Everyone Has A Personal Next
Coaching Tip #6
When you have reached a personal best, it is time to start searching for a personal next.
There are many ways to think about a personal next. Here are 3 examples.
As an extension of your personal best (PB’s). Are you in search of a surpassing your last best? In sports we strive for PB’s. Stronger, faster, better. In our careers a PB may be a raise, a title change, a team goal or more responsibility. Is there a personal next in your current career stream? In a relationship it might be a shift from dating to living together. This type of personal next focuses on how to improve. It requires strategies, and focus. It is usually goal driven.
• As a shift toward new discoveries. Is there a new hobby you want to engage in? Try a new sport, take a painting class, travel to a new destination. Even try a new recipe. This type of personal next creates excitement, expands your horizons and puts you in a learning mindset
• As a change in circumstances. This is the focus of my interviews, research and book - Personal Next: What We Can Learn From Elite Athletes Navigating Career Transition. When your circumstances change, when the doors close for the last time on the life you have intently focused on, when a love one dies, or you are fired from your job. These are gut checks. Every elite athlete at one point or another experiences this moment. Some by choice but most by circumstance: a broken-down body, a coaching change, being released from a team, not being invited onto a team, an addiction, a lack of financial resources, or failure to reach ‘the goal’. In all of these circumstances it takes time to replace that passion from the past. The pivot from a personal best to a personal next is a hero’s journey of success, struggle, challenges -some met and some not, and ultimately a discovery of an exciting and rewarding future.
No matter what your definition of a personal next is, framing your future this way opens up possibilities, provides space to contemplate and discover and opportunities to reframe what is truly important to you.