You did it! You achieved that goal that you have been striving for a while! You had set up your strategy, achieved the steps along the way, dealt with the setbacks that always come up, gave your self the praise that you needed to in order to keep going, you leaned on your support network as you needed to. And you did it! Good job! Whew! Now what?

The first thing that you need to do after you achieve a big goal is to congratulate yourself and give yourself time to recover. Then you need to start planning that next goal, which can be very difficult to do sometimes! After you have worked so hard, there is often a time period where there is a letdown, almost like your energy has dropped. This is part of the reason why recovery is such an important part of the process. 

But you cannot rest on your laurels. There is always a next step. It can be very difficult to get yourself motivated after all your hard work. But now that you have reached this step, now you can see what the next goal is. And you have the skill set to achieve that next goal. You just proved it!

There is always a next step, a next goal. Always. While that may be frustrating or exhausting, it can also be exciting. Create an image of where you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, when you retire. That will often help guide you to what those next steps will be.

The strategy that you need in order to keep yourself moving forward is to achieve the goal, praise yourself, rest, plan next goal. It is an amazing feeling to be able to look back after a year and see all the steps that you have achieved! And don’t forget, always enjoy the journey!