Working up the ladder

Over the years I’ve worked many jobs and normally end up monkey branching to the next within a year of being at one place. For the first time I’ve found a place that I would like to build a career at but it feels like such an aggressive fight to get there. Sometimes it feels like if it was meant to be I wouldn’t have to fight for it, but on the other hand this has been the only job I’ve wanted to fight for. In the past I’ve never been in competitive work, but as the months go on it feels like competitive work is more of a popularity contest than merit base(not sure if that’s how it normally goes or what). So for the past few months I decided to try to be more social (prior to I wasn’t mean, I just was to myself and only spoke when spoken to). My productivity is less due to spending more time helping others now, but I’ve finally earned my first ever promotion and the biggest raise personally. 🥳 But now that I’m here I’m being told that I need to be more aggressive if I want to continue to work my way up. Aggressive is out of my nature. It’s one thing for me to push myself socially, but I can’t fathom aggressive(towards others) and productive being synonymous; most things I’m able to get done while being passive and kind. There’s one person in management telling me to just keeping working the way I work because she sees that it’s just as effective as aggression, but the person who actually gives the promotions keeps nailing into me that I need to be firmer. I respect and look up to them both, but don’t know which path to take here.