We live in uncertain times. The future seems unclear due to climate change, geopolitics, and technological change. Faced with this uncertainty, many people give up on making plans. Any ambition seems impossible. Why aim high when everything could change tomorrow? This resignation is based on two misunderstandings: one about what uncertainty is, and the other about what ambition is.
Misunderstanding uncertainty
We imagine that our parents or grandparents lived in a stable and predictable world. This is not true. In 1977, economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a book entitled The Age of Uncertainty. Every generation has faced its own upheavals, such as wars, economic crises, technological revolutions, political unrest, and epidemics. The difference? They did not live under a constant stream of alarmist information. The feeling of uncertainty is undoubtedly amplified, but not the uncertainty itself.
This nostalgia for a world that never existed paralyzes us. We wait for a return to normalcy that will never come. Worse yet, we confuse uncertainty with powerlessness. Being unable to predict what will happen does not mean that we cannot move forward or build anything. Between certainty and chaos, there is ample room for action.
Misunderstanding ambition
The problem also stems from how we conceive of ambition. We often reduce ambition to achieving a difficult, distant, and specific goal, such as becoming a great lawyer, buying a house in five years, starting a company worth millions, accomplishing a sporting feat, or being admitted to an elite school. This predictive vision is narrow.
Ambition can take other forms besides a difficult goal that we set for ourselves. It can be the pursuit of excellence in one’s profession, whatever that may be. It can be the desire to have a positive impact without knowing exactly what form that will take. Ambition can be the desire to continuously learn and push one’s personal limits, like a craftsman or musician who improves their skills daily. Ambition can mean working with someone we admire and respect. Ambition can be the desire to create something, to remain free, or to live according to one’s own demanding principles. Ambition is not just a destination. It is also a process and a way of being that each person defines in their own way.
This non-predictive form of ambition also applies in the business world. For example, Toyota’s total quality program, born in the 1960s, was based on the idea that improving quality reduces waste and increases performance. The program was extremely ambitious in principle, putting quality at the heart of the company at all levels and rethinking the entire manufacturing process. However, Toyota had no clear idea of the final state it was aiming for. The approach represented the ambition: always progressing. Toyota did not need to define its vision for the future of the automotive industry. In fact, the idea that a Japanese car manufacturer could become a global giant was downright ridiculous in the early 1960s.
Acting despite uncertainty
How can we be ambitious in an unpredictable world?
First, identify what we can control. The global economy is beyond our control, but our ability to acquire new skills depends only on us. Technological revolutions are beyond our control, but our ability to remain curious and learn is not. Distinguishing our circle of influence from the rest reduces feelings of powerlessness.
Next, create options. Options are like the ingredients we buy and fill our fridge with without knowing what we’ll cook in advance. Optional ambition builds growing possibilities rather than a single plan. It accumulates the skills, relationships, and experiences that open up possibilities. When an opportunity arises, we are ready to seize it. This is a very good approach to take in our studies and professional lives today.
Next, aim for small victories. Instead of making a big, irreversible bet, take small steps that can be easily abandoned if they fail but built upon if they succeed. Test, learn, and adjust. Ambition does not require burning your bridges; it requires the ability to always move forward.
Finally, accept that action creates clarity. We often wait until we can see clearly before acting. We need to do the opposite. It is by acting that we dispel uncertainty. Each step reveals the possibility of the next. Uncertainty is reduced by action, not waiting.
This reversal brings ambition into everyday life rather than keeping it on an ideal horizon. This approach is certainly less spectacular, but it is more realistic and probably more effective than long-term plans. It in no way prevents us from accomplishing great things.
Uncertainty is a space for freedom.
Paradoxically, too much certainty stifles ambition. In a perfectly predictable world, all roads are mapped out, all positions are filled, and all niches are saturated. At best, we can only find our place in a cosmos created by others. Uncertainty undermines established models and frees up new spaces in which we can chart our own course in a resolutely ambitious way, without necessarily knowing where it will lead.
We can be ambitious in uncertainty; in fact, it may be the best time to be so. This requires redefining ambition as less of a rigid plan and more of an attitude of high standards, progress, and openness. Less as a set-in-stone destination and more as a conscious desire to move forward. Uncertainty should not paralyze us. It simply invites us to be ambitious in a different way.
🇫🇷 A version in French of this article is available here.
✚ More on uncertainty: Resolving uncertainty with AI, or the scientist illusion of management and The pilot in the plane: When faced with uncertainty, move from prediction to control.
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