The Drivers: Core Motivations For Achieving FIRE

Alright, we’re ready to get on the Highway to Yeah.

We’ve taken the actions and steps found in the last couple of weeks’ articles.

In essence, what we are after is a life that allows us to find contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, connection, and joy.

We want to leverage our total time freedom to bring this about. And we need the psychological freedom to do so.

One of the things that might trip you up, though, is focusing on the wrong project or portfolio of projects.

One person’s view of what creates contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, connection, and joy can be very different from another person’s.

For example, I’ve listened to a lot of personal finance podcasts in the last few years, and I finally unfollowed most of them. I rarely listen to the ones I kept.

Why?

Because these individuals are following their core motivations, which are not my own.

It’s a mismatch.

And when I listen to them, they can fill my head with ideas and desires that get me off track.

Ask yourself this:

Why do (or did) I want to achieve FIRE and freedom from needing a paycheck?

You can use the “5 Whys” method if you like, as that might be revealing.

However, I think you can cut to the chase by trying to identify the strongest drive.

What does working for a living keep you from doing?

In my own case, it was twofold, but one of these things mattered, and still does, more than the other.

Do you want to achieve FIRE so that you can:

Escape the grind and gain ultimate autonomy?

- FIRE allows you to escape grueling schedules, commutes, outrageous and anxiety-producing performance demands, and toxic office/work politics.

Build or create something that is uniquely yours because you are stifled in your work and current role?

- FIRE gives you the ability to demonstrate your competence and make the impact you desire.

Spend time with who you want, when you want, such as family, friends, and community?

- FIRE allows you the time freedom to make the connections that matter to you and focus on the contributions you want to make to the community you cultivate.

Depending on which of these three is the “real” answer, that is an indicator of what you want to focus on post-FIRE.

After a lot of self-reflection, I can answer this with zero hesitation for myself.

But I have spent a lot of my time and life wanting all three. This is natural, I think.

However, at the very core of my desire for FIRE was “escape” and the desire for total freedom.

Earlier in my career, I was wanting two things: satisfying and fulfilling work, with above-average compensation.

As I have shared before, this was why I was seriously considering, and really had every intention of, becoming a professor at a university.

I felt like that would give me the Goldilocks lifestyle I craved.

• Interesting work.

• Interesting colleagues.

• Built-in community.

• Great geographic options and living conditions.

• Opportunities to travel for work.

• Continuous learning and exploring what I am curious about.

• Ample time off for other interests (e.g., getting “the band” back together to write, record, and perform music).

I remember saying to myself, “If, after five years of graduation, I am not making X amount of money per year, then I will go back for a PhD and pursue this path.”

Well, I did (make a lot more money than X), and I never did (become a brick-and-mortar professor).

That said, I still have vestiges of this dream. It is part of How I came up with the Back On Campus lifestyle strategy I am now trying to fully live into.

However, I no longer require the Paycheck to make this a reality.

Later in my career, it became more about wanting to make a difference in people’s lives and wanting to buy my freedom through entrepreneurship.

This was how I got to Esalen and into a year-long coaching certification program (back when people had no idea what “life coaching” even was).

For several reasons, I decided that I wanted to be out on the “edge” of knowledge.

I began to think that a traditional academic path would “stifle” this.

Thus, I took a cue from other luminaries who operate outside the “academy” but are “professorial” in what they do for their career and livelihood.

But lurking behind both of these was just a pure, unadulterated desire for time freedom.

A desire to not have to play the persona of a corporate flunky.

In a way, this desire can be summed up with my Previous long-term goal, set in the late ’90s, to ride a bicycle across the country.

Only total time freedom and financial independence would work, I determined.

Yes, I could quit my job and take a mini-retirement or sabbatical.

But that seemed “weak” and not very desirable.

That sounded like scratching things off the bucket list, which is fine, but I wanted total time, location, and psychological freedom.

I still do.

How about you? What is your core motivation?

Ideally, what you choose to focus on post-FIRE also aligns with your true Motivation.