Why Am I Doing This? How to Find Your Real Business Driver (Not Your "Why")
There's a question that shows up for almost every founder, usually in the quiet minutes — early morning, late at night, somewhere between the inbox and the to-do list: why am I even doing this?
If you've asked yourself that more than once, you're not broken and you're not alone. I just spent a week with hundreds of entrepreneurs, and the real conversation — the one lighting up every break, lunch, and dinner — wasn't anything we covered from the stage. It was how everyone is actually managing to do it all.
That same week, I heard entrepreneur Kristen Cavallari say something on a podcast that stopped me cold: "I could have a hundred million dollar business right now today, and I would hate my life, so I don't.
That sentence is the whole conversation.
It's Not Your "Why." It's Your Driver.
I need to be upfront about something: I hate the "know your why" conversation. Every time someone asks me for my why, I want to climb out of my skin. It's become a pedantic shortcut — an easy way to avoid actually understanding your own motivation. People say family, or charity, or "time freedom," and none of it is what's actually going on underneath.
I'm not asking about your why. I'm not asking about your purpose or your values. I'm asking about your driver — the specific thing you wanted so badly that you threw everything else away to go after it.
Was it money? Freedom? Notoriety? Respect? You don't have to say it out loud. But you have to be honest with yourself, because until you are, you can't actually tell whether you've achieved it.
Here's mine, exactly as I've said it before: when I started On Call COO, my goal was two things. Keep the quality of life my kids had while I worked for someone else, and generate enough income to fund a lengthy family court battle. That's it. No exit strategy, no team-building fantasy, no revenue target on a vision board. Just those two things.
What Happens When You Don't Know Your Driver
We've worked inside more than 50 businesses over the last few years, and I've personally had hundreds of consultation conversations with founders. When someone tells us they hate their business, or they're not sure they should still be doing this — even a profitable one — the first place we go is back to day zero. Why did you take the leap in the first place?
When you don't have a clear answer to that, something predictable happens: you start borrowing other people's goals as your own. You see someone post about a seven-figure business and decide you want one. You hear about a $50 million exit and adopt that as your target. But those are other people's results — not their drivers. You don't even know what was motivating them to get there.
And once you're chasing a result that isn't tied to your own driver, you start making decisions that are quietly misaligned with what you actually want. That's the real source of the burnout and resentment founders describe — not hustle, not stress, but distance between your actions and your actual motivation.
Kristen Cavallari knows her driver: financial independence that lets her be present with her kids while they're still home, on her schedule, not the business's. She's achieved it, so she's not chasing an eight-figure exit just because the number is bigger. That's not lack of ambition. That's clarity.
The 5-Minute Exercise
At a recent event, I worked through this live with a founder who told me she felt like she was neglecting her kids because she was working while she was with them. Here's the exercise, and you can run it on yourself right now:
Why did you start this instead of doing it for someone else? Get specific — not the polished version, the real one.
What were you actually trying to achieve? Not world domination. What does "enough" look like, concretely?
How far away are you from that right now? Say the honest answer out loud, even if it surprises you.
If a new goal showed up tomorrow, would it move you closer to that original driver, or further away?
When I asked that founder the third question, she paused — and then said, "I've achieved it." You could watch the tension leave her shoulders in real time. She'd already gotten what she originally set out to get. The frustration wasn't coming from the business. It was coming from a new goal she'd started chasing without checking whether it actually served her original driver. When she ran the math, it was clear: that new goal would move her further away, and right now, the trade-off wasn't worth it.
That doesn't mean never. It means not yet — and now she knows the difference.
I Ran This Exercise on Myself This Summer
I never planned for On Call COO to grow the way it has. I'm grateful for it. And I'm also in a season where I have less than a year left with my oldest before she's an adult, and roughly eight years left with my youngest at home.
So this spring, I made a call: I'd work when my kids were in school, and if their schedule allowed it, a few hours after. This summer, they get to do all the things — the travel, the sports, all of it — and I pulled back the reins for about three months to make room for it.
Will that slow the business down in the short term? Yes, for sure. But I asked myself the same question I ask founders: would I regret choosing to be there "when I could" instead of "as much as I could"? The answer was yes, I'd regret it. So I made the trade-off eyes open, knowing exactly what it would cost.
This isn't a "step back and everything works out" post. If I want the business to grow, I need to do more, not less — that's true for you too. The point isn't to avoid work. The point is to know, in detail, what any new goal is going to ask of you before you commit to it.
Before You Move the Goalpost, Build the Plan
If you wake up tomorrow wanting a $5 million business when you're sitting at $1 million, don't chase it just because it sounds like the next right thing. Build the actual plan to get there. Get specific about what it will require and what you'll have to give up. Then ask yourself honestly: is that worth it, right now?
If yes — go get it. If no, it doesn't mean you failed. It means you know your driver well enough to protect it.
If You've Lost Touch With Your Driver, We Can Help You Find It Again
This is exactly the work we do at On Call COO. When a founder comes to us feeling stuck, resentful, or unsure why they're still doing this, we start by getting clear on the original driver, then build a realistic plan around it — so you can grow the business and the life you actually wanted when you started.
Book a free consultation with On Call COO →
You're allowed to get there and stay there. Let's figure out where "there" actually is for you.
Melissa Franks is the founder of On Call COO and host of the Optin Podcast, where she helps founders move from surviving to thriving in business.
