This Will Change the Way You Think About Ambition

For anyone whose self-worth is under strain

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A bunch of gold stars coming to get you

There’s so much in this interview that I really want to keep the intro short and directly to the point. And the point is: this isn’t a clickbait headline. This interview with Rainesford Stauffer — about her new book, All the Gold Stars — really will push and reshape the way you think about ambition. It’ll hang out in your head for days, weeks, longer, who knows, forever.

Below, I ask Rainesford who this book is for, and I found her first answer touching in a way I can’t quite articulate. “Someone whose self-worth is under strain,” she said. And isn’t that all of us, some to most of the time? I hope you’ll spend some time with her words, and the profound framework of grace within them.

You can follow Rainesford Stauffer on Instagram here, and buy All the Gold Stars here.

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I want to start with a structuring tension of the book:

“Rather than deriving my self-worth, passion, and identity from outcomes of work — GPA, job titles, or awards — my attachment to ambition came in the form of being ambitious itself. I lit up not at accolades or accomplishments but at the acknowledgment that came from them: Such a hard worker. Always going above and beyond. When I faltered personally, the act of being ambitious felt like a saving grace.”

After pouring so much of yourself into that ambitious, you find yourself at the intersection of physical and mental health crises, and realize that it wasn’t just that you were burnt out, or lost — but that you’d lost your ambition altogether. 

Can you talk about how you became acquainted with your own history of ambition, what you realized it was mapping over, and how you came to understanding its particular hollowness? How did you think of your ambition when you were in the thick of its hold, and how do you think of ambition, broadly, now?

There’s a part in the book where I talk about a teacher asking me if going to the bathroom and missing participation points was “worth it.” My mind heard “worth it” and interpreted that as “performing in this particular way is worth self-sacrifice, and if you don’t, you aren’t good.”

Another defining example that isn’t in there is when I had the epiphany I’d never be the best dancer, and dancing was my passion. But I could be the hardest worker. I recall being told “good girl” when I’d show up like 45 minutes early, overstretching and relishing the performance of being committed in a way I did not realize was a performance at the time.

This tension took the longest to unpack: ambition for ambition’s sake; not striving to achieve, necessarily, but striving not to fail.

Now, I can see a connection between what I considered being ambitious (or hard working) and what was actually about feeling in control. There’s a lot of reasons for that, I think: physical health issues that had me feeling out of control of my body; some trauma that made control seem like safety; not realizing being a people-pleaser wasn’t great until later. Interestingly enough, this wasn’t something that was coming from my parents. I didn’t have wild expectations of perfect grades or anything like that placed on me.  I liked being ambitious this way. 

It surprised me that I connected so much of this to childhood, rather than young adulthood, when a lot of work-and-school related pressures came to fruition. But so many people I spoke to had their version of that story: the moment they wanted something so badly they felt it was part of them; the moment they realized someone thought of them as worthy, and the moment someone told them otherwise — that they wanted too much, that they weren’t enough. Most of us have some version of that: if I’d just worked a little harder, been a little better, I would’ve… And so much of that is bullshit. 

Someone I spoke to for the book, Remy, described multilayered pressure of ambition and how it intersected with familial expectations as someone who is a first-generation American and in a high-achieving family, with religion, with identity, and eventually with work. Remy captured it perfectly: “If you tell a child, ‘prove yourself,’ that’s what they’re going to spend their life trying to do.”

“Proving it”: in the thick of this broken version of ambition, that’s how I would’ve described it, even as an adult. It wasn’t all bluster. I really did love a lot of the work. But it was so hollow because the focus on doing, doing, doing let me skim over why I was trying to prove myself. To mask shame. To earn self-worth. To find a way to forgive myself for everything I wasn’t, honestly. 

I didn’t really understand how hollow it was until my life felt as if it was falling apart and my striving did very little to save me. For context, when I first began thinking about this, I felt I should’ve been at peak ambition and instead I was running on a track that no longer existed. No one could figure out why I was getting sicker. The relationship I was in, what I cared about more than anything, was crumbling and I began having the slow-burn epiphany that I had really lost myself. (And, to be candid, always felt like a bit of a try-hard–not a capable, composed, ambitious person, but someone who somehow took up a little too much room and wasn’t enough all at once, which is my own thing to work through.) There was a harassment situation where I was trying to fight for accountability, despite being out of my depth, that felt as if it just blew up my mental health. (This sounds like a value pack of disaster, but it got better, I swear!)

