, and energy into something it can be successful. Hopefully, if I channel that into my health and personal life I can see the same success there. 

I feel like, for the first time, I’m close to a full, stable, secure, and happy life. I’m pleased with my work life, I’m pleased with my side hustles which have become my hobbies. My ambition doesn’t stop. I’ll continue to push in all areas of my life but I’ll also try to remember appropriate times to rest. But I’m not good at that ;)