What Happens After You Crush Your Goals? Now What?

Hey guys!

The last two weeks were AMAZING! As usual, you went above and beyond with a challenge and absolutely CRUSHED the #HotGirlSummerSculpt. It was so inspiring to see all of your IG posts roll in every day with your “workout complete” checkmarks, beautiful food pics, and daily recaps with your feelings, progress, and how you were tackling your goals.

Seriously. SO COOL.

So now that you’ve completed the challenge, what comes next? Maybe you haven’t thought about it yet. THAT’S OKAY! You’ve been kiiiiinda busy working your booty off

But NOW it’s time to think about it, because this is where people often get stuck. How do you stick with the amazing changes you made? How do you take what you learned about yourself and set new goals?

You’ve built some serious momentum and your Hot Girl Summer JUST STARTED. Soooo what’s next?! 

It’s time to circle back to your goals

What were your goals when you started #HotGirlSummerSculpt? To be consistent with workouts? With eating healthy foods? To build muscle and get stronger? To manage stress or build confidence?

Whatever it was, it’s time to check in!

First things first – If you met your goal, AMAZING! Don’t even think about moving on to something else before you celebrate yourself. Committing to making a change for yourself and then executing is a BIG DEAL. And honestly, it’s rare. Even if the past two weeks were messy and you were barely hanging on – you signed up, and you did it.

There’s a reason why simply following through matters so much: your brain.

Your brain changes when you make goals!

Acknowledging your accomplishments makes some really cool things happen in your brain. It changes how you think and how you approach goals in the future. This mental change is KEY to keep growing.

Every time you achieve something, the “reward center” in your brain responds. It releases dopamine, which makes you feel good. And that works kind of like an incentive for your brain to remember the experience that made you feel good.

So when you meet a goal, set another one. It doesn’t have to be (actually it shouldn’t be) anything crazy! Keep each goal attainable and you’ll cruise right along and feel amazing the entire way.

What about the goals you didn’t meet?

If you didn’t quite hit all of your goals, THAT’S OKAY. The challenge may be over, but that doesn’t mean your opportunity is gone.

Read that again, because giving up is just simply not an option. So instead of thinking of this as “failure,” think about what you LEARNED. Shake it off and rethink your goal and how you’re going to approach it.

I’ve gone through this process more times than I can count, so I’ll help you out with some tricks I’ve learned

Start treating your goal as a habit –  Literally stop thinking about it as a goal and reframe your mind to see it as a habit. Think of drinking a big glass of water in the morning like brushing your teeth. Set your alarm to workout in the morning as if you’re setting it to go to work. Your brain stores “goals” and “habits” completely differently (so interesting!), so this little change in thinking can make new changes feel less “forced.”

Break down your goal into bite-sized goals – We talked about how achieving a goal stimulates the “reward center” in your brain. That release of feel-good chemicals leaves your brain looking for more, which keeps your motivation going in full-force. So instead of putting a ton of energy into one big accomplishment, give your brain bite-sized accomplishments along the way.

Example – Let’s say you want to run a marathon. It’s going to feel like a very looooong journey to meeting your goal if that is your ONLY goal. But if you set up smaller goals along the way like “run a 5K” or “run 3 days a week” or “improve your mile pace to 8 minutes,” you’ll have little accomplishments to look forward to. You’ll feel amazing every step of the way and those little accomplishments will drive you to your long-term goal.

Lean on your village –  No journey is easy alone. I leaned heavily on the POP community when I was on my 90 Day Journey, and we’re here for YOU too! Don’t believe me? Check out the #HotGirlSummerSculpt hashtag on Instagram. The way this community supported each other every day was beautiful!

Of course your friends and family make up a large part of your village too. Talk to them. Recruit someone to hold each other accountable. A good support system will carry you through.

Keep moving forward

Whatever you do, don’t move backwards! Even if it isn’t obvious, a challenge changes you. You always walk away with something. You don’t have to immediately dive into another challenge, or set some life-changing goal, but try not to let go of what you gained from the challenge you just completed.