We frequently talk about how to achieve our goals, but we overlook the plateau of accomplishment. What do you do when you've reached your goals and don't know where to turn next?

You could keep setting new goals, but what if it starts to feel like an endless cycle of ups and downs? Sometimes we need to take a step back and think about what we really want out of our lives. There is always the next step, so make sure you never become complacent.

Take Time to Reflect

If you worked hard and strived for excellence for a long time, you might be ready for a break. By a break we don't mean slowing down, we mean redirecting your energy to a different muscle.

Your brain.

Sometimes reflecting on our successes in life is where we learn the most about our journey. We can celebrate all of our victories and triumphs while learning from our failures and downfalls.

The most important thing is that you never slow down simply because you have reached a goal. For example, if your goal was to run a marathon, would you stop running because you completed it?

Of course not, you would continue practicing to improve your time and shorten your recovery period. During your time of reflection is where you can also start planning out your next step.

• Where are you going from here?
• What is the next goal you want to accomplish?
• What's the new challenge of your life?

You also want to ensure you create a timeline for your reflection period. If you're slowing down a little with achieving goals, you want to have a set time when you will get back up and go 100% again.

Stretch Your Goals Further

Once you have enough time to think about your life and reflect on your success, it's time to get back to work. One choice you can make is to stretch your goals and expand upon previous wins.

Using the marathon example, you could set yourself with a new time goal and work hard to beat it. You would be keeping your goals and strategies the same, but you'll push yourself a little harder this time.

Making The Goal Bigger

If you're making your goals more challenging, it's going to require more effort on your behalf. How will you achieve this new goal? Will you continue training the same way or will you increase the volume and difficulty of your training?

It's up to you.

The most important thing to remember is that you need to take everything up a notch if you want to reach a higher level.

Pivot Entirely

Many of us focus so hard on specific goals that we neglect other areas of our lives. Some people spend their entire lives focusing on gaining money while ignoring their health while others do the opposite.

Do you have any childhood dreams or hidden goals that you've never achieved? Now that you have accomplished this one, you might have time for something different.

Maybe you've always wanted to further your education, start a business, travel the world, or even become a coach. You have the opportunity to strive for greatness in your life, and no goal is too big or too small.

Use Your Time Wisely

When you're changing directions in life, it's important not to become complacent. Much of the time, people are unsure of what to do next and end up doing nothing at all. If you plan on redirecting your goals and starting something new, make sure it's realistic, and you're positive about what you want.

Use Your Achievement to Inspire Others

One of the most powerful things you can do with your knowledge is to teach someone else what you know. If your life revolves around fitness and health, you might have the drive and communication skills to push someone towards greatness.

Take everything you know and your successful strategy and use it to inspire others to reach their own goals. There are many people out there who are unsure about where to go with their life but seeing someone who accomplished a similar goal might be exactly what they need.

Pass Your Passion to the Next Generation

Setting a goal to inspire the next generation is a great way to reset and redirect. If you're into running marathons, you can help kids and students improve their endurance and flexibility so they could become better runners.

You could coach on your own as a business or non-profit or you could try to get a coaching position at a local school. Communities are always looking for youth mentors, and you might have the expertise to help a child in need.

Quit

That's right; we said quit. What if you didn't like the journey you were on even though you achieved a goal. Maybe you thought you wanted to run a marathon, but after training for months and finally completing it, you realized it didn't satisfy you. Quitting is not always a bad thing as long as you are moving onto bigger and better things.

Start Over

Sometimes the journey is the most enjoyable part of achieving something, and you might want to live it all over again. If you could go back in time and start over, would you do anything differently? We think if most of us are honest with ourselves, we would all answer yes to that question.

Once you achieve a goal, you can move onto something different, or you could continue the direction you're in but do things a little different this time around. See if you have better results this time.

For example, if you do high-intensity interval training for boxing, you might want to try doing that less and implementing a weight training day or two into your week. If you've suffered frequent injuries during your training, you might want to stretch more and implement more active rest and regeneration into your training.

The main thing to remember is that you can never slow down. Just because you have reached a milestone in your life, it doesn't mean it's time to get soft.

Take a little break, focus on your sleep, reflect on your journey, and figure out what goal comes next in your life. Here's a suggestion:

• If you're looking to start in a new direction;
• If you want to learn about what it takes to get in the ring with our tribe;
• If you want to train with the best of the best;
• If you want to become a contender...

Book a Gloveworx session today and learn what it's like to smash your goals.