You are in love with a man who has no goals and ambitions in life. He has no motivation for the future. When you are passionate about your professional career and life goals, having a boyfriend with no ambition makes you wonder, will he drag you down in the future?
How he views his life will have an effect on your relationship as well as on how you feel about him. Some of us may find it challenging to respect and admire someone who is not ambitious about anything meaningful in life.
It’s difficult to tell that what makes a person more driven and ambitious in life. Highly motivated people have many distinct personality traits. You may have noticed how some of us are born with a more aggressive and demonstrative temperament.
It is important to know that forcing your boyfriend to change himself is not right. You can’t push him to get a good job, make more money, or start getting more serious about life. It will be pointless for you to create life goals for him. He may not like you to pressurize him to be more ambitious about his education and career.
If you truly want to help him, the only thing you can do is accept him for what he is right now.
There is a difference between being ambitious and being successful.
Everyone has a different perspective on success. For example – Someone might view having a peaceful and relaxed life as a success, while for others, success may mean earning a lot of money and having regular professional growth.
For Person A, earning an X amount of money will mean great success, even if it means taking high risks and putting in extraordinary effort. At the same time, for Person B living a relaxed and peaceful life is real success.
Ambition means the desire to achieve something in life. People with ambition crave accomplishments; for some, it means making a lot of money, being powerful, and being recognized. Ambitious people don’t hesitate to make more efforts and take more risks to achieve their goals.
Everyone has a different perspective about ambitions. Ambitious people have an inner drive and motivation to achieve their goals and passions. Usually, driven people will have detailed plans about how they will achieve their goals.
Ambitious people are always energetic and emotionally strong. They are not afraid of hurdles; they face challenges head-on and become better every day. However, being too ambitious can sometimes create problems for you.
Some amount of ambition is important to stay motivated in life. People who lack ambition won’t care to make themselves better to get far in life. Excessive or blind ambition, on the other hand, can lead to burnout, insanity, and a shorter life span.
Many people feel that disparity in the level of their ambitions has a negative effect on their relationship.
How to love someone who lacks ambition?
1. Manage Your Expectations.
When you force your boyfriend to be something you want him to be, it puts extra-ordinary pressure on your relationship. You must be honest with him; he must know that his lack of ambition makes you feel uncomfortable. But, it is essential to note that when you push too hard to make him change his personality, you risk pushing him away from you.
Even if he wants to bring a change in himself, it is not going to be easy. Irrespective of how much he tries, he won’t be able to become ambitious overnight.
Becoming more ambitious in life is a process, which involves taking small but regular steps. Developing powerful habits, improving focus, dedication, and patience.
Think, when was the last time you wanted to change about yourself? Was it easy? Making changes to your personality is hard and takes time. Many of us want to improve many things in our life, but for one reason or another, we keep on procrastinating. Changes are all about commitment, effort, and perseverance.
If you struggle to change yourself, it will not be right to expect your boyfriend to change how he has been living instantly. Maybe, if you push too hard, he will try to get a better job or start working on himself to go far in life, but sometimes it gets nearly impossible to change a fundamental aspect of someone’s personality.
Sometimes it’s in your best interest to focus on your own goals and dreams. Direct your energy and time towards your own life journey. Let your boyfriend live his life the way he wants to.
If his lack of ambition doesn’t bother you, you have nothing to worry about, but if it makes you feel uncomfortable in the relationship, you must convey your feelings to him. If you have tried everything and being a part of this relationship makes you stressed and suffocated, you must move on.
2. Consider Effect Of Opposing Life Goals On A Relationship.
When your life goals are more compatible with your partner, it makes your relationship more fulfilling. In an ideal situation, you and your boyfriend should be on the same page regarding long-term plans, careers, money, marriage, and kids. When you are passionate and ambitious about your career goals, whereas your boyfriend wants a quiet, unambitious, and lazy life, he may drag you down.
His opinions, perceptions, beliefs, and values will have an impact on your relationship. You need to have complete clarity on how you want to live, what makes you happy, and where you want to see yourself a few years down the line.
Suppose you are ambitious about your dreams, and you think being in this relationship will stop you from achieving those dreams and living a fulfilling life. In that case, you must re-think whether you seriously want to move ahead with this relationship or not because it will not be wise to allow your boyfriend’s lack of ambition in life to impact your life negatively.
Ambitions And Your Relationship
It’s not wrong if you want to have common life goals as your romantic partner. It helps you to build a stronger foundation for your relationship. But does it mean that your partner has to meet your standards or your perceptions about success to make you see him as ambitious? Not true for everyone, but it depends on person to person.
Some of us may be very passionate about our educational goals, getting our dream job, or making a lot of money. Often, we end up with partners who don’t have any such ambitions in life. Will it affect you if you have completely different ambitions in life?
For some, it does, while others don’t think it as a problem. But before you decide to end your happy relationship because of disparity in your ambitions, you must consider the following-
a. Are You Being Fair To Them?
Are you expecting too much from your boyfriend? It would help if you answered this question only after you have considered it deeply. Do you meet their expectations? Do you easily do all the things they want you to do? Maybe not.
So when you find it hard to comply with their requests, is it fair for you to expect so much from them? Maybe your expectations are unrealistic.
b. Respect
Genuinely respecting your partner is key to a healthy relationship. Sometimes your boyfriend’s lack of ambition in life could make you lose respect for him. This can give birth to some serious relationship problems.
If your boyfriend doesn’t put any effort into the relationship, is lazy, and fails to contribute financially, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. However, on the other hand, if they work, support you, contribute financially to the relationship, and consider themselves successful, then the real problem is your unfair expectation from him.
In any case, if you fail to respect your partner, their choices, and their perspective about life, then it signals a huge compatibility issue between you two.
c. Love
Do you genuinely love and care for him? Will you love him if he stays the way he is? When you continue to push him to change his personality to suit your needs, then your relationship will always be stressful. It can lead to a lot of tensions and loneliness in the relationship.
d. Does He Feel Happy?
Situation A – Criticizing your partner who is unhappy and unsatisfied with his life and is not doing anything about it.
Situation B – Criticizing someone very happy and satisfied with the way they are.
There is a big difference between these two situations. When your partner is satisfied and content with his life, it will be very hard to convince them to bring a change in their life. It is also not right on your part to expect them to change themselves to suit your needs.
Changing the way they live their lives to meet your expectations or as a requirement to stay in a relationship with you is not right. You have to learn to respect their choices. When you constantly criticize them, they may start to develop resentment against you. This way, you will find it hard to make this relationship last.