And the whole time I’m going: Why do I not feel driven? What’s up with that? It’s like, look around you — ambition isn’t fixing this! But I was so stuck on it always being the thing that fixed everything for me, pushing through, handling it, failing and trying again. 

Now, I’d describe it as full. I’m still ambitious about work, but in a more meaningful, sustainable way, with a better sense of how I contribute rather than just what I produce. To me, if we really break it down, a lot of ambition is where we put dedication, care, and passion. That could be how we’re of service to other people, how we show up as a friend, and how we invest in what we love, whether it’s a community or a hobby. I think contributing, healing, and caring are ambitious. I’ve found there is so much for me to be ambitious about, way beyond the context of accomplishment.

I think I’ve told you some version of this story before, but when I was in 9th grade, we voted on what we then called the “Freshman Elite,” our version of high school’s “Senior Superlatives.” Best Smile, you get the picture. In addition to the frankly ridiculous category of “Best Looking,” there was also “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Most Ambitious.” 

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about the difference between those categories — what’s the difference between a trajectory towards success and ambition? It is the sheer size of where you are to where you ultimately want to be that defines it? And how does class and privilege play in? And how do we culturally code each of these superlatives differently? (Someone can be Most Likely to Succeed, like I was, because they have a lot of class and identity advantages and position them for success; all they need is a sprinkling of ambition to get things moving….whereas “Most Ambitious” can be coded, as you point out, as too much, striving, gauche, new money, etc etc) 

I love this distinction, because it reminds me of one that came up during reporting: the difference between ambition (a feeling, action, or process) and achievement, an outcome. 

I think the difference is that a trajectory towards success almost feels predetermined — where achievement begets achievement. It assumes there’s been some success already, or at least enough to indicate more is coming. Whereas someone who is known for their striving is not necessarily the same as someone who is known for their success. But I think the two are closely linked, and really depend on narrow ideas of what “success” and “ambition” mean.

I think capitalism underpins both. Cultural, societal, and structural expectations that reinforce what success is, and who has access to it, also shape ambition. That sounds like a given, but a few examples of how we think of “ambitious” come to mind. 

Someone I spoke to, A’ja, told me point-blank that no one considered her ambitious or hard working when she was young. Most of the adults around her didn’t bother discussing her future plans, let alone her dreams, because she’d had her child in high school. But she told me she was yearning for growth, and ended up earning her associate’s degree, is working on her bachelor’s, secured housing for herself and her child after experiencing housing instability, and is raising her kid. None of that is easy. While she said she didn’t consider that ambitious at the time, she does consider herself an ambitious person.

So much of this happens so early for so many people. And a lot of that can be connected to the origins of standardized testing and gifted/talented tracking, but it is even beyond that–who gets to be successful, who is deemed worthy of resources, who gets thought of as having “potential”

Then, Joselyn, a former Starbucks worker and union leader, made a great point about whose labor is valued, saying that she doesn’t think people see baristas as ambitious or hardworking. But that she and her former coworkers are artists, and parents, and students, and so many things, while also being committed to doing good work at a hard job — and that forming a union is ambitious!

And then there’s the ways ambition itself gets used. It can be uplifting and aspirational, or exploitative and destructive. It can be considered a privilege in terms of who has the time and resources to think about their motivation or aspirations. But it’s also presented as an individual solution to structural crises: with such a threadbare social safety net, the resources people need to live safe, fulfilled lives are presented as things we’re supposed to earn. That’s horrifying. 

What does an “ambitious” person look like? How do they sound? Who do we encourage to go for it? There is no version of what’s considered ambitious or successful that doesn’t directly intersect with gender, race, and class. These norms are overwhelmingly white, male (though I think it’s critical to interrogate how white women, myself included, uphold these norms), cisgender, able-bodied, and having some level of personal freedom to make choices. 

