Setting goals is crucial for personal and professional success.

Tansi.

Setting goals is more than just jotting down ideas; it’s about creating a roadmap for your future and committing to the journey ahead. In this blog post, I’ll share five keys to effective goal setting that have transformed my life and can help you unlock your full potential.

Key 1: Make a Conscious Decision to Go All In

Every journey begins with a single step, but true progress requires commitment and dedication. Reflecting on my own experience launching Neechie Gear, I realized that success demanded more than just a half-hearted effort. It required a conscious decision to go all in, to give everything I had to my dreams despite the challenges and setbacks along the way. When you commit wholeheartedly to your goals, you unleash the full power of your energy and determination, paving the way for success beyond your wildest dreams.

Key 2: Create a Goal Card

A goal without a plan is just a wish. That’s why I highly recommend creating a goal card—a tangible reminder of your aspirations and priorities. By writing down your goals and carrying them with you everywhere you go, you stay laser-focused on what truly matters. Whether it’s a career milestone, a personal achievement, or a family goal, your goal card serves as a compass, guiding you towards success with every decision you make.

Key 3: Take Required Action

Goals are not achieved through wishful thinking; they require concrete action and strategic planning. Take the time to identify the necessary steps to reach your goals and commit to them wholeheartedly. Whether it’s networking, skill-building, or investing in yourself, every action brings you one step closer to realizing your dreams. Remember, success is not a destination—it’s a journey fueled by consistent effort and unwavering determination.

Key 4: Visualize Your Success

The power of visualization cannot be overstated. Surround yourself with images that represent your goals and aspirations, creating a vision board that inspires and motivates you every day. Whether it’s pictures of your dream home, your ideal career, or your desired lifestyle, visual cues keep your goals at the forefront of your mind, driving you to take action and turn your dreams into reality.

Key 5: Write a Future Letter to Yourself

Imagine yourself five years from now, living your best life and achieving your greatest aspirations. Write a letter to your future self, expressing gratitude for the accomplishments and experiences that await you. By speaking in the present tense and embodying the mindset of success, you reinforce your commitment to your goals and manifest your dreams into reality.

Effective goal setting is the cornerstone of success in any endeavor. By following these five keys—making a conscious decision, creating a goal card, taking required action, visualizing your success, and writing a future letter to yourself—you can unlock your full potential and achieve your wildest dreams. Remember, the journey to success begins with a single step, but it’s the commitment to that journey that truly sets you apart. So go ahead, set your goals, and embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

Your future self will thank you for it.

These are keys that I’ve used throughout my journey.

I’ve shared to my students, my mentees, and so on, and I want to pass them along to you.

Now, I want to share this first one with a quick story that will help illustrate key number one.

Back in 2011, when I launched Neechie Gear, it was done as a full-time university student, and it was a part-time gig, it was a side hustle, if you will.

About 10 months into my journey, we found ourselves in a roadblock.

My wife had just given birth to our firstborn son, Keanu.

So he was a toddler and we were raising him in a one-bedroom apartment in the Saskatoon.

We were trying to do right with what we had.

I was working odd jobs, I had just convocated from university.

And that life should have been set for me, but it wasn’t, and I was trying to make this business become something, but I was really struggling because I can only give it 50% of my effort at that time.

My wife, on the other hand, was a full-time student trying to finish her B. Ed.

One day, we found ourselves struggling to pay for Pampers, formula, rent, and so on, and we found ourselves downtown Saskatoon looking to apply for social assistance.

When we got there, it was like this triggering moment in my life, in my head, something snapped one day.

When we’re going through that process and we are treated like a number throughout that process, I looked down at my son, Keanu, who was in a baby carrier, and my wife was sitting beside me, Rachel, and I said, “Rachel, let’s go home.

I want to talk to you.

This isn’t going to be us.” And on the ride home, all I could think about was my mother raising us like that.

That was the trigger moment, I watched my mom do that for us growing up, and here I was in the future, just finished university, and I couldn’t even give my family a stable foundation, and it hurt me.

So we go home and I said to Rachel, I said, “Rach, I don’t want that to be us. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for all this stuff, but if you support me on this business venture, I’ll give everything I have into it. I don’t know how it’s going to work, but I will give everything I have into it.”

And she supported me, and from that moment, I went not just one foot, but two feet into this dream, this goal.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first step I want to share with you, the first key, you have to make a conscious decision to go all in into something.

Every goal that you’re going to achieve in your life requires energy.

If you put all of your energy into something, the chances of you succeeding drastically increase.

The opposite of that is people have a project here, here, here, here, and they’re just trying it and they’re managing all this stuff.

