Anti-Drive Theory

Your psychological needs are not drives. In fact, they are just the opposite. Drives dissipate when they are satiated (such as thirst as we drink water or hunger as we eat food). However, when psychological needs are satisfied, you experience such positive energy, vitality, and a sense of well-being that you want more! You have probably experienced this with your own positive addictions, such as running, meditating, volunteering, playing with children, or being in the flow during an activity.

People who experience ARC are thriving. They do not need something or someone else doing the driving.

When Brandt, a student in a masters-level course on executive leadership at the University of San Diego where I teach, described himself as “intensely driven,” I asked him a series of questions: Who or what is doing the driving? Are you driven by the promise of money, rewards, power, or status? Are you driven to dispel fear, shame, or guilt? Are you driven to avoid disappointing someone important or yourself?

Even though the nature of the weeklong course challenges high-level leaders to be introspective, I was impressed with Brandt's openness to investigating the source and quality of his drive. He shared that despite being a successful executive in a prestigious electronics company, he was longing for something he couldn't define. He felt out of balance physically, mentally, and emotionally. Brandt and I explored the underlying reasons for his intense work behavior, the gap between his espoused values and his lived values, and the difference between his reality and his dreams and life purpose. It didn't take long for Brandt to discover this reality: “Being driven” is another way of saying “I am not in control.”

Brandt began to acknowledge that something external was driving him and prompting his emotions, feelings, and actions. That “something,” it turned out, was his need to prove himself, fueled by a desire to impress his father—who happened to be a legend in the computer industry.

Finding that unexplored emotions and beliefs are at the root of dysfunctional behavior is not revolutionary. The revelation of why our sense of well-being, intentions, and behavior are dysfunctional is groundbreaking.

Dysfunction exists because our psychological needs for ARC are not being satisfied. Armed with understanding, we can do something about it.

It turns out that Brandt had been bouncing back and forth for years between an external motivational outlook—a craving for praise, validation, and tangible rewards, and an imposed motivational outlook—a fear of letting his father down. His drive to live up to self-imposed standards measured through promotions, financial success, and public recognition robbed him of his autonomy. Ironically, his desire to please his father prevented him from experiencing a true and authentic sense of relatedness. Brandt's competence always felt diminished in comparison to his perception of his father's competence. He had been searching for a way to ease his longings in all the wrong places and by all the wrong means.

Brandt's suboptimal motivational outlooks (external and imposed) were symptomatic of his low-quality of ARC and his negative energy, a lack of vitality, and a less-than-positive sense of well-being. He needed a way to break the vicious cycle of junk-food remedies that perpetuated his undesirable situation. Brandt put it perfectly when he said, “I have been eating way too many French Fries.”