To use a small personal example, I had parents who gave my siblings a lot of leeway to pursue our passions as kids, with sometimes a lot of sacrifice on their part. I did not earn that. It was given to me, not because I was extra-deserving. It’s a privilege that has informed every step of my life in some way, whether directly or indirectly. I don’t think any conversation about success or ambition can be had without 1) acknowledging any resources or support that helped make that possible, or what was lacking, and 2) naming the people who have contributed to that success. My own list is long. 

Then, there’s a flip side. You’re supposed to pour in endless effort, but it’s also supposed to look effortless. You’re supposed to have it all figured out and be self-reliant, because needing help is warped to mean you must’ve done something wrong. That lumps a ton of people into the too ambitious, too pushy, too try-hard category, where their ambition is thought of as “too much.” Imagine the incredible ideas and contributions we miss out on because this is societally and structurally reinforced in so many ways. 

Who have you pictured as your imagined audience for this book? Is it the book you wish your younger self could have read, the book the educators and caregivers who helped raise you (and so many others) could have read, a book for single mothers who always felt pressure to be perfect….a book for people looking to give themselves some grace? You can say all of the above and more — I just want to know more about how you thought about these potential audiences during the writing process. 

Initially, I didn’t know this would be a book. I had been emailing about a totally different kind of reporting project (one I’d like to revisit someday!) with my agent, and mentioned in passing that I wondered about something with a frame of ambition, and needing to have less ambition. I’d been writing and thinking about it just for myself. The book changed a lot since then–I actually don’t think it’s a book about inherently needing less ambition–but it was something I absolutely could not get off my mind. I kept seeing it in conversations with students I knew, with friends going through big life changes, including grief, parenthood, and moving, that shifted their ambition, and with people who were exhausted by all the achievement discourse when they were just trying to get by.

When I think of the imagined audience, I think: someone whose self-worth feels under strain. People who want to give themselves some grace in a world, but need a frame of reference. (Which is often what I find myself unintentionally seeking in what I read: that it can look and feel a different way.) My imagined audiences mirrored the people I was lucky enough to speak to while reporting, who were thinking about their own relationship between striving and self. I wanted this to feel reflective, and grounded in realities–taking into account how many of the roots of achievement, success, and ambition-related pressures connect to profound disparities driven by social inequality.

If you’re someone who wants validation that things that matter to you, that you want to celebrate, that you tend to, are ambitious and significant, even if they don’t show up on a social script of achievement, I hope there is something in these pages for you. I was struck by how the care, intention, and drive that fueled so many “traditionally” ambitious pursuits were also being used to spark incredible relationships, communities, and care. These things might’ve been considered good, and meaningful, but I hadn’t necessarily heard them called “ambitious.” And the question a lot of people seemed to be asking, anecdotally, was: why not? 

Obviously, the book and this framing of ambition aren’t going to resonate with everyone. But whether you’re an educator, a caregiver or parent, a mentor, a colleague, a friend, I think we all have the opportunity to give each other grace, celebrate each other’s contributions, and care for each other. 

You did a lot of interviewing for this book, which is part of what makes it feel so robust. Can you tell me about two interviews that feel foundational to the book — the sort of interview you kept returning to for wisdom, or that upturned your understanding of how some aspect of ambition worked, or just really moved you, and continue to move you? 

I realize it’s probably a cliche to say the interviews I did changed my life, but they really did. The heart of this book are the people who took so much time out of their own days to talk about it all with me. 

There are so many of these interviews and observations that play on a loop in my mind. I’ve mentioned a few already. But the story Renée, a 41-year-old who talked about feeling behind after being a first-generation college student who walked right into the Great Recession’s job market, told really underscored how even when someone does “all the right things,” systemic failure and the related lack of a social safety net shape so much.

That interview touched on a lot. Renée told me she thought a lot about her choice not to have children, because her adulthood had been about surviving economically, and how both her sisters who are parents — one a single mother, the other married — struggled because of lack of structural support. She spoke about her sister dying by suicide about three months after Renée started a new job — and how she was back at work 10 days after, because she didn’t feel she could afford to leave the job market. Two points she made really highlighted the crux of so much of this, at least to me: She said she always felt behind, “until I didn’t feel behind, but then I just didn’t want it anymore.” And, after the death of her father, who had saved up for a retirement he never got to enjoy, “what is this for?”

