Goal Setting to Get Unstuck: How High Performers Reconnect With Their Vision

Feeling stuck in your business or career? The solution might be simpler than you think. According to leadership coach Kristen Schmidtke, reconnecting with your authentic goals and vision is often the key to breaking through plateaus and finding renewed energy for growth.

In my recent podcast conversation with Kristen, we explored how proper goal setting can help entrepreneurs and leaders overcome stagnation. After 12 years in technology sales and five years with Amazon Web Services, Kristen made the leap to entrepreneurship as a leadership coach. Her journey offers valuable insights for anyone who feels trapped in their current circumstances or unsure of their next steps.

Let's dive into Kristen's proven approach to using goal setting as a tool to get unstuck, build meaningful morning routines, and create a high-performance lifestyle that aligns with your deepest values.

Reconnecting with Your Vision: The Antidote to Feeling Stuck

For many entrepreneurs and professionals, feeling stuck often stems from losing sight of what they truly want. As Kristen explains:

"We need to actually get back to the vision. We need to get back to the goal. The best way we can get unstuck is to reconnect to what it is that we want—what is it that we most desire. And that can be a personal goal, that can be a professional goal, that can be something for your business depending on where you're feeling that stuckness."

This reconnection creates an immediate shift in your energy and focus:

"As soon as we can ground ourselves and reconnect to what we want—not what we want for others, not what we think we should want, but what we actually truly want—something kind of unlocks in us. Because now we know where to focus our energy and where to focus our attention."

The challenge for many is that without clear direction, their efforts become scattered and ineffective:

"If we don't have a direction, you spend all day kind of aimlessly sending your energy, your time, your resources in so many different directions. And you end up depleted, you end up tired, you end up feeling like you're stuck because there's not—you don't have that level of focus. And goals really provide you with that level of focus."

A Simple Framework for Getting Clear

Kristen has developed a framework to help clients reconnect with their authentic goals. The process begins with three simple but powerful questions:

1. What do you want? (Not what you think you should want)
2. Why do you want it? (Connecting to your deeper motivation)
3. Why don't you have it? (Identifying barriers)

This process helps people get "really connected to a level and refinement of your goal that can create that fire, that light inside you to come back on," Kristen explains.

For those who struggle to answer the first question (like the character in "The Notebook" who famously couldn't articulate what she wanted), Kristen recommends using the Wheel of Life exercise. This tool helps you evaluate different areas of your life—work/career, relationships/family, and health—and identify where improvement would make the biggest difference.

Rather than aiming for a perfect "10" in every area, which can feel overwhelming, Kristen suggests a more approachable approach:

"What I try to focus on with clients is: what would a seven look like? If you're at a six, what would a seven look like? Okay, maybe that's our goal. Maybe that's where we start, because sometimes when we see that gap, we can just totally check out by the overwhelming feeling."

This incremental approach makes progress seem achievable rather than daunting, helping people move from stuck to action.

Building a High-Performance Morning Routine

One of the most powerful tools in Kristen's arsenal for maintaining momentum and clarity is a consistent morning routine. While she emphasizes that her routine has evolved over time, she shares several non-negotiable elements that have transformed her performance:

1. Wake Up Earlier

"I absolutely encourage waking up earlier. That has been game-changing and transformative for me."

Kristen began this practice after working with a coach who hosted 6 a.m. calls focused on mindset and motivation. By 7 a.m., participants were "already at more of a ready for a peak performance level" because they'd started the day by exploring new ideas and possibilities.

2. Write Your Goals as if They've Already Happened

The centerpiece of Kristen's morning routine is a specific journaling practice:

"What really shifted and changed the game is starting with the goal setting... actually starting my journal entry with writing out the goal as if it's happened."

She recommends a specific format: "I'm so happy and grateful now that I [specific goal achieved]." For example:

"I am so happy and grateful that I earned this much revenue in this quarter of this year in my business."

Or:

"I am so happy and grateful that I had a wonderful time on my long weekend vacation in Niagara on the Lake."

This practice shifts your energy immediately: "My mood and energy just going into the day" improves dramatically, she explains.

3. Additional Elements

Kristen's complete morning routine also includes:

• Coffee
• Dog walking
• Reading
• Meditation or mindfulness practice
• Exercise (preferably in the morning, as she's discovered it's her optimal time)
• Creative work

While not everyone needs to include all these elements, Kristen emphasizes the importance of "taking some time to actually go slow into and intentionally into the morning, because that sets you up for success."

