Ep. 39: Success Isn’t the Finish Line
You worked for it. You earned it. You finally got it.
And then… the quiet question: Now what?
What happens after you land the dream job, quit corporate, or launch the business you’ve been planning for years?
For driven professionals and entrepreneurs, the chase can become addictive. We aim for the milestone. We imagine the relief. We expect the arrival to feel permanent.
But once the achievement settles, the next question surfaces. Now what?
In this episode, Laura explores why success can feel strangely anticlimactic—and how to shift from living for the win to building a life rooted in daily alignment. She shares practical tools to mentally prepare, emotionally anchor, and structurally design your week so success feels sustainable instead of fleeting.
Whether you're navigating a pivot, building something new, or simply sensing that your current structure isn’t working anymore, this episode offers a grounded framework for creating momentum that lasts.
What You’ll Hear
✔️Why hitting big goals doesn’t automatically create fulfillment
✔️The psychological pattern of chasing the “next thing”
✔️The difference between goals and daily intentions
✔️Why limiting yourself to 3–5 priorities increases follow-through
✔️How emotional preparation (including style and gratitude) changes behavior
✔️The hidden exhaustion of constant “code switching”
“Proceed as if success is inevitable — because it is.”
If you're ready to design a career and schedule that feel supportive rather than restrictive:
Book a free clarity call:
https://leadintactwithlaura.as.me/free-clarity-call
Download the Heart-Aligned Career Transition Starter:
https://www.leadintact.com/freebies/heart-aligned-career
You do not have to navigate your pivot alone.
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Laura: You are listening to the pivot point where we unpack the defining moments that shift careers and lives. I'm your host, Laura Dionisio, a founder of Lead Intact, and my mission is to spotlight the raw real stories behind career pivots, the fears, the hopes. The messy middles and the bold decisions that follow if you're feeling stuck or quietly wondering what's next?
Laura: I hope these stories help you see yourself a little more clearly and inspire you to start moving toward your own dream life. Let's begin.
Laura: Have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted? And then once you got it, you were like, now what? Maybe you hustled for that dream job.
Laura: Maybe you actually straight up quit your job and you finally started your own business and. In the moment that the thing actually happened, you got that notification that you got that job. You put your two week notice in, or maybe it's like the last day at your job. It feels really good.
Laura: It looks really good from the outside, and then the next day you're like, oh, it didn't end here. Listen, I get it.
Laura: this episode is really talking about how it really is about the journey and not the destination. As cliche as that saying is.
Laura: Has that happened to you? You've gotten the thing, and then what usually happens, you try to strive for the next thing immediately, right? That's not a sustainable way to be, and so. What I'm here to talk about is how do you start enjoying the process to get there instead of just living for those win, living for those sexy moments.
Laura: When you've gotten what you you wanted, how do you prepare for when you get the thing you want? Or maybe you're already there and you're like, Laura, well, this episode should have come out like two weeks ago. If you're thinking it's too late, it's not too late. So wherever you are in your journey, this episode is for you.
Laura: now, I will tell you this is not gonna be some magic pill moment where it's gonna solve all your problems because I. Really believe that real progress, real sustainable progress happens when you do things on the daily.
Laura: So we're gonna talk about three things you can do on the daily to prepare for when not if you get what you want.
Laura: First thing, mentally prepare for the day. This isn't about like, I'm gonna crush my email, you know, I'm going to, finish the whole slide deck.
Laura: No, it starts with the intention for the day. There's a difference between goal and intention. A goal is the typical metric you have, right? A goal could be, I'm going to reach out to five new people today. You know, if you're an entrepreneur.
Laura: The goal could be, I am going to finish that report. That's a goal. Intention is different. Intention is how do you wanna feel throughout the day as you're pursuing your goals? Do you wanna feel at peace? Do you wanna feel in flow? Do you wanna have fun? Do you want to feel focused? Do you wanna feel collaborative?
Laura: Keep the intention of the day simple. This is a practice that I started with two really dear friends of mine, and we would basically just text each other our word of the day. And what I have found, it's a practice that I still do today, is that. It makes me look forward to the day. So for example, my word today was joy.
