Are You a Junkie?

Are you someone that has trouble stopping? Trouble taking time to relax? Feel guilty if you slow down? Never take holidays and secretly resent those that do? Feel like everything depends on you? List maker and checker? You may have a problem...

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, has this to say about adrenaline addicts:

Always overwhelmed, adrenaline junkies seem to have a constant need for urgency, even panic, to get them through the day. They cannot grasp the race driver’s motto: you have to slow down to go fast. Instead, they keep their foot on the pedal at full throttle, convinced that any deceleration is lost opportunity.

There is something particularly insidious about adrenaline addiction that makes it hard for many leaders to kick the habit. Unlike other addicts whose behaviors are socially frowned-upon, adrenaline addicts are often praised for their frantic activity, even promoted for it during their careers. And so they often wear their problem like a badge of honor, failing to see it as an addiction at all in spite of the pain it causes.

This is an issue that I've struggled with and continually must guard against. I'm going to post over the next few days about the various 'manifestations' (Accomplisher, Personal Deflector, Organizational Deflector, and Dramatist) of an adrenaline junkie and pass on some thoughts on how to overcome it and its destructive influence in our lives.