Embracing Hard Things: The Path to Growth

A critical aspect of high performance is the willingness to do what's difficult. In a culture that often prioritizes comfort and pleasure, Kristen's perspective on embracing challenges is particularly valuable.

Her sales career taught her the importance of doing hard things:

"I learned really quickly that I was going to have to have a lot of not difficult conversations because there was tension, but I was going to have to... step into being confident, speaking so I was heard, raising my hand to say something even if I didn't know it was the right answer."

As a 5-foot-tall blonde woman in the male-dominated technology sales industry, Kristen had to push herself constantly:

"If you wanted to have the opportunity to send a proposal, to quote on a deal, to earn the deal, to close the deal, you needed to be able to introduce yourself with confidence, to have the conversation, to sit in the boardroom and be the only woman amongst 12 other people."

This willingness to be uncomfortable became the foundation of her success:

"My sales career for sure was something that allowed me to really push outside my comfort zone constantly, because it was the only way I was going to hit quota, which ultimately was like my goal to hit accelerators and get paid more commission."

Three Mindset Principles for Success

Beyond goal setting and morning routines, Kristen shared three key mindset principles that have guided her journey:

1. "It's not over until it's over."

Too often, we give up too quickly on opportunities:

"Until someone says to me, 'Sorry, no thank you' or 'Not right now, follow up in a year'... You never know what's going on in someone else's life. You never know when you're going to land in someone's inbox and they need you more than they ever thought."

2. "It IS good and it IS true."

Many people downplay positive developments, thinking they're "too good to be true":

"Instead of enjoying and telling myself it is good and it is true... we're here, we only got one life. So when good things are happening, let's enjoy them. Let's live them full out. Let's be there. Let's be present."

3. "Everything is happening FOR me."

This perspective shift transforms how you view challenges:

"When you move away from things happening to you and instead things are happening for you, you honestly you will see possibility, you will see opportunity, you will find the right client, you will find the right job, you will find the right partner. Like things just open up for you when you start to see life happening for you rather than life happening to you."

The Power of Investing in Yourself

A pivotal moment in Kristen's journey came when she decided to invest in coaching for herself. Despite a successful corporate career, she found herself feeling stuck and unfulfilled:

"I found myself in bed first week of the year going like, 'What am I doing?' Like, this is not the career. This just—something needs to change. Maybe it's a different role, maybe it's a different—I don't know, but something needs to change."

When she hired her first coach, everything shifted:

"All of a sudden I started to learn more about myself... I started asking myself questions I had never asked myself before."

Remarkably, this was her first significant investment in personal development:

"If I think of like even a year prior to that, I remember a friend saying like, 'Well, what do you do for personal growth?' And I was like, 'What's personal growth?' Like, I had never ever thought to put my money in myself."

This investment led to a profound realization that ultimately guided her career transition:

"I was like, 'I have found now what I meant to do.'"

When she began building her coaching business, Kristen approached it strategically. Rather than making a dramatic exit from her corporate role, she started building her practice while still employed. She even took a two-month sabbatical to "run like a little experiment" and see if she enjoyed working for herself.

The contrast was immediate and telling:

"I was on calls for full-time work going, 'This is like leaving me depleted,' and then I would have a coaching client call and I would be like—my energy would be just through the roof. And so it was just so clear to me the direction."

Conclusion: From Stuckness to Clarity Through Intentional Goal Setting

Kristen's journey from corporate success to entrepreneurial fulfillment demonstrates how reconnecting with your authentic goals can transform feeling stuck into a launching pad for growth. By implementing a morning routine centered on visualizing your goals as already achieved, embracing the hard things that lead to growth, and adopting empowering mindset principles, you can break through plateaus and create momentum in your business and life.

As Kristen emphasizes, high performance isn't about comparing yourself to others—it's about commitment to your vision and showing up consistently. It's about being "an all-in kind of person" who puts in the work while remaining open to different paths to achievement.

Whether you're contemplating a career transition, feeling stagnant in your business, or simply seeking more alignment between your daily activities and deeper goals, Kristen's framework offers a practical approach to getting unstuck and moving forward with renewed clarity and energy.