Ambition - Possible Strengths

Do you have these strengths? If not, how strongly does this factor apply to you?

• Self confidence - You strongly believe in yourself, your underlying ability to get whatever you put your mind to. Even if your social confidence is not high, you are sure of yourself in other ways. You feel that you are not likely to fail if you fully commit yourself to achieving something you really want. Less confident people will doubt their ability to achieve significantly challenging goals and they will settle for partial achievement. Or, they will find reasons to make themselves feel OK for giving up, often blaming external factors for their lack of success.
• Determination - Once you set your mind to something, you pursue your objective with a dogged tenacity to get there in the end. You might have temporary setbacks but you soon bounce back and get yourself going again. You are not easily defeated by failures. Your determination to succeed is such that you are willing to make sacrifices - cutting into your leisure time to do what needs doing. Less determined people, like those with low self confidence, find good reasons to justify giving up when faced with major obstacles. They convince themselves that what they wanted was impossible, not meant to be, not really worth the effort or not their fault.
• Competitiveness - You work hard to win. You know your competitors as well as their strengths and weaknesses. You take steps to exploit your strengths and their weaknesses to gain an advantage. If you are less competitive, you might overlook your competitors or be less aware of how your strengths and weakness stack up agains theirs. You might also prefer not to risk a head-to-head confrontation, just to win a point.
• Energy - You do not tire easily. You can work hard and fast for long periods - months and years if necessary to get what you want. Less energetic people work slowly or in bursts, not being able to sustain effort for the long haul.
• Focus - You have a good sense of what needs to be done - what priorities should be tackled and when. You do not let yourself get distracted by less important priorities. You channel your energy effectively on essentials rather than wasting time on side issues. Generally, you make very good use of your time. People who have trouble focusing tend to let easier tasks distract them. They think they are making progress because they are keeping busy, but they are really only treading water.
• Resourcefulness - You find ways around obstacles that would defeat others. Your determination motivates you to improvise or to think laterally about how you to change your approach so you achieve the same goal in the end. Resourceful people learn from their mistakes and develop a new approach rather than abandon their ambition. Less resourceful people either give up when faced with a significant hurdle or they keep banging their head against the same brick wall, never thinking of another way to skin the cat.
• Resilience - This strength is related to both self-confidence and determination. It is the ability to sustain your dream despite the negative feedback you get from doubters - all the seemingly helpful people who are quick to point out to you that it cannot be done. You have to keep believing in yourself in the face of the wet blankets around you. Less resilient people are easily discouraged by well meaning friends who tell them to be more realistic, that they have tried and trying is good enough.
  

Potential Pitfalls

• Balance - one-sided life, perhaps a workaholic
• Stubborness - inability to cut losses, to see when to quit
• Arrogance - your way is right, impatience with skeptics
• Making enemies - highly competitive people have fewer friends
• Realism - overly ambitious plans, not sufficiently practical.