Goal Achieved – Now What?

Having completed all the steps, you should now be taking immediate and consistent action and moving towards greater confidence and success. The likelihood of achieving your bigger goals is in your favour, taking external factors into account.

So what is next after you achieve your goal? Take some time to review what you have achieved, reflect on it and how you can learn from that experience and apply any learning to your next goal. Then, well it's up to you! You can continue maintaining what you are doing or you can set new goals for yourself. Bigger ones, perhaps? To grow and develop it is important that we stretch our comfort zone. This means putting ourselves in new challenging situations. Remember it is helpful to start setting new goals just before your achieve the current one as this keeps your energy and momentum up. The mind provides just enough energy for us to accomplish a goal.

It is quite natural that when you have been busy and focused on your tasks that when you have reached your goal there is nothing left to do. This leaves a space. If you choose not to start this process again, you may find yourself feeling a level of discomfort, as you adjust to less activity. This is transient and you do not have to disturb yourself about it. You can just sit with this discomfort, choosing to reflect or not to reflect on what to do next.

You may choose to relax and unwind but as in marathon running it is never advisable to just stop training all together after completing a marathon. You can continue on a reduced programme as you manage the reduction of required energy. The same applies to all goals and goal attainment.

If we do not plan for the post-goal attainment period we may find the lack of focus and goals uncomfortable and may trigger unhealthy beliefs about discomfort or purpose in life. You can work through any unhealthy beliefs by applying the three arguments and formulating the healthy beliefs and strengthening them by thinking and acting accordingly. We are, sadly, never immune to creating unhealthy beliefs. It is in our nature. Accept it but learn to challenge it as and when it happens. To maintain confidence and a sense of success, the steps in this book should, preferably, become a lifetime practice.

Once you have realised your goal, it is useful to reflect on what you have achieved, how you achieved it and on what you would do differently next time.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal bigger or more challenging.
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier.
• If you learnt something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.
• If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Goal setting is a life skill, and one that you use throughout your life. We hope you have found this book helpful in achieving your goals, gaining more confidence and achieving the success you desired.

We are off to set our next goal now – what about you?

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Some Final Tips to Remember . . . for Whatever Step You Are on

• Do not label yourself.
• Take immediate action.
• Accept tension and discomfort as natural.
• Accept uncertainty and risk.
• Develop a high frustration tolerance philosophy.
• Develop an anti-awfulising philosophy.
• Accept yourself. You are a worthwhile but fallible human being.
• Develop enlightened self-interest.
• Give up your creative excuses and pseudo-work.
• Do one task at a time – do not jump from one task to another.
• Tolerate an imperfect environment.
• Manage your excesses – alcohol, overeating, recreational drugs.
• Keep an eye on your goal.
• Make your environment work for you.
• Look for solutions when facing problems and learn from your mistakes.
• Allocate extra time to complete a task as things can go wrong.
• Be assertive.
• Reward yourself when you have completed a task, e.g. tea break, ten-minute walk.
• Break a task into chunks.
• Start with committing yourself to spending five minutes on the task and go on from there.
• Do the unpleasant task first and immediately.
• Imagine yourself doing the task.
• Procrastination is your cue to force yourself to do the task.