Episode #445 – The Hidden Costs of Drive

This is episode 445 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast. Today we’re talking about the hidden costs of drive.

I’m going to open today with a story. It’s not one I’m particularly proud of, but I’m going to tell it. It goes back a number of years to a time when one of my closest friends did something that I still think about a lot. She and her husband, who were pretty newly married, took a year—an entire year—and traveled around the world.

We actually had another friend who had done this, and I think they were inspired by that idea. They both quit their jobs and took a year to travel. No office, no agenda. They had a rough plan of where they were going, but they really took it one day at a time—just them and whatever was in front of them that day. And I was so in awe that they would do this. It was something I could not imagine doing—putting a one-year hiatus in my career progression.

When they came back, they came to stay with us. It was a long weekend, just the four of us. I was genuinely delighted to spend time hearing about their trip and hosting them in our home.

But I spent most of that weekend in my home office because I had a global vice president flying in from the UK the following week, and I was responsible for a major briefing—a presentation we had to deliver. I kept telling myself, “It’s just one more hour. I just need one more hour. Let me get through this section, and I’ll be out before dinner.”

I look back on that weekend and I don’t feel great about it. That’s an understatement. What I know now, that I didn’t fully understand then, is that I didn’t have an off switch. I didn’t know how to say, “This weekend is for something else. This weekend is special. It’s dedicated to these people I love who took time to come visit me.” I didn’t know how to actually put the work down—not just move it to the edge of the desk where I could still see it.

That’s what we’re talking about today: drive and the hidden costs of drive. Not drive itself—I’m absolutely not here to talk you out of your ambition. Ambition and drive are powerful traits. I love those traits in myself, and I love that you have them too. I am wildly ambitious—my family would confirm this with enthusiasm.

It’s something I take pride in, but I want to talk about what happens when that drive stops being something you use with purpose and starts being something that runs you.

There is a difference. I’ve had to learn it, and I’m not always great at it, even today. I think a lot of women living at the peak of life complexity are experiencing this difference without having a name for it.

There’s an invisible line, so I want to paint a picture of what it looks like from the outside. The story I just told is a great example. Sometimes it’s easier to see this in someone else than in yourself.

Think of someone you know who you would call driven. She has probably accomplished extraordinary things. Maybe she made partner at a big firm, wrote a book, ran 20 marathons, started a community foundation—or all of the above. At some point, you almost lose count, and it starts to feel exhausting just to watch.

Or maybe it’s a parent who shows up to kindergarten registration with a full portfolio of their child’s preschool accomplishments for a school that only requires basic registration. She’s managing elaborate routines, signing up for every activity, and operating with a force underneath everything she does that she doesn’t know how to stop.

These women often start with our admiration. I’m not devaluing accomplishment or ambition. Most driven women see themselves in these examples. But there’s a point where this shifts from being a gift to something else.

Drive is a gift. If you have the ability to go after something, be grateful for it. It’s what turns vision into action. It helps you start when starting is hard and persist when things get difficult. It fuels grit. It gives you the willingness to take on challenges others might avoid.

Drive says, “Do it anyway.”

That energy helps build careers, businesses, financial freedom, and meaningful impact. I don’t want anyone to give that up.

But here’s the key insight: drive is an incredible tool, but it’s a terrible operating system.

A tool knows when to be put down. An operating system runs everything, all the time. When drive becomes your operating system, it overrides signals you should be paying attention to. It says “keep going” when your body says rest. It says “one more thing” when your child is waiting for your attention.

So let’s talk about three hidden costs of drive when it goes into overdrive.

First is constant internal urgency. When drive is your operating system, everything feels urgent—even when it isn’t. It becomes hard to rest or be present. You’re at the dinner table, but not really there. You’re on vacation, but only halfway. You’re always thinking about what’s next.

Low-grade stress becomes your baseline. It feels so normal you stop noticing it. Recovery gets shortchanged. Even when you rest, you don’t feel restored because your mind never shuts off.

Second, you start optimizing the wrong things. You get better and faster at doing what’s in front of you, but you don’t stop to ask whether you should be doing it at all. You’re working in the system, not on it.

You can win the day but lose the game—busy, productive, and efficient, but possibly moving in the wrong direction. Real progress requires stepping back and asking bigger questions, and drive doesn’t naturally make space for that pause.

Third, and perhaps most personal, is the cost to your relationships. This doesn’t happen dramatically—it happens quietly. You say no to invitations often enough that people stop asking. They begin to expect that you’re too busy.

You’ll hear it in phrases like, “You’re probably too busy, but…” That’s not guilt—it’s protection. People adjust their expectations.

I’ve experienced this personally. Even my own mother will sometimes preface an invitation that way. It reflects a pattern: even when I’m technically present, I can seem unavailable.

No one will say, “Your drive is hurting our relationship.” Instead, they’ll say, “I know you’re busy.” But underneath, it can feel like something matters more than they do.

That weekend with my friend is a clear example. I don’t remember the presentation I worked on—but I do remember what I missed.

So what do we do?

The goal isn’t to eliminate drive or ambition. It’s to direct it. To choose when to use it. To sprint with intention, then truly rest. To be fully present when you’re with people who matter.

This is a skill—modulation. Moving in and out of drive.

Balance, to me, is the ability to shift gears: full drive, then full stop. Sprint, then rest.

What makes this hard is that our culture rewards constant motion. Drive is praised—until you cross that invisible line. You feel it first, and eventually others see it too.

Getting out of overdrive requires a new structure. It’s like retraining your stride as a runner—you need practice, support, and feedback.

Awareness is the first step, but it’s not enough to change deeply wired patterns. That’s where structured support comes in—practicing new ways of operating until they become natural.

So if this resonates, the next step is learning how to apply it. Because drive got you this far—but the goal is to make sure it’s taking you where you actually want to go.

That’s all for today. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.