I have a friend who’s always been interested in sports. He’s played golf with a close to scratch handicap, was the club champion in tennis and was a provincial surfer. In his middle years he developed a large mid-drift and it looked as though he was going to be carrying these couple of extra kilograms around with him for the rest of his life.
But over the past year he has started a brand-new sport – running. From small beginnings, running a few kilometres each morning, he has developed his running, his determination, passion, careful exercise and diet to a level where he now can run up to 16 km at one stretch. It’s amazing to look at how his weight has peeled away and in its place is a healthier, vigourous looking body. His face shines with a new glow and he now possesses the energy to do what he wants with his life.
Behind all of this running and exercise and dieting has been his key drivers. Now one might say that his main driver is to be active. Yet they are several others, including the need to be healthy, competitive up to a point, enjoy life to its fullest and even the drive for socialising, which he gets through his friends at the local running club.
What I find interesting is that he’s always had this key driver of one to be involved in sports. This sporting driver was satisfied through various activities such as surfing, tennis and golf in his earlier years but has now been replaced with running. It goes to show that our personal drivers stay constant over time yet the activities that fulfill our drivers may change in remarkably different ways.
Personal drivers may remain constant but over time with maturity and experience and performance drivers may change. For example, you may have had a driver of achievement or accomplishment which may have not been fulfilled as much as you would have liked. Then later on this driver resurfaces and becomes a dominating force in your life. Now, you may want to start something from scratch, build a property investment portfolio, climb Kilimanjaro or take up sailing.
What are your key drivers – perhaps four or five of them — that are presently dominant in your life? Are these personal drivers satisfying you and helping you to move forward where you want to be? Are you aware of your drivers?
Perhaps you don’t want to be aware of your drivers. Some people merely get on with life and don’t think too much about their drives and motivations. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as you’re happy and believe in yourself.
For those who may find the passion or energy waning in a start-up or small business or any other activity for that matter, then it might be an opportune time to examine which are your most important drivers and whether they are presently working for you. Do you need to add to your present drivers and deemphasise others?
By knowing your personal drivers, what ignites your creativity and passion, helps to make yourself crystal clear to yourself about what you are trying to achieve and want to achieve and prevents drifting into activities that merely waste your energy
