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Ambitious women are often told to “slow down” or “be happy with where they are”. If you’re a high-performing woman, you’ll probably know the frustration that comes from hearing this.

So why do high-performing women continue to push themselves, not only when facing others’ criticism, but even in the face of exhaustion? Understanding the deep-seated drivers behind our ambition can be revolutionary, providing relief and clarity while explaining why you continue overachieving when others urge you to pause.

Knowing these drivers can lift the burden of guilt and shed light on your motivations. When we don't recognise our drivers, we might end up overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, poor sleep and mood swings, all of which undermine our goals and lead us towards burnout. Let's explore these five drivers that fuel the ambitions of high-performing women and how identifying yours can empower you with more capacity and purpose.

1. Visionary Driver

Firstly, there's the visionary driver. This driver is captivated by potential — understanding their personal potential and reaching self-actualisation. Visionaries are often driven by curiosity to see how far they can push their potential and become their best selves. However, without recognising their limits, visionaries can easily become overstimulated, leading to frustration when their lofty visions aren't met quickly enough. The key is finding a balance between pursuing potential and avoiding the pitfall of burnout due to unmet expectations.

2. Mission Driver

Next, we have the mission driver. This powerful force drives those who live with a profound mission, striving to make a significant impact and leave a meaningful legacy. While this can be incredibly fulfilling, it can also lead to compassion fatigue. When women tirelessly work to make a difference, the emotional burden of continuously giving without receiving adequate support can weigh heavily, resulting in emotional exhaustion. Recognising the need for self-care and support is vital to maintaining resilience in the long run.

3. High Standards Driver

The high standards driver revolves around stability and excellence. Women reflecting this drive are at the helm of many responsibilities, often managing them with impeccable reliability. However, the downside can be the trap of perfectionism, leading to anxiety. When an individual is constantly striving to maintain high standards across all facets of life, the pressure to remain consistent and flawless can become overwhelming, leaving little room for error. Allowing for imperfection and acknowledging one's limits can ease this burden.

4. Success Driver

For the success-driven, recognition and achievement are at the forefront. This ambition isn't born from vanity but from a relentless drive to succeed. However, this constant pursuit can lead to burnout from overdrive. When women measure themselves through clear goals and metrics, they may neglect to rest or recharge, always pushing for the next accomplishment. It's crucial to integrate downtime and relish past successes to avoid the mental fatigue that stems from incessant striving.

5. Redefiner Driver

Lastly, the redefiner driver seeks success on their own terms, balancing health, happiness and relationships with career achievements. The challenge here lies in maintaining consistency, particularly when managing varied priorities. The mental clutter from juggling diverse aspects of life can be overwhelming, leading to stress and feeling unanchored. Establishing a structure that aligns with personal values without being too rigid can help redefine success smoothly without losing one's balance.

Why Identify Your Drivers?

Understanding your drivers isn't just about putting a label on your ambition – it's about embracing your unique wiring and building a life that honours it. Because here's the truth: You can be both ambitious AND balanced. You can chase big dreams AND protect your wellbeing. You can make an impact AND take care of yourself.

Next week, we'll dive deeper into the shadow side of these drivers and how to build capacity around them. But for now, I'd love to hear from you: Which driver resonated most deeply? What was your “aha” moment? Share your story in the comments below – let's create a space where ambitious women can embrace their drivers together.[/vc_column_text][vc_tta_accordion style=”flat” shape=”square” color=”white” active_section=”3″ no_fill=”true” collapsible_all=”true”][vc_tta_section title=”Transcript” tab_id=”1716528090603-cfde93dc-583317165356843821716536535162″][vc_column_text][00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna Hrsto. Today I'm gonna talk about the real reason you keep pushing yourself even though you're exhausted. I'm gonna share the five drivers to ambitious women. So understanding my drivers was really insightful for me and it explained so much and it was a little bit of a relief because if you are [00:01:00] anything like me where you keep pushing and everyone tells you to slow down or that you should take a break or why can't you just be happy with where you're at, etc. if um, people are saying that to you, then you must know that there is a driver that is pushing you to keep going and identifying that driver.

