What Fuels Your Drive?

There was a time when winning fueled me more than I would've liked to admit. I wanted successful programs, athletes who performed at a high level, and tangible proof that the work we were putting in mattered. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to win because competition is part of sports, and nobody trains all week hoping to lose. The problem comes when winning stops being something we're pursuing and starts becoming the thing that determines our worth, our identity, or whether we believe what we're doing has value.

Over time, what fueled me changed. I still cared about competing and winning, but coaching became much bigger than the scoreboard. I cared more about helping young people discover what they were capable of, teaching them how to respond when things didn't go their way, and preparing them for a life that would eventually have nothing to do with volleyball. Perseverance, accountability, teamwork, discipline, integrity, and learning how to serve somebody besides yourself became just as important to me as anything we could accomplish on the court.

My faith changed that perspective even further because I wasn't always coaching from a Christian worldview. I didn't always see athletics as an opportunity to serve God, and I certainly didn't spend my entire coaching career thinking about how my work fit into some greater spiritual purpose. That's part of my story, and pretending otherwise would make the transformation sound much cleaner than it actually was. Faith came later, and when it did, it forced me to reconsider what had been driving me in the first place.

Athletics constantly asks us what we're willing to endure to get what we want. Athletes train when they're tired, compete when they're uncomfortable, recover from injuries, lose starting positions, deal with criticism, and keep working when improvement isn't happening as quickly as they'd hoped. We call that grit, and sometimes it is, but grit by itself doesn't tell us whether we're chasing the right thing. You can be incredibly disciplined while pursuing something that has become an idol, and you can work relentlessly toward a goal that God never promised you.

That's where faith has changed the way I understand drive. Christianity doesn't teach that every struggle exists because God is preparing us for the success we want, and it doesn't promise that enough faith will eventually produce the outcome we've been chasing. Sometimes you work hard and still lose. Sometimes the injury doesn't heal on your preferred timeline, the scholarship doesn't come, the starting position goes to somebody else, the coaching job falls through, or the season ends without the championship. Faith isn't believing God will eventually give us the outcome we want. It's trusting Him when He doesn't.

One of the seasons I remember most clearly was filled with injuries, losses, and frustration, and there wasn't a motivational speech capable of changing what was happening. At some point, we had to decide whether the season still had value if the scoreboard wasn't going to validate us. I shared some of my own struggles and doubts with my athletes, and our conversations moved beyond volleyball into who we were becoming while things weren't going our way. We talked about character, resilience, relationships, faith, fear, and what it meant to keep showing up for one another when there wasn't much glory attached to it.

That season reinforced something I understand much better now. Success reveals some things about us, but adversity exposes others. It's relatively easy to talk about character when you're winning, getting playing time, receiving recognition, and feeling confident. Losing has a way of exposing whether your commitment was actually to the team or only to your role on it. Failure exposes whether you love the process or just the praise. Adversity exposes whether your faith rests in God or in God's willingness to give you what you asked for.

That's why I think athletes and coaches need to ask themselves a harder question than how badly they want something. What fuels your drive, and what happens to you when the thing you're chasing gets taken away?

If your entire identity is built around being an athlete, what happens when you can't play? If your confidence depends on being a starter, who are you when you're sitting on the bench? If coaching success determines whether you believe you're valuable, what happens during a losing season? If recognition fuels you, what happens when nobody notices the work you're doing? Those aren't comfortable questions, but they'll tell you a lot more about your foundation than another goal-setting exercise ever will.

Colossians 3:23 (ESV) says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” That changes the target. Working for the Lord doesn't mean Christians should care less about excellence or competition. If anything, it gives us a stronger reason to work with discipline and integrity because our effort isn't dependent on applause, statistics, playing time, recognition, or somebody else's approval. We can compete hard without allowing competition to become our god.

Faith hasn't removed my ambition, competitiveness, or desire to accomplish difficult things. It has forced me to examine who those things are serving. There's a difference between using the gifts God gave you with excellence and needing your accomplishments to prove that you matter.

So ask yourself what fuels you. Winning? Recognition? Fear of failure? Proving somebody wrong? Making your family proud? Serving your teammates? Honoring God? Most of us probably have a mixture if we're willing to be truthful about it.

The goal isn't to lose your competitive fire. It's to make sure the fire isn't consuming everything else that matters. Compete hard, train with purpose, pull those kneepads up, and chase excellence, but know why you're doing it. Athletic careers end, records get broken, trophies collect dust, and eventually somebody else wears your jersey. The person you're becoming while you chase those things is what you'll carry with you when the game is over.