What is driving you?

And could it be holding you back?

This week I wanted to share with you a tool I learned through part of my coaching development. The development area is Transactional Analysis, a psychoanalytical method to understand behaviour through interactions. The tool is 5 Core Drivers. It’s an idea that has hugely resonated with me recently both personally and in discussions with clients and colleagues so…. let’s dig in.

The 5 Core Drivers are Please Others, Be Strong, Be Perfect, Try Hard and Hurry Up. We each have aspects of these drivers but each of us tends to have (generally) 2 which are more dominant than the others. These drivers can give us strength, add influence to our personalities and bring us success, but they can also be unhelpful.

When we’re in a healthy state each of the drivers tend to work largely in balance, however when we’re stressed or under pressure the dominant drivers tend to show up. You may already recognise this, << Test First Name >>. These are automatic thinking patterns, with the most dominant drivers generally having been learnt through our experiences. BUT as we know, we can create new thinking patterns through neuroplasticity (excuse the slight geekiness - I love it).

So let’s look at the driver behaviours in a bit more detail, and some questions and “antidotes” you can try. The antidotes may be helpful if your drivers are overpowering and unhelpful (incessant need to please anyone?), and to give you greater balance in your interactions.

• BE STRONG

  • Doesn’t tend to show emotion. Is resilient and toughs it out. Is good in a crisis but not good at connecting with feelings or reaching out to others.

  • Antidotes: Seek support. Be open and express your wants. Ask yourself who or what would help you?

• HURRY UP

  • rushes around and gets things done. But doesn’t have time to relax, enjoy and “smell the roses”

  • Antidotes: Force yourself to slow down, make space for creativity and play. Ask yourself what would happen if you slowed down? How would that feel? What would that look like?

• TRY HARD

  • focus on the effort but often feel frustrated that they haven’t completed or get bored and give up. Can lead to feelings of failure.

  • Antidotes: Chunking projects into smaller actions that can be completed to give momentum. Ask yourself what’s the simplest action I can take to move forward right now?

• BE PERFECT

  • High attention to detail. Will not settle until everything is right. Can extend to personal appearances. Cost is often anxiety, procrastination and lost time.

  • Antidotes: Make space for imperfect in your life, why not organise to be a little late? Why not set yourself time limits to work on a project and at that point it is “good enough”? Ask yourself what does good enough look like? How can I achieve that?

• PLEASE OTHERS

  • A focus on making everyone else happy, often at your own expense. Can cause feelings of resentment (not to mention exhaustion) and not choosing self.

  • Start checking in with your feelings and practise saying two things: “no” and “I want”. Start to please yourself. Ask yourself, what is it that I actually want here?

Which do you think are your dominant drivers? What shows up when you are under pressure?

Any ideas as to what mine might be??? Drop me a message with your guesses :)

Do let me know what you think of this newsletter. I love some of the technical aspects of my coaching and sharing with you to help you understand yourself and your relationships a little better.

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