Just brings a lot of clarity for you, takes away a lot of guilt and makes a lot of sense, and allows you to operate within that driver with a lot more capacity. 

When we don't identify our drivers, when they're not clear, when they're not made aware to us, then it can lead to exhaustion. It can lead to stress, anxiety, mental health issues, poor sleep, mood swings, brain fog, and so much more, which all of it undermines what we're trying to do and pushes us into burnout.

So first one is a visionary driver. This is someone who is driven by potential to understand their own potential, but also to reach self-actualisation. Now, self-actualisation is about becoming everything you are here to become [00:02:00] so it can create meaning and purpose in your life. And it was a coin term by Abraham Maslow and he said, everyone is striving for self-actualisation. 

And so within your work, you may find, as I really identify with this driver, it's one of my top drivers, is that I love to just see how far I can go. Right? I've done this. I've been able to create that. I've been able to have this, what else can I do? Right? So it's a like a curiosity to see where, how far my potential can go.

But it's also to become the best version of myself. It's also to become, you know, that person that I was meant to become in this lifetime.

The second one is the mission driver. This is when you are driven because you have a big mission in life. There's an impact that you want to make or a legacy that you want to leave. And so. Your kind of mantra will be, I'm here to make a difference. You know, my work is here to make a difference. And you're really driven by that.

There's a core desire or a core driver to make a difference in the world. And often for women, they're in leadership [00:03:00] roles, right? They're founders, they're coaches, they're CEOs. They're consultants, they're change makers, and they're really connected to this mission. And again, this is another one of my top drivers in the work that I do.

I could be doing any kind of work in the world. I could have any kind of business, but I choose to have this one because I love to help people. I have done work where. helping and making a difference wasn't part of that role. it was really kind of soul draining for me. And so if you have a mission driver, it is really important for you to make a difference in the work that you do and make an impact.

Driver number three is the high standards driver. This is about having stability control. It's driven to do things or everything at a really high standard. And so normally women with this driver are responsible for many things like teams, clients, kids, finances, et cetera. And they're not driven by ego.

They're driven because they want to do it. Really well. They wanna do a really good job at [00:04:00] everything that they do, they're often seen as very reliable, very capable. A lot seems to land on their lap and they push themselves hard to maintain that image, and so they end up having a lot on their plate.

The fourth driver is the success driver. It's about recognition. It's about achieving, it's about I wanna be the best at what I do. So whatever field that you're in, if you feel yourself striving to really stand out and be the best, this is obviously one of your drivers may be, hidden to you at the moment.

And so it's not coming from a place of vanity, it's coming from a place of deep ambition to be successful, to achieve. And women often measure their success through goals, through metrics and performance. And there's a real thrill of achieving for the sake of achieving, right? And so it's like getting, something accomplished really fires them up with energy and they fall in love with their whole process of achieving.

So it's this real success and achievement driver.

And number five and the final driver, and these are kind of the top [00:05:00] drivers, right? There could be some subtle drivers in there as well, and maybe some things from our past that have become a driver. But these are the top five. The fifth one is the Redefine a driver. This is where. you want to have success, you wanna have it all, but on your terms, and this, there's a rule driver for freedom and ease and balance.

Okay? So a woman who wants success, but not if it costs her

her health, 

her happiness, her peace

or her relationships. And so I really see this as a true high performer. Someone who has. The business, you know, the finances, the relationship, um, the wellbeing, the health, all in check. Otherwise, I kind of see it as you're just a high achiever, right?

You're pushing yourself really hard and everything in your life kind of, the wheels fall off, right? And that's not really a high performer. High performer has all of those in check, and so. The redefiner drive, which is definitely something that I recognize in myself is that making sure that health and wellbeing and family are [00:06:00] up there just as much with success, kind of they sit on the same line rather than losing all the things around you, including your health for the sake of success. 

So for this one, she's here to redefine success, right? That includes both achievement and wellbeing, and she's driven to build a life that feels good, looks good from the inside and out.

So why does this matter to know our drivers now as I've gone through them, you've probably recognized quite a few for yourself. There's definitely two top ones for me, and there's a third. So you mean you could have bits of from all of them, right? But there's definitely one or two that are sitting top priority for you that are driving you day to day.

