Your inner drive is what fuels your activity. You probably credit it for your success. It’s what has gotten you through the hardest of times. Call it grit, determination, passion, relentlessness… Whatever you call it, you know what I’m talking about.
But no matter what you call it or how you’ve thought about it, there’s an important question you need to address.
The Question
The question: What’s fueling this inner drive?
In other words, What’s behind it? And how does it feel to the people around you?
And, is it possible that what has fueled you in the past is now hindering your progress?
For me, I used to think my inner drive was a matter of “hunger for growth.” I used to say that I was obsessed with reaching my potential.
Similarly, I remember being asked by mentors and friends, “What’s your biggest fear in life?”
My answer? Not fear of public speaking. Not fear of death. Instead,
The fear that I wouldn’t reach my potential.
Can you relate?
On the one hand, we get that, and we might even think it’s an admirable no-brainer. We have the sense that we should maintain that obsessive edge for growth, for more. We fear that if we lose our drive, we lose our edge. And if we’re not growing, we’re going backwards.
There may be some truth to that. But there are also seasons of life.
A Deeper Reality
The great spiritual teachers have whispered for centuries that there are two parts of this journey of life. The half where we build and grind and grow in our achievements and ego. And the half where we mature, trend toward inner peace, and become a more authentic, grounded, and inspiring version of ourselves.
Have you felt the need for a shift? Have you sensed something happening inside you?
Maybe it was a painful wake-up call. A failure, injustice, loss.
Perhaps it was a massive success that left you unfulfilled. You cashed out or achieved a significant goal, yet it didn’t satisfy.
Or, it may be taking the form of subtle nudges from team members or loved ones, pushing you to look beneath the business-as-usual surface of your life.
So, let’s be courageous and take the risk to pause and look inside.
What’s really been fueling you?
The Two Sources
At the core of your being, you have two options:
Fear
or
Love
You are fueled by one or the other. I know, there’s the hunger and drive and determination for success thing. But, still… Fear or Love.
Ask yourself,
At the root, am I fueled by an inner love (or care or joy or happiness—use the term you can most tolerate) that energizes my activity from a place of gratitude?
Or,
Am I fueled by fear—the sense that if I take my foot off the gas, I’ll lose everything, become a nobody, look like a failure, never reach my potential…?
Are you fueled by love or by fear?
Let’s go cosmic or spiritual for a moment, and let’s note that in the simplified view of life, these are the two opposing forces in the universe.
Love—abundance, wholeness, accepted, approved of, valued, purposeful, becoming, creative…
Fear—scarcity, lacking, threatened, jealous, less than, desperate, frustrated, anxious…
Where have you derived your fuel? And how’s it going?
Fear can seem like it works. And, for a season, it does. But it’s like caffeine. Fear gives you a jolt, but it also drops. There are spikes and crashes. Instead of rested energy, we rely on desperation to drive us.
But, the downside is that this drive eventually drives us into a wall. A wall of exhaustion. A wall of resentment. And a wall with our people.
Driving Our People Away
The more healthy and mature the people are around us, the less they will tolerate our fear-filled sprints of anxious activity, demanding drama, or freak-out episodes. We’ll eventually run ourselves ragged. Then, we’ll either run our people ragged, or we’ll lose our most creative and capable talent.
Because there’s a human evolution that we’ve been resisting. And we resist because we believe that addiction to the fear that drives us is what’s responsible for our perceived “success.” But how successful are we, really?
Fear, in the end, is unsustainable and even its “successes” will never satisfy.
Conclusion
It’s time for an internal shift that will dramatically change your external life. A shift from fear to love. From frustration to empowerment. From anxiety to peace. From negativity to belief. From scarcity to abundance.
It’s scary, but that’s the fear talking. You know something needs to change. And it can.
Awareness is more than half the battle.
If it’s become unsustainable, or you just know you need to rethink your paradigm, your mode of operation, and how you engage your work and your people… seize this moment.
The shift seems tectonic, but it’s actually simple. Simple, not necessarily easy.
It can happen in a moment, a decision, but it requires reinforcement. And we’re here for it.