Another one I’ve thought a lot about, and try to put into practice, was a conversation with Annie Zean Dunbar, a PhD candidate who is a researcher, educator, social worker, and artist. She shared too much generous insight on care and community for me to condense here. But I appreciated how she noted that we engage in small forms of care without realizing it, and explained mutual aid as starting from the place of “people deserve.” I think about this quote from that conversation a lot, and the ambitiousness inherent in caring for each other: “It’s a human imperative to hopefully bring goodness into the world because that’s what we want in return. We want that sense of reciprocity.” To me, there is so much hope in that.

When you were on Work Appropriate earlier this year, we talked a lot about how you can be ambitious in other areas of your life that aren’t work. As in: there’s nothing wrong with setting a cool goal and working hard to get it! It only goes sour when it becomes YOUR ENTIRE IDENTITY and then the goal itself gets kinda lost in the mess and then you just keep going and going until you are navigating a hollowed out shell of a life!!!  

You told me you got really ambitious about setting up a life suitable to adopt cats — and I told you about being ambitious at gardening. And it’s true, that’s where a lot of my larger ambition has been funneled recently — but I also find myself carrying over some of the worst qualities of my work ambition, like dissatisfaction with “good enough,” or shame that I haven’t quite perfected a certain corner of my garden (that truly no one sees, and even if they did, they’d be like oh that’s the weird corner, everyone has one). Have you figured out any best practices to keep the worst parts of ambition from creeping into the best, most fulfilling parts of working towards something awesome? (Like, as you write in the book, your ambition for interdependence?) 

The cats are a hilarious example. Ever since my childhood cat, who lived a long and thriving life, passed away, that was my goal: get to the point where I could adopt a cat. Then, amid a torrent of life chaos, this stray cat turned up starving. Objectively, timing couldn’t have been worse. But for once, I thought: I’ll just figure it out. 

You mentioned a goal going sour when it becomes your whole identity, which I totally agree with, and thinking about it now, that was the cat thing. The hypothetical cat became a sort of proxy — that when I reached settledness and stability, when I’d done my hard work first, then I could be happy. To me, that’s one of ambition’s worst parts. The part that tells you that the only value is in your future self, your future accomplishments.

I think about this scenario often: I used to really idealize a certain kind of weekend morning, this fantasy of making coffee and reading and opening a window for the cat(s) to listen to birds. Such a small dream, but a dream nonetheless. And you know, it’s every bit as good as I imagined it. Some small and precious things just are.

(Caveat here in case: I’m not saying adopting a living creature is the fix-all. I was in a position to care for the cat, who is named Harry after When Harry Met Sally, loves his kitten sibling, Fig Newton, and has an eclectic range of toys, from a stuffed moose to a stuffed beaver to a cardboard paper towel roll they refuse to let me throw out.)

To answer more directly, I spoke to a researcher on the relationship between ambition and extremism. She mentioned that we all have self-actualization needs — to feel we have purpose, dignity, and respect–and that extremism occurs when one need outweighs the others. That one need? Quest for significance, according to this research. I balked when I read it, because I think it’s generally uncomfortable to think of yourself as wanting significance, which is often positioned as notoriety. 

But we all want to feel valued, celebrated, and respected for our talents, contributions, or presence. The trouble is when our need for significance in a given area–work, school, gardening, whatever it is–overrides other needs, like belonging, rest, and having a circle of loved ones. So that helped how I thought of this: It’s not about not having goals; it’s about not having the entirety of your time, your worth, wrapped up in one. 

I always hesitate to give out tips, because all this is truly so personal. But this is what has helped me:

Be ambitious about the process, not just the outcome. (To use my own hobby as an example, when I bake, I put on some good music, I take my time, I eat too much batter. That way, if the recipe implodes–like when I accidentally mixed up powdered sugar and flour–the whole thing isn’t a wash.)

Let more than one thing hold your ambition, or meaning. (This is also the best writing advice I’ve ever been given when I’m stuck: go do something else. It sounds like backward advice to say “add more things in!” but even small things, like taking a breather from whatever I’m doing to call a friend, have added so many outlets for meaning to me.)