It is important to know this. The reason why it matters to know you're a driver is that it stops you from fighting 

with your own nature. Now, what I mean by that is that most high performing women have been told some version of, why can't you just be satisfied with where you're at? You need to slow down.

You are already doing so much. Why are you doing too much? And so. When [00:07:00] a woman reads about her driver, particularly if you're a visionary or you know, have the mission or impact driven something inside you clicks and goes, oh, there's, there's nothing wrong with me, right? I'm just wired for more. And that's just how you came to this earth, okay?

and I don't think we need to read more into it than that, but that's how you're wired and that's going to bring you fulfillment in your life is to keep following your own nature. So when you understand your driver, you can stop resisting the way that you are, and you can actually just build a system that supports you with your unique wiring.

The other reason it's really important to understand your drivers is that you recognize your own unique stress triggers. Each driver has its own unique stress trigger. Okay? And I'm gonna go more into this in the next episode, next week, because there are specific patterns, and when they're left, unchecked can lead to.

You know, mental, physical, and emotional stress. So visionaries can often get overstimulated and it leads to frustration. Mission-driven women [00:08:00] hit compassion fatigue. The high standards woman gets stuck in perfectionism, which leads to anxiety. The achievement focus woman can burn out from overdrive and overdoing.

And the redefine a driver struggles with inconsistency. And so it often leads to a lot of mental overwhelm or mental clutter. So the key thing is to know what your driver is and intervene early because there is a shadow side, which I'm gonna go into next week, uh, before it leads to burnout.

Knowing your driver also leads to your own kind of personalised path to recovery and resilience. So not every woman needs the same kind of rest and recovery. And so if you are a visionary, then you need mental space and clarity. If you're an achiever, you need strategic recovery and mental sharpness. If you are a redefiner, then you need structure that feels aligned and doesn't feel too restrictive. So understanding your driver gives you the right type of restoration so you do feel renewed and so you're not resting using other techniques [00:09:00] and still feeling tired. 

The fourth reason why knowing your driver makes a big difference is it dissolves the guilt 

around wanting more. Okay. I hear women say, I should be just happy. I should be really happy. My life is great, and there's nothing wrong with wanting more. Right? That just means it doesn't mean that you're ungrateful.

It means that you're expansive, right? And bringing awareness to that means that you can be both a powerful leader and a present mother without carrying guilt for either role. 

And lastly, knowing your driver helps to protect your mental health, right? Because a many women attach. Their worth to their outcomes, their roles and responsibilities. And when that cracks. So when we have a health issue or a business challenge or a financial challenge, we can feel lost. We can feel anxious and even depressed.

so when you understand your inner driver, it can root your identity in your aligned purpose, not just your performance, not just your outcomes, not just your achievements.

So what I would love you to do now is leave a comment and let me know what are the top. One or two [00:10:00] drivers that you recognize for yourself. And if it was a, this was a bit of an ah moment for you as well, like if it was really nice to hear the drivers call down and go, yeah, actually that is me.

And that makes a lot of sense. In the next episode, I'm gonna share with you what is the shadow side of our drivers, right? There's always a shadow side and how we can build capacity around our drivers. So obviously our driver helps us to push us through this life, but if we are not aware and we don't.

Build capacity around it, right? If we're not upgrading ourselves each time we're going through, I guess a new upgrade in life and in business, then we can't hold more. We reduce our capacity and we can burn out. So I'm gonna talk about the shadow site and how each driver has its own capacity building strategy in order to.

Keep you at high performance without burning out, without, you know, feeling mentally and physically exhausted without having poor sleep or any of those impacts that we can feel when we [00:11:00] don't build the capacity around it. But in the meantime, limit a comment below if there is a option to leave a comment below on what are your drivers. [/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Links” tab_id=”1716535392600-7bbf13d5-b61c17165356843821716536535162″][vc_column_text]Website: vesnahrsto.com

Master Cortisol Webinar: https://training.vesnahrsto.com/join-masterclass[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_accordion][/vc_column][/vc_row]