What Drives You?
What drives me? Where is it taking me? Where am I going? Have you asked yourself these questions in a while? These are questions I often ask myself to “check in” on my life. Let me explain a bit. It is a very common thing to hear people talk about the necessity of “finding your why”. Your “Why”, is the purpose of your actions. It can be a source of motivation or inspiration but essentially it is what drives you. What people fail to communicate clearly when talking about this “Why” is that it’s actually a very fluid thing. Your “Why” may not be the same tomorrow as it is today, is that ok? Absolutely. Not only is it ok, but it’s expected to change that way.
I have been a competitive athlete my whole entire life. I’ve had audacious goals much of it, like making it to the NFL or the NBA and then transforming to wanting to win the CrossFit Games. While all those goals have some similarities like me getting the most from my athletic potential, or being the best in the world at a given craft, the reasons I wanted to achieve them were changing all the time. At a young age I wanted to make it to the “pros” because I knew how happy it would make my parents. I’m from a small town, neither of my parents ever attended college of any kind and so I knew that being a big “achiever” would make them happy. As I began to play sports more formerly in leagues and clubs and felt the sting of winning and losing, my “Why” shifted to being a champion. I watched athletes like Michael Jordan and Emmitt Smith on TV and read books about their childhood and I simply wanted to share their mentality of “win at all costs”. This drove me for quite sometime and still does to this day, but the changes in my “Why” didn’t stop there. As I entered into my teenage years and learned more about life, money, and survival then the monetary advantages of being a “pro” really caught my attention. Did I want to win? Yes. Did I still want to make my parents proud? Yes. But, I truly became motivated by the fact that I could change not just my life, but my current and future families financial trajectory by “making it”. Then again after making it college but finding a deeper relationship with God, my “Why” became glorifying Jesus in all that I did, however I could. While my spiritual life is the basis and source of all my motivation in my life today, my “Why” is still constantly changing and shifting.
Can you see why it isn’t as simple as some people make it seem? “Oh just find your “Why”, then you’ll be good to go”. Not true. This journey never stops, and at times it honestly feels like it’s a daily discovery for me. The biggest piece of advice I can give you as a reader is to be in tune with searching for it. A common mistake is that people don’t have self dialogue about why they are doing things. It is important to ask yourself “Why do I want this?”, “Why am I doing this?”, “Where is this taking me or going to take me?”. If you spend time asking these questions and truly answering them, it may lead you to change your actions and focus. Some people, after truly wrestling with these questions, quit their job and find a new one because they realized where they were and where they were going weren’t what they wanted. It’s not easy, and it takes practice, but look at your life and simply start asking yourself some real honest questions.
- Why am I doing this?
- What drives me?
- Where am I going?