Do you have Lady Macbeth’s over-ambitious streak? Beware.

While ambition in itself is often seen to be commendable - even aspirational - obsessive ambition can be damaging to both you and those around you too. The play ‘Macbeth’ revolves around this very theme: All-consuming ambition transformed Lady Macbeth into a fiend-like queen, leading to great psychological distress, and finally a tragic end for both her and Macbeth. Through this play Shakespeare warns us that excessive ambition can be quite potent and destructive too: “Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings, melts them.”

Tina, one of my senior managers in an MNC, would drop into my office to tell me exaggerated stories about her achievements. There was a serious mismatch between her self-perception, and the perception of others about her, fuelled by a highly ambitious streak (the proverbial Johari window blind spot). And all of this was making her increasingly unpopular with her colleagues, who after some time, began to block her out of non-work conversations and social gatherings.

I noticed a similar high ambitious streak in Mukesh, a junior manager working in another department, which exhibited differently. He was obviously keen to move up the company hierarchy at rocket speed, but rather than work closely with his own reporting boss, he began playing the ‘popularity game’ with other bosses. He would go out of his way to assist them, greet them respectfully, and work with them proactively. Of course they began talking about him in glowing terms, while his own boss became irritated, and eventually the relationship between them turned quite sour. This, coupled with a few performance issues, led to Mukesh’s rapid downfall and he was eventually asked to leave the company.

To be over-ambitious means that you are expecting to achieve more than what is realistic, by focusing incessantly on a particular goal. Is it worth it? Possibly not. Research suggests that highly ambitious people, while more materialistically successful when compared to those who were less ambitious, in fact had shorter lifespans.

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How to avoid being excessively ambitious

1.?Does the means justifies the end? In the film The Wolf of Wall Street, the broker Jordan Belfort, makes a fortune using corrupt means. Years later he goes to jail for his financial crimes and realizes that he has lost everything, including family and friends. Only when it is too late does he realize that the means he used did not justify his driving ambition of being rich and supremely successful.

2. Increase your self-awareness by making a journal of your emotions throughout the day, or use an app to do so. Research shows that this practice decreases the amygdala activity – a part of the brain that is triggered by negative emotions.

3. Practice gratitude: This reduces the negative emotions that emerge from constant comparisons with others, possibly because one becomes more other-focused rather than self-focused.

To sum up, ambition is a good thing. Excessive ambition, like a festering wound, is not.

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