Depression is the cousin of anxiety. Often, they go hand-in-hand. Worry leads to feeling overwhelmed, which can lead to feeling stuck or trapped, leading to feeling hopeless. When one or both of these take over, we are either always thinking about the what-ifs of the future or we a regret...

Routines are useful. Without them, our anxiety goes up and we are essentially forced to invent each day from scratch. But if our days become too routinized, we’re running on autopilot; there’s too little spontaneity, few opportunities for joy. Life is safe, but bland.

Seeing our lives as being driven is not new to psychology. Freud mapped out his 5 stages of development, that not only propel a child’s development but can shape the adult’s. And Maslow became famous for his Hierarchy of Needs, which moves up from the biological to self-actualizing. As these auth...

When you step back and look at the landscape of your life, what drives you? What shapes what you do, not in terms of priorities—the things you focus on—but the engine that pushes your life along?

While these are not formally diagnosable conditions, each has a negative impact on our life. Folks who are emotionally driven tend to run their lives based on how they feel. If they “feel” like cleaning up the house, they do; if they don’t, they don’t. While there’s an apparent s...

Setting goals and working towards them are good antidotes to routine’s downsides. We are proactive rather than reactive, creative rather than staid. But we can undermine our goals if we are also emotionally driven. When the going gets tough and the goals are not...

Here we think of alcoholism, drugs, sex, workaholism. What makes them addictive is that they kidnap our brain. Rational thinking goes offline, our midbrain pleasure center takes over and we just do what we do because we do it. We’re the passenger, and our addiction is ru...

So, when you step back and look at your life, what are your drivers? What keeps you from moving up that ladder? What do you need to do to reach greater fulfillment? How can you start today?

Find Your Drivers So You Can Climb Up The Ladder.

Unfortunately, this is the driver for too many of us. According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, anxiety is the number one mental health problem in the U.S. affecting 18% of the population. It can take many forms—panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety...

Here are some of the most common drivers, ranked from those with the most significant positive impact (passions) to those providing the most negative impact (addictions). The line separates what we might consider adverse mental health from the ...

Passion and purpose are at the top of the ladder because they arise from that core of who we are and want to be and carry none of the baggage of the others. When driven by passion and purpose, we are honest with ourselves and others. There is a natural integrity as our inner and ...