Laura: How can I feel joy in my day? So even something simple like the lipstick that I chose today, or the earrings that I chose, every decision I run through the filters of , how can this bring me joy?
Laura: The other thing to do to mentally prepare before you get into your day.
Laura: So when I was in corporate, I actually came across this practice by accident. My mom had given me like this funny five day calendar like Monday through Friday. And I say it's funny because it had things like you would list up to five things for the day and then instead of a typical checklist, there'd be a c check, like, I crushed it today, or I kind of half did it, or I got distracted by something.
Laura: It was just like a fun way to track what I wanted to do for that day. And so ever since I got that gift from my mom I realized I liked the fact that it limited me to five things for the day. So this is how you can mentally prepare.
Laura: Maybe you have an overflowing list of things to do. Pick three to five things for the day. That's it. What I used to do is, the first five minutes of my day, I would just write down all the things I knew I had to get done and I might prioritize them, but then I wouldn't have a boundary of how many I was aiming to get done by that day.
Laura: It was just a never ending list basically that I would do throughout the week or something like that. What I found though, is when I just have three to five. Yeah, there was a higher chance that I got it done and it felt really freaking good. So that's how you can mentally prepare before you even start your day.
Laura: , Pick three to five things, no more than that, and if you're just like, oh, nevermind, I have this new priority, which sometimes happens. This is what was cool about that gift that my mom gave. One of the checklists was, I'm moving this to another day. Just, yeah, make a note. You're moving this to another day, but try your best not to do more than five.
Laura: Okay.
Laura: The next part is emotionally prepare for the day. Now, I very much took for granted when I used to go to the office every day. And yes, I was one of those people who complained once the company was trying to get us all back in the office. I'm like, no, I wanna work remote, blah, blah, blah. But here's what I realized.
Laura: Un. Beknownst to myself. I was emotionally preparing for the day by intentionally choosing my outfits, looking at my shoes. I'm a shoe person. I had a three bedroom house when I lived in upstate New York. One room was literally full of my shoes. Once I would look in the mirror and check my outfit out, I'd be like, yes, because that version of Laura doesn't just go sit on the couch.
Laura: And read in the middle of the day when she comes across a task that seems hard. That version of Laura loves interacting with people. Loves it. I found that I walked differently. I talked differently. I was more confident. And maybe you're not the type to get glammed up or whatnot, whatever your version is, dress in a way that's gonna make you sit up straighter.
Laura: I mean, honestly, I put this red lipstick on. I had no intentions of recording this podcast episode, but I was like this, this outfit looked too good not to share. You know what I mean? So it's like. Emotionally preparing for your day is really important.
Laura: The other way to emotionally prepare is gratitude. Start the day with gratitude. As soon as you wake up, do not reach for that phone. Okay. Name one thing you're grateful for. When I started doing it in the morning, I realized that it just started my day off, right?
Laura: I found that even if I had something to do that day that I wasn't looking forward to like putting , my tax documentations together. It didn't seem as like, ugh, you know, because what happens is, even if it's something simple, like I'm so grateful I woke up today.
Laura: I'm so grateful for the sun. I'm so grateful for my cats, even though right now, one of my cats is asking for attention because then what I found is that. It's like I prepped my day to look for things to be grateful for. So even when I did my taxes, I'm like, I'm so grateful that I have an accountant who can do this for me.
Laura: It's such a small but powerful practice.
Laura: Now the third part is about how do you structure. Your day. Well, really how do you structure your week? Now, I didn't intentionally do this when I was still in corporate and I was able to get away with it because in corporate, there's certain expectations you have, recurring meetings, things like that.
Laura: So it's almost like a structure is made for you in a way. When I left corporate, my first two, maybe three weeks, I. It started off with a sense of freedom of, oh my God, I can do whatever I want. I can wake up when I want, start work, when I want, go to the gym, when I want, et cetera. And I, I did exactly that and let me tell you, it was not great.
Laura: I did not feel great. I was still getting things done, but it felt rushed. It was like a weird time warp where I felt I simultaneously. Had so much time and then very little time. It's because looking back, I was not intentional with my time, so I was like relaxing and, taking my time, like long ass lunch breaks or whatever, and then being like, oh, should I wanted to get these three things done and then I would work until like eight or nine at night.
