On Jane Friedman site:

The characters we create are begging to be treated as real people. And our readers want to see themselves in the characters that fill our pages. They want to recognize the foibles and frustrations, the mistakes, and the triumphs that characters in our stories experience.

Life coaches help clients gain insights that uncover how they are shaping their own life stories. So I suggest you borrow the toolkit of a life coach to design what drives your character.

People come to life coaches for many reasons, but in my years of coaching clients from executives to artists, one theme is ever-present: people are striving to achieve a goal but are trapped in a cage of their own patterns, until they gain an insight that sets them free. That’s when they chart a new path that gets them what they’ve wanted. More importantly, they’re transformed by the experience. Sound familiar?

As I’ve coached writers, life coaching tools snuck their way into our conversations. These tools give writers a new lens with which to craft their characters.