Kind Ambition

Living the yoga principles of detachment and nongrasping doesn't mean you can't be ambitious. In fact, applying them to your goals can make you more successful and happier, too.

By Alison Stein Wellner

Yet yoga and ambition are not polar opposites and can in fact be quite compatible. "Ambition is not bad," says Bo Forbes, a yoga teacher and psychologist in Boston. When it becomes distorted, however, it can be negative, giving rise to jealousy or ruthlessness. And it's equally true—though perhaps surprising—that yoga is not a valid excuse for failing to meet your highest potential.

What yoga can do, experts say, is help point the way toward a healthy, balanced ambition, both for people with lots of drive and for people who feel they lack it. "Yoga is about uniting your inner self with your outer self," says Forbes, "and that's the key to healthy ambition. Yoga doesn't ask you to give up on a goal, but to go after it in a different way."

Dream Better

The first step is to consider this question: What are you ambitious for? Healthy ambition depends on properly set goals.

A few years ago, Arnie Herz, now 44, had a big idea. A business attorney with a thriving Wall Street practice, Herz was doing well. But he wanted more. He's a firm believer in mediation as a way of settling disputes, and while he looks for opportunities to use it in his legal practice, he thought if he could teach it to other lawyers, he'd have a far greater impact. "If I kept doing what I was doing," he says, "I could make a difference in the lives of about a thousand people over the next 10 years. But if I could teach a thousand lawyers, and each one had a thousand clients, I could affect a million people!"

It's easy to see how such an ambition might get away from him: causing him, for instance, to neglect his wife and three kids or to cut corners with existing clients. But Herz, who has been practicing yoga for 23 years, has learned to look closely at the goals he sets. So he checked in with himself about why he wanted to pursue this particular dream.

To attain a balanced ambition, your goal should not run afoul of the yama, or principle, of ahimsa, or nonviolence. Interpreted literally, this means your goals shouldn't harm other living beings. But it also has a broader meaning, Forbes says. It means not running over other people in an attempt to get ahead and not harming or neglecting yourself when you're trying to accomplish things.

So you may have to change the way you go about pursuing your goal, perhaps by shifting the time frame for accomplishing it. As Herz considered his dream, he realized that establishing his name and brand would involve a heavy speaking schedule and take him away from his family. "I don't want to be an absentee father," he says. So he set a more modest schedule, limiting his speaking engagements to one or two nights a month. He's still serious about achieving his goal, but it's unfolding more slowly than it might have. Herz started working on his plan in 1999. Since September of 2001, he has spoken to almost 2,500 lawyers and business owners. He's well on his way to achieving a big dream without tipping out of balance.

If you're practicing ahimsa, it might look as though not pursuing goals at all would be the wisest course: If you're not going after a dream, you have little opportunity to cause harm, either to yourself or to others. But following yogic principles doesn't give you carte blanche to slack off, says Forbes. The principle known as tapas emphasizes stamina, perseverance, and will power. To exercise tapas, you need to work toward a goal that's challenging for you. "People with too little tapas often sell themselves short," she explains. A goal that's too easy won't help you see what you're made of.

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