I have a simple question for you: What drives you?

That’s not a new question, right?  You hear it asked often but have you ever taken time to actually analyze where your drive comes from and why?  Sure, you may be doing the advanced work, but there are always underlying factors that drive us.  It could be achieving success, not wanting to disappoint our family, competitiveness, a need to provide for someone else, or a number of other factors.  You may jump in now and say that it’s a combination of all of those factors.  That’s ok, as long as you have taken the time to truly understand if those are the factors that drive you.

For me, my drive comes from a few different areas however the main source is the need to ensure that I never disappoint my parents.  When I was 17 both of my parents passed away 5 months from one another.  My dad passed away from cancer in October 1999 and my mom passed away from a Lupus-induced heart attack in March 2000.  While the passing of my dad was a shock, we had been dealing with my mother’s illness for most of my life.  It wasn’t a terminal diagnosis but she had an extreme and aggressive form of Lupus that had beaten her up over several years.  My mom had always told me that no matter what happened in life, she would always look over my shoulder.  After my mom passed away I got a tattoo of a blue rose (her favorite flower) with angel wings and her death date on my upper back/shoulder area to ensure that she would always be looking over my shoulder.

Having both of my parents pass away before graduating high school instilled a great fear of disappointing them and it caused me to make a pact with myself that I would never stop.  Never stop what, you might ask?  Never stop anything that I put my mind to no matter how far out of reach it may appear.  Never stop persuing my goals.  Never stop until I could provide the life for my future family that my parents never could (read: I grew up very poor, on food stamps and supplemental help).

Couple this pact that I made along with an unnatural level of competitiveness and being a perfectionist, you’ll start to get a glimpse into what drives me.  It’s not as simple as wanting to be the best or being rich.  A perfect storm of life experiences collided at a young age for me that forced me to take a different perspective on the world in front of me and how I’m going to conquer it.

So, I return to the question I asked at the start of this post: What drives you?

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Photo Credit: Team Dalog