In a survey of a thousand career people by McCall's Publishing Company in New York, fewer than 10 percent of those surveyed said they owed their success to "luck," "the breaks" or "knowing the right people."
Most of them cited theirs reasons for success as "strong ambition" and "always wanting to be a success." The same survey reported 81 percent were satisfied with their jobs.
Ambition can serve as powerful fuel in reaching higher levels of success, there's no doubt about it. The following quiz will help you and your family members determine if you need to get more ambition going. Answer the following questions
with a YES or NO and then refer to the directions (below) on scoring your answers. Good luck.
1. Do you sometimes feel you aren't making enough progress
in your vocation, job and life in general? ______
2. Are you willing to work several hours each night and on weekends in order to get ahead? ______
3. When you achieve one of your business goals, do you start moving toward
the next one on your list? _______
4. Do you make a conscious effort to learn from your failures and
mistakes? ______
5. If the opportunity came along to hitch your wagon to a rising star
in your chosen field (possibly through some person on the way up),
would you do so? ______
6. Do you often read or study subjects of interest to you? ______
7. Do you agree a person can become more ambitious by an act of will and then by backing up that will with action? _______
8. Would you be willing to change careers, possibly giving up job
security, in order to get into work more to your liking? ______
9. Are you presently using all or most of your abilities and resources
to forge ahead? _______
10. Do you think that people in general are more likely to succeed if they
enjoy the work they do? ______
11. Have any past failures in your life made you more determined to
achieve success? ______
12. Do you find the idea or goal of shooting for the top both exciting
and challenging? ______
13. If it meant career advancement, would you be willing to move to
another city or country? ______
14. Does the idea of working for yourself (in some form of self-employment)
interest or enthuse you? ______
15. Do you look for new ways in which you can be of more help to your
patients or your superiors (in any present work or part-time job you may now be
involved in)? _______
16. Do you now have and maintain a list of things you intend to
accomplish in the future? ______
17. Do you often create, consider, and experiment with new plans
designed to help you reach your objectives? ______
18. Have you set one or more deadlines for reaching your major
goals? ______
19. Do you genuinely value the use of time and feel guilty on
occasions when you waste it (or believe that you've wasted it)? ______
20. Do you use slogans and positive statements written out and
carried on cards or in notebooks, in order to keep yourself
motivated with thoughts of victory and success? ______
How to Score Your Answers:
Score 5 points for every YES answer and 0 for each NO answer.
Then add your total: ________
Evaluating Your Score
90 to 100 – Great! This high score means that you are a highly ambitious person. Such ambition may well propel you to great levels of success in your chosen field or career.
80 to 90 – This is a good level of ambition and still enough to take you a good distance up the success ladder. You can, however, raise this degree of ambition still higher.
70 to 80 -This indicates a fair degree of ambition. You are probably somewhat limited in what you may attain, unless you're able to increase the amount of personal ambition.
60 to 70 – Based on this score, you are lacking in enough ambition to fulfill your dreams. This might well be what is holding you back. Strive to get more ambition going for yourself.
50 to 60 – You're out of the ball game. You should immediately start trying to become a more ambitious person.
Regardless of your score you probably have some room for improvement. After all, success does call for a healthy degree of ambition, which is the motivating force that puts you ahead. More ambition to you!
