Surviving Ambition

My relationship to success has changed drastically. How about you? Plus, my April & May reading lists.

Like many others, my relationship to work has changed over the past two years. When COVID first hit, I was so burnt out and exhausted that I was secretly thrilled to get two weeks to work from home. I urgently needed rest.

Since then, I’ve built a healthier relationship to work. The problem is, the part of me that spent a lifetime driven by productivity is having trouble letting go. We’ve heard so much about people shifting their values, finally prioritizing joy over work. But I haven’t heard much about the inner conflict that can come with that change.

Success was never a choice for me. It was a necessity. For years, it is what drove me. I was addicted to achieving, succeeding, notoriety, attention, fulfilling my potential. In my mind, I was not yet successful. Success meant writing and directing an Oscar-winning film, creating my own TV show, writing a bestselling novel, hosting SNL. I got so burnt out from years of pursuing success that my genuine passion for writing, filmmaking and acting morphed into: goals, achieve, followers, job, money, work, more more more.

At some point in my 20s, prior to COVID, I began to actively seek happiness that did not come from achieving, but rather from being. The pandemic sped up this pursuit. I have hobbies now. My old self did not have hobbies! I spend more time reading, I learned to cook, I got certified to teach Yoga. During the pandemic I learned to play chess, to golf, to bake. I’ve invested more in my friendships and my relationship to my family. I have passion projects like this Substack, my retreats, a podcast I’m developing with a friend, and teaching at Script Anatomy. Naturally, as I fill my days reading fiction, playing with my dog, seeing friends, and planning retreats, I spend less time ruthlessly pursuing my career.

The former workaholic in me sees this internal transition, and screams at it to stop. Go back to only getting value from achievements! That’s what we’re used to! You can’t just … BE HAPPY FOR NO REASON! It grieves my ambition, desperately wanting it back. Why can’t you go return to the grind you had at 25?

When I got staffed on The Morning Show, I felt like my dreams had finally come true. I writing for TV, working with actors who I grew up admiring. Beyond that, I felt like I fit in. I was good in the room. I felt comfortable and confident. This is where I’m supposed to be, I thought. I met my partner a couple months later. My life fell into place. Then, another existential question arrived: Wait… what now? I’d spent so long searching and hustling and building to the next thing. I decided to finally give myself permission to relax.

Three years later, The Morning Show season 2 ended. A new show-runner came in for season 3, swept house, and hired all new writers. I surprised myself when my mentality wasn’t: I can use this to build momentum, to hustle and sell my own show and become rich and famous. Instead I felt: How nice it will be to have a break! Then, I launched my writing & Yoga retreat program, which I had developed in 2019 during my Yoga Teacher Training, but didn’t have time to focus on.

My former workaholic self has a lot to say about that to the part of me that wants to host retreats and travel the world.

I recently did an exercise where I wrote a conversation between two these parts of myself attempt to ease this inner conflict. So my “Achievement Part” and the “Free Spirit Who Just Wants To Enjoy Life And Move to Costa Rica Part” had a long talk, and what I learned is that my Achievement Part is a bully. She’s like: If you don’t spend all day writing you’ll never get a job again! Then you’ll be poor and you’ll never fulfill your dream of having 10 dogs who can play with each other in a big backyard! Stop working on your “podcast” and go write a script!!!! Something you can actually sell, not “art” like last time. You need to buy a house!!!!!! I’m not sure WHY that’s important, but if you don’t do it, you suck and are bad!

Wow!! The voice in my head telling me to write is a nightmare! Why would I want to spend more time with her?

So how do we change that?

I know that I must face the critical voice with compassion. I hope to eventually teach my Achievement Part to have compassion towards me, too, so instead of being mean she says stuff like: I get it, there’s a lot of pressure on you right now. Why don’t you go do 10 minutes of breathwork, then sit down at your computer, and try to write for an hour. If it’s not going well, you can take a break and do anything you want. You can even eat dairy.

As my generation faces a collective shift away from career-obsessed, girl-boss capitalism and towards a healthier, holistic approach to a work-life balance, I wonder how many others have an internal critic struggling to accept this change. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe we’re all wondering how to rearrange our lives without losing ourselves.

Now, when I think about my favorite moment from The Morning Show, it’s not a glamorous one, although some of those still live close to my heart. It was April 2019 in New York City, there were no celebrities on set, and I invited my mom to come watch us film a scene I’d written. It was a special occasion, because we normally shot across the country from my parents’ house, in LA. As we watched the scene together, my mom was so excited and proud and giddy. She’s in her 70s, but she didn’t want to leave set. We ended up heading home on the last train out of Grand Central Station at 1:20am. It felt so good to share my world with my mom. I realize now that the feeling I had that night is something I chased my whole life. It’s the feeling of look, I did it. I thought it would only happen if I won an Academy Award, or if I brought my parents to the Emmy’s and personally introduced them to Jennifer Anniston in between winning lot of Emmy’s. But now, for the first time in my life, I feel like I don’t need the awards. I don’t care if anybody knows whether I did or did not do it, because that has nothing to do with me and my happiness.

I believe, of course, that a balance is possible. Slowing down in your work is not giving up. Writing and creating are my favorite things in the world. They make me feel alive, fulfilled, and present. I want to write a novel. I want to make a movie. I love writing TV and want to write on many shows over a long career. But I want to do these things because they fill my soul, because they give me pleasure and joy and happiness. If they don’t translate to power and fame, that’s okay. I’m searching for something much bigger than that now.

What I read in April:

In April I read four novels: Circe, Pachinko, The Last Thing He Told Me, and My Year of Rest & Relaxation, and I listened to four audiobooks: Hello, Molly, Dear Girls, One Italian Summer, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.