It gets very challenging to make it all succeed because your energy is all split up.

Human beings, we can only do one major thing at a time.

So whatever big project you have, whatever career that’s in front of you, give all of your attention to it, give everything you have into it because you don’t know what the next door is going to open for you after that, but it’s going to require energy, it’s going to require your effort into something, to build something, to give your energy into your career, and so on.

So, long story short, that moment of putting two feet into this opened up doors for myself I didn’t know that were going to happen for myself.

I went to from a one-bedroom apartment to a little office, from office to a kiosk, to multiple stores, wholesaling, distributing, doing e-commerce, becoming a speaker and so on, and it brought me here today with you.

Our decisions are so important to where we want to get to in our life.
Number one, you have to make a decision on what it is that you want, and commit yourself to it.

If you want to go higher in the corporate ladder, commit yourself to it.

Give your energy to that, your effort.

Someone will see your effort in time.

A leader always recognize the potential of other up and coming leaders every single time because they can resonate and reflect on what they’re going through.

It’s the same thing with a mentor.

They can give advice to mentees because they could see what they’re going through, they’ve been through that.

Give your energy to something, make a decision.

That’s key number one.

Key number two, I highly, highly, highly encourage you to make a goal card.

Now, some of you are asking, “What’s a goal card?” Well, a goal card is simply you writing your goal down on what it is that you want to accomplish with your life in the next 12 months to five years, to 10 years, and so on.

You write it on a little piece of paper the size of a business card.

Now, here’s what I do.

I’ve been taught this by many other mentors that do something similar.

I’ll date the goal card.

I’ll put the date on it, I’ll put a signature spot, on the top it says, “Kendal’s goal card,” and I put one, two, and three goals that I want to accomplish in the next 12 months.

I do this every January.

Every January, I refresh.

So the first goal I put on there, it could be a speaking goal for myself, that’s my career.

The next goal could be a personal thing for myself, maybe I want to do a 5K run effectively without stopping, that could be a goal for me.

The next goal could be a family goal.

Maybe you want to go to Disneyland, somewhere, vacation with the family.
These goals are for you, for something for you to look forward to.

Now, the reason you write this on a little piece of paper is I want you to buy a little self laminating, business card laminator sheet from a dollar store, and you put that, you laminate that, and you keep that with you in your pocket everywhere that you go, that’ll be your screen saver on your phone.

Now, here’s how you keep laser-focused.

When you write your goals down, you’re looking at something that maybe for me, I would say I want to do 100 speaking engagements in 2023.

That’s my goal maybe.

So I write it on a piece of paper there and it’s in my card.

And I look at that every time I’m pulling out my wallet, every time I’m looking through my phone, it’s there.

So if someone comes to me with an opportunity and they say, “Kendal, we want you to do this, we want you to do that,” I look at my goal card, I say, “Is it going to help me to get to number one, number two, or number three?”

If it is going to take me away from my goals, it’s easier for me now to say no to this opportunity, to say no to this request from someone, or another company, and so on.

This is how you stay laser-focused, you are committing yourself to what you wrote down.

That’s the power of this exercise.

So you keep this with yourself all the time, you keep it in your pocket, you keep it in your notes, you write it down every day if you can.

And I highly suggest that you walk around with a little notepad everywhere you go, write your ideas down, write your goals down, write down the things that you have to accomplish, write down the things that you want to work on.

That are thing I would suggest that you do.

When you’re feeling good about something, document it.

When you’re not feeling good about something, document it.

You will look back on this, on the things that you wrote down.

It doesn’t have to be long, could be two to three sentences if you want.

I don’t want to call it a journal because maybe some of you may not like journaling, but I call it a notepad, and it’s Kendal’s notepad, and this notepad is my notes to myself, and it’s a reflection on the things that work and the things that don’t work for myself, and the ideas and stuff that I want to achieve with my life.

And I take that everywhere I go because you may be driving and you may have an idea, so you pull over, you write your notepad, you may be walking through an airport, you have an idea, something comes to you, write it down, and reflect on those as often as you can.

Key number two, make a goal card.

This goal card will hold you accountable to where it is that you want to go with your career.

You’ll look at it all the time.

When an opportunity comes, you can either say yes or no.

Is it going to help me to get to number one, number two, or number three? You’re going to sign that goal card, you’re going to date it today.

You laminate it, you take it everywhere that you go in your career.

Key number three, I call this RA, required action.

We’re going to go deep now.

Whatever you wrote on goal number one, goal number two, goal number three, I want you to make a note on a piece of paper.

Number one, this is for goal number one.

What is all of the required action that is going to be necessary to achieve number one?
So this is going to require you to think in the future, you’re going to think as if this has happened already.