Collaborate and sink into your community. (For once, three cheers for group projects! Needing each other, leaning on each other, working together — they’re all such underrated parts of doing something great. The idea that the only good stuff is stuff we achieve alone can be so limiting and so boring. When we take what we care about and bring others into it, our ambition can expand.)

You recently wrote quite movingly for The Cut about the relationship between your ambition and your OCD — and your fear that if you treated your OCD, you’d also lose some essential part of what made you you. It very much feels like an essay that you couldn’t have written before you wrote this book, you know what I mean? There’s a clarity and a vulnerability, that sort of post-big-project rawness, a hundred little revelations coming together at once. How did you arrive there, what did it feel like to have it in the world, and where do you go with all that you’ve come to understand about yourself? 

First, thank you for saying this! [Quick content warning for discussion of OCD symptoms below, and a disclaimer that OCD can manifest in many different ways. My experience is just mine. For resources, I recommend the International OCD Foundation.]

I had been thinking about the essay for over a year, and, frankly, it scared me. Mostly, I was afraid of doing harm. There are a lot of awful misconceptions about OCD, from it being an organizational “superpower” to misunderstanding what an intrusive thought is. (I can’t overstate how terrible that last one is. By definition, intrusive thoughts are unwanted, disturbing, and distressing) So I didn’t want linking OCD and ambition to come across as glorifying it. I didn’t want to celebrate it; I wanted to understand it.

I spent a lot of time writing and rewriting drafts that were ultimately me just writing my way through it before I ever pitched. I’ve been trying to really practice that there’s a difference between something I write for me, and something that should ultimately work to serve a reader in some way — I wish I’d understood this earlier in my writing. There are thousands of words and research that never made it into a final draft.

OCD took up more and more space in my mind and in my life as I got older. But there was a breaking point that’s alluded to in the book, when I briefly mention proceeding with accountability for that harassment situation. Having to go back, and back, and back to recheck things, confirm dates, and analyze memories shocked something in my mind, where suddenly all these other memories I had apparently suppressed were looking me right in the eye. And I couldn’t get out from underneath them. Maybe that broke my ambition at the time. It definitely broke me. 

Worst of all, I found myself totally unable to communicate feelings, needs, wants to loved ones for fear of saying them wrong. I’ve never been great at asking for what I need, which is something I’ll be practicing forever. But this was different — it felt like I couldn’t physically get the words out. Which, understandably, came across as uncommunicative or unwilling to share. The impact that had on certain relationships and experiences — I’ll regret it forever.

I say all this because it took all that to arrive here. It took finding the right kind of treatment — which I’m still practicing. (In transparency, the week before the book came out was a bad OCD week. I really went down a catastrophe hole. But this time, I was able to realize and vocalize what was happening, and try to disengage.) It took time. 

But having it out in the world is the greatest sense of relief, in a way. First, because the messages I’ve gotten about that piece — from people who felt understood by it or felt encouraged to seek treatment because of it — blew me away. I don’t quite have words, honestly, for how much it meant that it resonated. Second, because I finally had the clarity to be able to stand outside of it, and write about it, for a reader. It felt to me like I’d made progress in some way. (It helped that I had a very patient editor who went through many, many rounds of revisions with me.)

Where do I go from here? I hope my ambition reaches off my resume — that it’s more than a list of accomplishments. Because when I think about how things get left, the things and people that have shaped my life profoundly, why would I not be pouring ambition into community, kindness, care — the stuff that makes a life? I still have ambition for work; it’d be a lie to say I don’t! And I yearn to pursue that, too. 

But for a while, I thought after every milestone or achievement or next step, there would be a sense of completeness. For a long time, I was panicked that I never found that on the other side. Now, I’m so grateful for it. There’s more room. More chances to be curious. More opportunities to learn. A “more” that isn’t inherently focused on “what’s next.”

Actually, that’s my ambition: I’m ambitious for the pauses; I’m ambitious to be part of it all. ●

You can follow Rainesford Stauffer on Instagram here, and buy All the Gold Stars here.

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