Laura: I'm like, this is not what I signed up for. So.
Laura: Oh, and on the other hand, when I had looked through some resources that I had and, and asked my coach about suggestions on how to structure my day, the typical answer is to do time blocking on your calendar. I've talked about this in previous episodes before.
Laura: There is something inside me that rebels like this has happened a few times, so I know it's not just like a one time thing. Whenever I have tried. To time block my day and I'm talking about go to the gym, you know, like seven 30 to eight 30, shower slash breakfast, eight 30 to nine 30 nine 30 to 10 check email.
Laura: I've tried that. Every time I've done that, the things that I put in my calendar did not get done. For some reason I just could not do it. So rather than fight myself, which I was doing, and rather than force myself to do it, which I was doing, and tell myself why can't I get my shit together, I realized, you know what?
Laura: This system just isn't working for me. It doesn't mean, by the way, that structure and time blocking of some sort doesn't work. It just means that that particular implementation of having exact time blocks in the calendar didn't work for me. So I took a step back, and this is what I'm gonna share with you today on this podcast episode, on what my process was so that I could come up with a structure.
Laura: That I could try out by the way, to see if it worked for me. It turned out that what I came up with worked out for me. I'll be honest, even when I came up with this, because of my experience of time blocking, I was like, I don't know if it's gonna work, but I need to try something. So that's another thing.
Laura: As you do this process that I'm gonna go over, if it doesn't work out for you, don't just completely let go of the process. That's your opportunity to get clear and tweak. Like, what part did I like? What part did I not like? Okay, so here we go. The first thing you're gonna do, so this is primarily, I would say, geared towards entrepreneur.
Laura: Business owners, self-employed folks, because you don't naturally have structure the way you do in corporate. Now, thinking back on it, would this have helped me when I worked in corporate? Yes. I think so I promise I'm gonna get to it, but one last thing I realized with corporate , I did have some sort of time blocks happening, not as much as I do now.
Laura: And I realized because I didn't have. Like specific blocks or structure in place. I had to do a lot of code switching. I dunno if you've heard that term, where I had to switch topics in my brain right away. So whether it's I'm talking with a teammate or I'm talking with my team lead, or I'm suddenly leading a, a meeting and then leading a different meeting, like my mind constantly had to switch and so it would tire me out at the end of the day.
Laura: Now, that's why there's a huge difference on if I have three meetings in a day these days versus three meetings a day. At my old job, I had more than that. Typically, I was a lot more tired in my corporate job because I had to do a lot of code switching. So does that make sense? Code switching is basically like when you have to switch your brain from one type of task to another.
Laura: It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you have to do it constantly throughout the day, it's a lot.
Laura: Anytime that you're in a place in your life where you don't have a natural structure, or even if you have a structure that doesn't work for you. This is gonna help you out. Alright?
Laura: The first thing you wanna think about is what do you have going on? So if you are an entrepreneur, it could be, this is what I wrote.
Laura: Maybe you have private one-on-one clients. Maybe you have group coaching, maybe you have a workshop once a month. If you're in corporate, what do you have going on? Maybe you have a weekly team meeting. The other thing that I wrote here for what do I have going on as an entrepreneur, because these are things that are important to me.
Laura: I wrote, there's podcast recording day. There's networking, and for me, learning is very important. So I put there's a learning day or learning block. I kind of had this in corporate, actually, that was usually my Fridays. But yeah, so this doesn't just have to be like the meetings or the kind of work you do.
Laura: It's also like what are some things that are gonna help grow you as a person. So maybe you have professional development once a quarter or once a month or whatever it may be. And then the next thing you wanna think about is what are your daily, or at least regularly occurring non-negotiables. Okay. So for me, this is.
Laura: Meditation in the morning and in the evening. This is, I wrote down gym time. I must have gym time allocated. I don't go to the gym every day, but I go like four times a week. This is non-negotiable. So I have to structure my schedule in a way that allows me to do that.
Laura: So just name all the things that are daily. Or regularly occurring that are non-negotiable. And then start thinking about what are some occasional events that you see happening? So in corporate, or actually this is also as an entrepreneur too, maybe there's like a work trip, maybe you have speaking engagements.