So it’s going to require you to look into the future and say, “Well, what does it look like for Kendal to go and accomplish 100 speaking engagements a year,” for example.

Maybe that’s my goal.

Well, maybe I have to start doing more videos, maybe I got to do more blog posts, maybe I got to email more people, get on the phone more, I got to do more proactive marketing.

So for you, whatever you wrote on goal number one, I want you to write down all the required action that would be needed to get to goal number one, to get to goal number two, to get to goal number three, you have to act as if and think as if that person’s already accomplished that.

Write down everything, everything that’s going to be needed, the investments you need to make, the people you need to talk to, the books you need to read, the places you need to go, and so on.

This is all extremely important to achieving any goal, you have to look and think as if that person in the future.

And the more you can create a visual in your mind of living that lifestyle that you want, the greater your chances that it may become a reality in the future for you.

Number three, what is the required action to get to your goals? Write it down.

Key number four and key number five, these next two keys are what I would say optional.

Not everyone is going to agree with them, but these are things that I do.

These are things that have been taught to me and I’m going to pass them on to you.

All of us, we think in visuals and images, and I talked to you about on the last key about the importance of thinking as if you’ve already accomplished something, putting yourself in that future state.

It’s almost like envisioning your movie playing out and you accomplishing your goal, you can see yourself doing that.

Here’s a brain hack.

Go on Google, print out images that are similar to what you’re looking to accomplish, whether you’re looking to get ahead in your career, eat healthier, work out, go to a certain place, build a home, get a vehicle, whatever that might be.

Some people call this a vision board.

You put it on your wall, your office wall.

It’s a mashup of everything that you’re looking to achieve.

As you look at these images every day, you’re going to picture yourself living something similar in that image that you’re seeing on your wall.
I have a huge wall of all these pictures on my wall right now, all the things that I wanted to accomplish.

The very first time I did this, I thought, probably what some of you are thinking right now, “Man, what a load of rubbish, this sounds so stupid.”

And the more I would listen and research from other speakers, I’d read books, I’d watch stuff on YouTube, I thought, “You know what? This makes sense.”

What we see, who we listen to really impacts our mindset.

And what we put into our minds, it may come into manifest into physical form one day.

So I thought, “I’m going to try this.” And so I started writing down that I wanted to get a new home, I wanted to work on my speaking career.

This is back in 2016, so I made this a priority.

I put images of the house I wanted, the vehicle that I have.

I could tell you to this date, that house and the vehicle I have today, I worked towards that.

It wasn’t just putting it on a wall, I worked towards it, actively worked towards it every single day.

This stuff is powerful, but you have to allow it to be powerful in your life.

It’s a commitment between yourself and what you write down, the required action, the visuals that you have on your wall, and so on.

That’s number four.

Number five, you sit down at your table, at your desk one day, after you have written down your goals, you’ve done the required action, you decided this is what you want to do, you made a visual of what this looks like for yourself, you’re starting to develop that higher belief in what you’re trying to accomplish, I want you to write a five-year future letter to yourself, and I want you to date it five years from the date today.

2028.

So 2028, that’s what I want you to date at five years from today.

And I want you to focus your messaging as if it’s already happening in that present moment in five years from now.

So you’re going to start off this future letter to yourself with, “I’m so happy and grateful now that,” and I want you to describe everything happening in present tense, as if it’s happening in that moment.

So for example, I remember writing my future letter to myself, and I talked about wanting to become a speaker.

At that time, I was 50/50.

I was a part-time gig, but I was doing my retail stuff back then.

Now I’m living it, and it’s become a reality for myself.
This is my career.

I go and do keynotes, I do virtual series, I do consulting programs for different companies, and this is the life that I wrote down many years ago, and I committed myself to it, I worked towards it, and there’s more coming.

So I want you to write this letter to yourself five years from today, focusing on what you want in the future, focusing and living as if it’s in the present form.

So let’s recap.

Number one, you must make a decision.

Number two, make a goal card.

Number three, required action, write down everything that’s needed to get to your goals.

Number four, create visuals of what it looks like that you can attach yourself what you see on your wall, be a vision board, whatever you want to call it.

Number five, write the future letter to yourself, act as if it’s happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you follow these five keys that I shared with you, I could tell you from the experience, from myself, from people I’ve worked with, this will be a very, very powerful exercise that will pay off for you in the future.

Everyone needs a goal, everyone needs something to look forward to.

If you don’t have something to look forward to, it’s easier to stay depressed in a depressed state in your mindset.

Everyone should have something to look forward to.

So I hope that you in this present moment, you take the time today to make a goal card and go after your dream.

hiy hiy