burnout costs women millions. intentional ambition is the antidote.

All my ambitious material girl, you will burn out if you do not channel your chaotic ambition into intentional ambition. I learned this the hard way, so I am going to teach you the easy way. Chaotic ambition is what happens when you are a multi-hyphenate, talented, incredible woman, right? Like, you say yes to every project because, well, you can do it. And before you know it, you are stuck doing 10 things at once. Job, second job, maybe third job, friendships, relationships. You are doing it all, but you are exhausted. I know, because I burned out while writing a book, running two six-figure businesses, and getting my MBA all at the same time. And it took me almost a year to actually recover, which is a ton of lost earnings. And now imagine doing that multiple times in your life, like many smart, over-achieving women do. You are losing so much financially, and your mental and physical health cannot keep up with that. And the worst part is, once you burn out, you start to question whether your ambition is the actual problem. You start to wonder if you should just settle down, if you should get smaller, or stop wanting so much for yourself. And that is not the answer. The real answer is intentional ambition. So there is three steps to intentional ambition that I have identified. Okay, the first is figuring out what actually matters to you. And a great way to do this is with Doctor Susie Welch's the Values Bridge, which is this quiz that you can take that basically spits out to you of the 16 human values, which ones are your core values and which ones are your more peripheral values that you don't care that much about, at least at this point in your life. Everyone says their top values are their family and their health, but in reality, it could be work-centrism or making a lot of money. And that is okay, as long as you know that that is true to you. And once you know what really matters to you, you can make decisions that align with your priorities, not what the world tells you to do. Because a key component of chaotic ambition is a lot of external validation, because you are being praised for all the amazing things that you do, but in reality, it is not serving you. Step number two is dreaming bigger. I know, right? Seems a little counter-intuitive, huh? But women have been shrinking our dreams for decades while we hold up the world behind the scenes. You have to get super, super, super clear on what exactly you want out of your life and say no to everything else. In the Too Smart For This journal, I have a whole section in Q2 where we talk about daydreaming and vision boarding and how to actually figure out what your dreams are and stick to them. Let yourself want the million dollar apartment, let yourself want the big business, let yourself want the freedom and the travel and all that stuff. You have to let yourself want it or else you are not even going to get it. And step number three is that you have to calculate what you will not do. It is very, very easy for ambitious, talented, multi-hyphenate women to get pulled into tons of different worlds because you are hyper-competent. But I find it so much calmer when I can say, hey, this quarter I am really focused on my business, so I am not dating at all right now. And that does not mean that I don't value having a relationship at some time in the future. It means that right now, I know what I need to do, so I am saying no to this. And when you let yourself have that, it is a lot easier to really focus. And that is what intentional ambition looks like, is being very specific on what you will and won't do so that you can have the amazing things that come with your big dreams while not sacrificing your mental health, your physical health, or your values. Unchecked ambition leads to burnout. Intentional ambition leads to your dreams coming true. So, to start, pick up that Too Smart For This journal, babe. And I talk a lot about this on my Too Smart For This Substack too, so go check it out.