What sort of fuel?

We avoid this question all the time, and it costs us.

Don’t put kerosene in an electric car. It won’t work. Don’t give your dog dark chocolate, it’ll make him sick.

And yet, we often hesitate to be honest about what gets us moving.

What puts something at the top of your priority list, or pushes you to put in extra effort? What challenges or rewards do you keep coming back to, gig after gig, job after job?

Here are few to get you started:

• Extinguishing emergencies
• Going a little faster than the person next to you
• Pleasing the boss
• Undermining the boss (class clown)
• Establishing a web of safety
• Running away from safety
• Earning trust
• Getting your way
• Feeling safe
• Feeling alive
• Feeling vindicated
• Showing the skeptics that we’re right
• Staying out of the spotlight

Someone who is free climbing at Yosemite probably has different fuel than the person on the treadmill at the gym. The emergency room doctor is not the same as someone working in public health.

The structure, shared measurements and near universal recognition of a quest for an Olympic medal can capture an athlete’s life for ten years–but then, once they retire from this special condition, it’s possible that they’ll never again find this sort of motivation.

“How are you?” is a benign question, but the honest answer might reveal which fuel we’re focusing on, helping us see what we’re drawn to–and it’s rarely universal. That’s part of the hiding. We’d like to believe that anyone else facing the same choices we have would use the same fuel and demand the same priorities we do. Look around. Fuel isn’t universal.

If the fuel you’ve chosen is helping you get to where you want to go, that’s fabulous. For most of us, though, it might be worth a pause to consider whether it’s what we really need to fill our days or create the change we seek.