How ambitious should you be? Folk wisdom offers conflicting advice: “Shoot for the moon,” but also, “Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
A new study from researchers at the University of Wyoming, Stanford University and the University of Colorado-Boulder used a mathematical model to show that ambition lies in the middle -- above average but finite.
“Conventional wisdom tells people not to settle, but also not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” says lead author Kath Landgren, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability. “We wanted to see whether the math actually supports that intuition. It does, with some interesting twists.”
The researchers studied a model of searching for the best available strategy -- where a strategy could represent anything from a job to a business idea, to a romantic partner, to a public policy or political campaign. At each time step, the searcher either settles for what they’ve already found or they keep searching.
The researchers proved that people achieve the best results, on average, when they use a satisfaction threshold that is strictly above average, but also strictly finite. In other words: Aim higher than average, but don’t shoot for the moon. The researchers also found that setting the threshold too high is costlier than setting it too low by the same amount. In other words, being too hard to satisfy is worse than being too easy to satisfy.
The study, “Optimal ambition in business, politics, and life,” appears today in the journal Physical Review E.
The study looked at how the statistical distribution of possible outcomes should change one’s ambition. When outcomes are rugged (less correlated from one attempt to the next) or left-skewed (way-below-average outcomes are more common than way-above-average ones), people should be more ambitious compared to the average. When outcomes are right-skewed (way-above-average outcomes are more common) -- as in entrepreneurship, where a few “unicorns” pull the average up -- people should actually be less ambitious relative to that inflated average.
“This shows a counterintuitive but important difference between ambition and risk-taking,” says co-author Matt Burgess, an assistant professor of economics at UW. “When outcomes are left-skewed, like in economic policymaking, where recessions are larger than booms, you should avoid risks, but you should be more ambitious compared to average. You shouldn’t let the large recessions drag down your growth target for a typical year. It’s the opposite in entrepreneurship: You want to take risks but also not be discouraged if you don’t become the next billionaire.”
The study also found that upward social comparison is costly. When people judged their success only in comparison to peers who were doing better than they were, their performance dropped substantially in the model. They were chronically dissatisfied and missed achievable rewards.
“Upward social comparison sets us up for disappointment,” says co-author Ryan Langendorf, a lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder. “It’s great to be inspired by others’ accomplishments, but focusing only on our most successful peers distorts our view of what’s achievable. This is especially true with social media, where we mostly see each others’ curated highlight reels.”
The researchers illustrated their results using real-world data from online dating, college applications, U.S. economic growth, billionaire wealth and 2020 swing-state polling. In several cases, people’s actual behavior closely tracks the model’s predictions. For example, online daters concentrate their messaging on partners just slightly more desirable than themselves.
The researchers emphasized that their model is simpler than real-world decision-making, but they argue that its core insights broadly generalize.
“We lack complete information in most everyday decisions,” Landgren says. “Our work offers a precise but accessible way to think about how ambitious you want to be in different contexts.”
Physical Review E
Data/statistical analysis
People
Optimal ambition in business, politics, and life
29-May-2026