Most people believe that wanting something badly enough will get them there. While motivation provides the initial spark, it’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle when it comes to achieving meaningful goals. Alex Dripchak, a sales and consulting professional with experience at well-known talent hubs Oracle and Mercer, has spent years studying human performance optimization and discovered why motivation alone fails so many people.
Shifting Focus Beyond Motivation Alone
Dripchak has seen this pattern countless times. Someone gets fired up about a goal, maybe after watching an inspiring video or reading a self-help book. They’re ready to change everything. Then reality hits. “You could be very motivated, but if you have 10 screaming children around you and endless questions or back-and-forth conversations, plus constant distractions, no matter how motivated you are, you’re not going to be able to get into a rhythm,” he explains. That’s when most people blame themselves. They think they weren’t motivated enough or didn’t want it badly enough. But he says that’s missing the point entirely. Motivation is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Here’s what actually happens when you try to work from your couch with the TV in front of you, or family members constantly walking in and out. If you get any work done at all, you do so at “half or quarter pace” because you’re battling a never-ending wave of distractions. No amount of motivation can fix a broken environment. Dripchak calls this “finding your sanctified environment or sanctified space.” For him, that’s the library. “When I go to the library, I’m only working. It’s not somewhere I have to constantly battle against distractions or easier habits and it’s a place with a near 100% work success rate and at 90% or higher pace.” The environment does the heavy lifting so you don’t have to call upon your will power all the time.
Reaching Identity Instead of Motivation
He has a framework he calls IMWPI. “Inspiration is the I, motivation is M, willpower is WP, and identity is the final I.” Most people get stuck at the motivation stage and wonder why they keep failing. The real goal is reaching identity, where it becomes part of who you are. “Not I write, but I am a writer,” he says. This shift changes everything. When something is part of your identity, you don’t need to psych yourself up to do it. Writers write because that’s what writers do. It stops being a battle of willpower every single day.
Dripchak keeps a marble counter right next to his workspace. Every day he works on his book for 30 minutes, he drops a marble in. “I keep it very visible,” he says. It’s simple but effective because you can see your progress building up. For bad habits, he does the opposite. Take his TV example. He and his wife have one of those frame TVs that looks like artwork when it’s off. They’re even talking about hanging other pictures around it so you forget it’s a TV. “I want to watch less TV so I can be more productive,” he explains. You can take this further by hiding the remote, taking out the batteries, even unplugging the tv itself.
Understanding and Using Peak Energy
Here’s something most people don’t know. Research by Dr. Isaiah Henkel shows we only get about “five hours of very good brain energy and about two hours of peak brain energy a day.” That means you’re operating below your best for most of your waking hours. Dripchak figured out his peak time comes right after the gym. “After I go to the gym, I have to make sure that I get working on whatever is my most valuable contribution to the world right afterward, when I have it fresh in mind, don’t have distractions, and I can really hum along very quickly.” The mistake most people make is going to the gym, then immediately getting sucked back into regular life. Dishes, cooking, driving around, answering emails. By the time they sit down to work on something important, their peak energy is gone.
Motivation gets you started, but it won’t get you across the finish line. You need systems. You need the right environment. You need to understand your energy patterns and protect your peak hours. Most importantly, you need to think beyond just getting motivated to actually becoming the type of person who achieves their goals consistently. Dripchak’s upcoming book “Maximize” breaks down the top 100 productivity practices, but the core message is simple: stop relying on motivation and start building systems that are not only effective but automatic so you can take “I don’t feel like it today” out of the equation.
Connect with Alex Dripchak on LinkedIn or his website to explore more insights on performance optimization.
