Ambition is tricky. Especially for men.

We are expected to be the uber-ambitious gender, who will scale mountaintops to get what we want, where we want it.
But often, you need to scale back your ambition to make room for the rest of life.

And that is the place I find myself now.

I used to be the up-and-comer, well-regarded manager in my small startup company, which meant that I could largely work in a flexible manner, plan my business trips when they were most convenient for me, and generally choose which projects I wanted. And now that’s all about to change…

For better and worse, the little startup that I joined almost 2 years ago has been acquired by a huge (12,000-person) company, and all of my clout has just disappeared. My boss - with whom I spent a good deal of time cultivating a relationship - will no longer be my boss in a few more weeks, and my “flexibility” will be greatly reduced once my new position has been determined for me.

Luckily, I do have a number of contacts within our acquiring company, so I have some options for where I can end up in the organizational chaos that is this Internet behemoth. But all of the job prospects will likely amount to more work and more travel (and not necessarily more money in the short-term).

As my wife and I chopped vegetables and other various salad ingredients for our makeshift dinner the other night, I presented her with my current conundrum, and her response was: “Do you want to be that family where the father/husband is never home?”

And of course I don’t want to be “that” family, but for the immediate foreseeable future I might have to subject myself to it so I can gain the respect of my new company’s management and regain my flexibility.

But as I said, ambition is tricky - I am not one to under-perform, nor have I been one to shy away from engaging work, challenging projects, or difficult clients. Some career counselor might say that this is my chance to climb the ladder and establish myself, but as my wife plows away in her own highly demanding start-up (to put it mildly), I may have to avoid ambition for a bit, in order to make it all balance out, as best it can.

And I am more than okay with that. I am embracing it, having very candid conversations with management and crafting a role that will allow me to manage the working-parents juggle.

But I’d be lying if I said my potential managers were all cool with my priorities, especially the fast-talking, party-all-night, uber-ambitious single guy, who could likely be my next boss.

What are your thoughts on how to avoid ambition?