Driven By Others
Apr 11, 2022
This week we released the final panel in our Driven to Drawn series. I wanted to share this last story as a way to close out what we’ve been talking about. I was meeting with a client and what they shared struck me as being very much in line with what we’ve been discussing this season… with a different twist.
We’ve spent a lot of time this season talking about our internal sense of being driven by pressure, impulse, and effort by our type. We talked about wanting to move toward the invitation, intention, and grace of our best selves.
There can be another hard part to all of this… when someone outside of us is trying to drive us to be be more like them.
A client was sharing about interviewing for a company that really appealed to her. The first few rounds went well and she loved the work the company did. She had one final interview lined up with someone higher up at the company. As she described the kinds of questions he was asking and the energy he was bringing, it dawned on me.
“Oh, he was evaluating you based on how much you were like him. That’s the sign of a leader who is lower in self mastery or maturity. They want you to be like them instead of like you.”
She was feeling “driven” in the interview to perform because he was pushing in a way that indicated she needed to be more like him to succeed in the company. She was feeling the drive, the pressure, to meet his energy and respond at the speed and intensity that he was asking for even though that isn’t how she is wired. He was evaluating her based on her similarity to him. He was missing the fact that this person might have something different to offer that would be beneficial.
If someone is driving you to being like them, it will build a resentment over time even if you are able to perform to their liking for a while. The more drawn you become the more confident you are to be yourself.
So just be cautious of someone pushing or driving you in that direction.
Return to yourself. It’s worth it.
Being your drawn self is one of the highest standards you can set.
Jim Zartman
