What Next?: How to Enjoy Success, Beat Indecision, and Take Action Towards Your Future Goals

By Diana Fitts

Have you ever achieved a goal and then asked yourself, “what next?” You finally reach a goal, but the celebration is cut short. You feel panicked as you face questions of the bigger and better goal around the corner. One minute you are overjoyed by your success, but the next you find yourself victim to post-achievement paralysis and the “what next” trap.

How do you choose your next goals?

In a success-driven society, it is easy to become obsessed with choosing perfect goals that will lead to perfect lives. As we all race to the top, there is no time for mistakes, wrong turns, or even celebration. Instead of appreciating your accomplishments, you let paralysis and anxiety over the next step halt your progress towards your dreams.

How do you celebrate success? What Next? is your guide as you celebrate your biggest goals and look forward to your next steps. You will learn how to approach your goals so as to rid yourself of the anxiety that comes with achievement and turn your dreams into life-long, sustainable habits. From changing the vocabulary surrounding your goals, to throwing your excuses out the window, What Next? will teach you strategies for shifting your mindset surrounding your goals so that they are motivating and rewarding, as opposed to overbearing and paralyzing.

How do you take action towards your dreams today?

As a free gift to readers and goal setters, with your purchase of What Next?, you will receive access to the 7-Step Goal Setters Action Plan. Used in conjunction with the strategies presented in the book, this action plan will guide you as you discern your future goals. This is your life and it’s time to take control of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diana Fitts
• Release date: May 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311103642

Diana Fitts

Everyone is capable of achieving their goals and realizing their dreams. They just need the right tools.To stay up to date with her work, join her mailing list at her website dianafitts.comIn her books, Diana Fitts provides strategies for readers to take control of their goals and see them through to success. Her work emphasizes taking action today, helping readers understand the steps and lifestyle changes that will jumpstart progress.When not helping others achieve their goals, Diana Fitts can be found running, reading, and listening to podcasts.Live with no limits!

Book preview

What Next?

How to Enjoy Success, Beat Indecision, and Take Action to Set your Future Goals

By Diana Fitts

http://www.dianafitts.com

Copyright © 2016 Diana Fitts

Get a FREE copy of the 7-Step Goal Setters Action Plan

This short guide is designed to be a companion to the content you are about to read in this book.

It will provide you with steps you can take right now to set your goals and pursue your dreams.

Click here to grab your copy or visit my website http://www.dianafitts.com.

To Mom and Dad, who taught me that the world is mine for the taking and my life is mine for the making. Thank you for never teaching me the word impossible.

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Problem with Goals

Chapter 1: The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

Chapter 2: The What Next Trap

Part 2: Strategies

Chapter 3: Be Productive, Not Busy

Chapter 4: Hold On To Victory

Chapter 5: Make It A Habit

Chapter 6: Never Reach the Finish Line

Chapter 7: Who Says You Can Only Have One?

Chapter 8: Learn a Lesson

Chapter 9: Take a Break

Part 3: The Bigger Picture

Chapter 10: One of Many

Chapter 11: Enjoy It

Thank You

About the Author

Part 1

The Problem with Goals

Chapter 1

The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

I was about to pop a sweet potato in the microwave for dinner one evening when my phone rang. It was one of my best friends, Margot, calling for one of our regular check-ins. She is one of those people you wish you could clone and have your kids grow up to become someday. Beautiful, funny, intelligent, athletic, and more successful in her career than someone her age should be. She’s charismatic, connects with others instantly, and has shown off some pretty sweet dance moves over the years. Needless to say, I’m grateful that she’s put up with a friend like me for so long.

So, it came as a surprise when Margot started crying. She had achieved so much, reached her goals, and made a positive impact on the world, yet here she was in tears. She explained that she had reached her full potential at her current job and needed to make a shift in order to keep progressing. The problem was that this need for change had hit her like a freight train. She was unprepared and there was no clear sign indicating the next step. As she mulled over the possibilities of more schooling, switching companies, and working towards a specialization in her field, the conversation started to drift to left field. What if she wanted to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a car salesman? How would she know if she missed her calling as a movie producer, an entrepreneur, or a biologist? It was time to pursue the next goal and, instead of feeling motivated, Margot felt paralyzed.

Margot and I grew up believing that nothing was off limits to us. Barriers were meant to be broken and unreachable aspirations were meant to be conquered. We were lucky to have been thrown into summer camps, art programs, and sports classes at young ages, ensuring that we developed a wide range of interests and talents. We continued to explore the world around us as we grew up, taking advantage of opportunities to travel, volunteer, and learn from others all over the country and the world. We were ready for what life had in store. The one downside of such fortuitous childhoods was that, with so many paths open to us, the path towards happiness and success was never clear. How would we know which path to take?

Margot had fallen into what I like to call the what next trap. This is the place where our lack of preparation for our next goals leaves us wading through a sea of possibilities that fail to create a cohesive vision of what our future lives will look like. Although Margot had a successful career, she was caught off guard by her sudden desire to move on and her lack of knowledge in how to do so. And this is no small problem. Margot’s life would look completely different if she decided that her next goal would be to pursue a Master’s degree as opposed to jumping on a standby plane to New York to audition for a Broadway musical. Now, it’s rare that we are wracked with such discrepant decisions, but goals with common threads cause problems as well. Even if you know that higher education is your goal, what field will you pursue? Where? When? For how long? Will your family come with you? Do you really want to deal with all of the snow in New York? The list of questions goes on and on. Eventually, all of the decisions requiring immediate attention become too much and we end up like Margot, successful and enviable, yet crying over the next steps.

It is all too common that we become so wrapped up in our current goals that we fail to proactively prepare for the next steps. We believe we will figure it out when the time comes, but once we complete a goal, we must quickly refocus and charge forth with little time for reflection and adjustment. As a result, instead of attacking our goals with our greatest potential, we make excuses, spend time on meaningless tasks, and become victim to anxiety and the what next trap. Like Margot, we know that the world is our oyster, but we can’t put one foot in front of the other in order to find the pearl.

This book is for anyone who has ever completed a goal only to be paralyzed with indecision about what to do next. We will learn that failing to prepare ourselves for our next goals while we are pursuing our current ones, not only diminishes the joy of goal pursuit, but can also delay success and progress. We will gain the skills needed to identify the what next trap and develop strategies for approaching our goals so as to avoid it. While no easy task, we will pull you out of the anxiety of goal pursuit so that you can gain clarity on your life path and enjoy yourself along the way.

The Good News

We’ve always been told that goals matter. Gold stars and smiley faces have littered our papers since Kindergarten. We have goals for everything from coloring within the lines to landing the corner office. They serve as our biggest cheerleaders and our harshest critics, making us feel like champions when we satisfy their desires and failures when we can’t meet their demands. There’s no denying the glory of crossing that finish line, but there’s also nothing like the pain of falling short. The success with which we achieve our goals becomes the material of our most poignant memories.

Strung together, our goals paint a clear picture of who we are, what we value, and what brings us joy. A life in which I set goals relating to traveling, athletics, and family will be different from someone else’s life filled with goals relating to fame, money, and power. Our goals give us meaning and, as such, we spend a lot of time worrying about giving meaning