Drive

Today is not at all my usual writing environment.  I say ‘usual’ like I’ve been doing this for more than 10 days, but in reality, it’s been not even two weeks.  For those of you who are curious, let me elaborate – it’s a little after 8 PM (prior to this, I’ve been trying to write around 4 or 5 PM) and I am not just coming back from a run or walk as per this ‘usual’ pattern I was falling into.  So stick with me for this.

 

I wanted to take this space to reflect on the idea of being driven.  And by drive, I mean the following definition (that I just googled because I like when writers include definitions of words to make their point): “an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need”.  Woah – take a moment to think about the fact that according to that, we can classify our urge to attain a goal as “biologically determined”.  Yes, there are goals/needs that make sense to classify this way, but what about when it comes to career goals or personal development goals?  Does it make sense to classify them this way?  Is the need to become CEO of a company or start your own business follow the same level of intensity as the need to find a bathroom to use when you are three hours into a bike ride after drinking a full cup of coffee prior?

 

I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sure where I stand on this one.  However, I do believe that we could foster that level of intensity when it comes to career and personal life.  What if I approached the goal to build an online physical activity business with the same amount of desperation that I have when I go straight to the fridge in the morning to satisfy my hungry stomach.  On top of that, what if I was able to manage to evoke that same level of intensity in others when they engage in meaningful and enjoyable exercise?  Man, if I could do that, I would jump for joy so often that my feet would have more calluses than they already do.

 

So now that I’ve rambled on this topic enough to decide where exactly I’m trying to go with this, I guess the question is how to foster that strong urge when it comes to achieving less urgent – but just as important – goals.  Goals that might even seem ‘selfish’ to some.  Step 1 would probably be to find said goal  – that seems logical.  Ideally, the goal should get you as excited as a warm cookie on a cold, winter day (if none of my analogies so far have done it for you, I hope you at least smile at the thought of that one).  Take said goal and attack it with gazelle-like intensity just like you would devour that cookie without remorse.  Build habits and routines that encourage you and get you excited about reaching your goals and include others so they can cheer with you or give you an extra motivational push when needed.  Then when others ask you how you did it, tell them it was all because of me! 😉