Laura: Do you have live events that you're hosting? Do you like to travel for fun? So it's just something to think about for occasional events. And then write down what would you love to have in your week? So for me, what was really important, like a huge reason why I left corporate is I wanted to have an Adventure day midweek.
Laura: I wanted to be able to go to the Met on a Wednesday at 2:00 PM you know, like some random time. You want some time in your calendar that's dedicated to you actually doing the work. This is something I wish I had done more of work blocks on your calendar so people can't schedule over it.
Laura: And maybe you find that, you work best in the afternoon, maybe two to three, that's your slot, or maybe you're like, no, actually I would like to get my stuff done. Between nine to 11 because before my coffee, I don't wanna talk to anyone. Whatever it is, just write down what you would like to have.
Laura: So then, based on the things that you have written, right, so we have what you have going on, what your daily slash regularly occurring, non-negotiable things, occasional events, what you are looking to have. From there, start thinking about. Parameterizing this, that's such a weird word. So as an example, I mentioned that one of the things I wrote is I have private clients and group coaching. So then I thought about when do I actually work best with clients? And for me it's in the afternoon, three to five. So then I thought about, okay, parameters to work with client block three to five. I haven't yet figured out what day.
Laura: I just know that's my prime time that I can talk best to people.
Laura: And then once you have that down, right, because now you have the parameters to work with, then you go day by day, what could my week look like?
Laura: For me personally, I was inspired through my coach. I wanted to try out themed day, so that way there isn't that much code switching going on, so I decided for me that Monday is gonna be like a planning slash CEO day. Tuesday is gonna be marketing slash outreach.
Laura: Wednesday is gonna be, that's gonna be my learning slash adventure day. Thursday is gonna be my ideation day. Friday's gonna be reflection slash flex day. And the parameter that I told you about, about how like, okay, clients are gonna be three to five, et cetera. I thought about it. I'm like, which days of the week does that?
Laura: Do I want it to be every day? I'm like, let me try with like, not every day, let me try it like three out of the the five days. And then for podcast recording, do I want that available every day? I'm like, no, I think I just want that Tuesday and Thursday. So now I'm allowing myself to come up with a theme that makes sense for me with the time blocks.
Laura: That works for me, because let me tell you, before I did this, if you wanted to schedule a call with me, whether it's a discovery call or you're a client, booking an appointment or you're a podcast guest, or we're doing a coffee chat, my schedule was wide open. And so what ended up happening, probably for the first, I'll be honest, I didn't start doing this until month three or four.
Laura: What would happen is I would have a networking call at like 10:00 AM and then I would have, a guest podcast recording at 3:00 PM and then I would have a discovery call at. 5:30 PM and so I had these weird blocks of time and if I wanted to do anything fun or I wanted to hang out at a coffee shop for a bit, it was hard for me to see, like I, I was almost like.
Laura: It was almost like I was putting my desires last. It was like, wherever I can fit it, that's what I'll do it.
Laura: So I hope this was really helpful. It's been a lot of fun for me walking through that process with all of my clients and even with myself because literally every schedule and structure that I've come up with or worked with clients to come up with have been different. And it's fun to see the feedback from my clients of how much they look forward to their day because of the structure.
Laura: And for me, it's been fun because now. I have a built-in purpose and intention each day with my theme day. So I hope this has been helpful. If you would like support on any of the, of the things that I talked about, like how do you mentally prepare, how do you emotionally prepare, what kind of structure would feel supportive and not restrictive?
Laura: I'm here for you. Book a free clarity call. You can go to my website at www.leadintact.com. I'm happy to walk you through how I can support you in what your next step is in your career, whether you're looking to pivot or you wanna start your own business, or you're looking to scale your business you are not meant to do this kind of thing alone, so book a call, let's work together. And also remember, as always, proceed as if success is inevitable because it is. I'll talk to you next time.
Laura: All right, friend. That's it for today's drop. If this episode hits something deep, don't just sit with it, act on it. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it, and then head to www.leadinta.com to grab your free heart aligned career transition starter, or book a free 20 minute call with me. I'm here when you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start moving toward what you really want.
Laura: Catch you next time.