100 goals sound like a lot, but when you read the 100 life goal examples below, you will see there are many more goals you could add to the list. This list is to get you started on your own list of goals. But first, read on about setting life goals for yourself before business goals.
When I was younger, setting goals to me meant focusing on my career. I believed at the time that if I set good career goals, all my life goals would eventuate. How wrong was I? I found I kept putting off my life goals to meet my career goals. In doing so, I was getting into a rut and unhappy as I had goals I wanted to achieve. I still have lots of goals I wish to achieve. I believe it is fantastic to have a list of life goals to achieve over your lifetime that you add to each year.
Over the years, I learned that it is best to set your own life goals before setting career or business goals. For life, goals create happiness and are generally aligned with your core values.
Being there for my children as they grew up was what I wanted. This was one of my life goals which I have achieved. Yet, it took a scary incident for me to change my direction and respect that goal.
When my daughter was very young, I was driving back from work late one evening, contemplating a career opportunity. The roads were very wet and the rain torrential. Even the windscreen wipers could not keep up. On slowing down at a set of traffic lights, I succeeded in spinning my car around. All four wheels stayed on the ground, but it was scary as my car spun while I tried to regain control. Fortunately, I hit no other cars, property or people.
The incident woke me up, and as of this day, I decided to choose to work closer to home and learn skills that would provide opportunities to work around my children as they grew up. The day I chose to put life goals first once again.
What is the meaning of life goals?
A life goal is an idea of a future personal outcome that a person plans and commits to achieve. In contrast, a business goal is a business outcome that a person or a group of people for the business plan to and commit to achieving.
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them”
Walt Disney
Life goals are desires people wish to achieve during their lifetime. Life goals connect with our core values, guiding us to live our best life. Your core values are the moral compass that guides you as you pursue your dreams.
Why plan life goals before business goals?
It is best to plan your life goals before your business goals. One reason for this is happiness. If you plan your business goals first, you may be unhappy, especially if your business goals do not align with your personal goals and values.
Your life goals are the goals you work on to become the person you would like to become.
Another reason to set your life goal first is to find what you want. So many people work in jobs they don’t like. In fact, many people invest a lot of time working and doing something they don’t like, thinking it is what they are meant to do. Why go to work miserable each day? Do something you love.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart you will know when you find it.”
Steve Jobs
Discover your personal life goals.
It is essential to have life goals that mean something to you. For, life goals are personal. Naturally, you may also have family, business, and relationship goals. However, life goals are something you wish to achieve to live the life you would like to live.
I’ve always been a goal-setter. Being a goal-setting does not mean I’ve achieved all my goals. In fact, I believe I’ve changed my goals many times, testing and searching for the goals that pull at my heartstrings. There have been times I thought I was going in the right direction and then discovered that my direction didn’t align with my values. For me, it is essential to have goals that align with my values in life.
A few years ago, I reset and redesigned my life goals as I discovered I was going off track. The path I was going down was not aligning with my values, nor was it fulfilling, and I was certainly not jumping with joy every morning when I woke up. Hence, I changed my direction by discovering what was important to me. As I pivoted in my career I focussed on an old goal that was reborn, study. Goal 16 in the goal examples list.
Your ultimate life goals will take some time to achieve. Therefore, having smaller goals related to your main goal is important. As you achieve the smaller goals, they become your mini motivators, the inspiration for your big scary goal.
How to discover your personal life goals.
Before discovering your personal goals, you need to know your personal values. These core values are principles and beliefs that mean something to you now. They may change over time. The reason your values change over time is what motivates you changes over time. What motivates you as a student is different from what motivates you as a mother, which is different from what motivates you as you plan for retirement. As you can see, your values will change.
My core value was family: being there for my children as they grew up. It is still family today to be there for my children and see extended family overseas. Some other core values I have at present are relationships, freedom, balance and growth. My core values have changed as my life goals are now leaning towards life as an empty nester, planning for retirement and helping women master the skills to live a more balanced life while achieving their goals. I do not” plan to retire. Entrepreneurs are workers who enjoy what they do. It’s part of their life.
Why do Life Goals change?
Over time your goals change because your goals reflect your values, the influences around you and your capabilities or what you believe you can achieve. Your age, time, money, career, health and family all influence your goal decisions.
I’m currently in midlife, thinking of life purpose and setting goals for retirement. Many people later in life set goals for retirement or discover their passions which can lead to different life plans, career changes or entrepreneurship.
When I was younger, one of my goals was to run a marathon. I did not achieve it. I focussed on it for a while, and then it became something I no longer prioritised. It was not a key goal. Now being older, I don’t rule out rerunning 5k or 10k. However, running a marathon would be a big challenge. Oh! My sore knees. Yet, this is still a big challenge to conquer.
An ultimate life goal example would be to live a happy and fulfilling life. However, a happy and fulfilling life would mean something different to everyone.
Ways to help you manifest your life goals.
Having a personal outcome in life, including creating a dream life for yourself, takes some planning. Actually, it requires that you set an intention for your life and see yourself in your future. Achieving your dreams takes action and focus. Achieving goals do not just happen. They are achieved through daily actions.
- Write a letter to your future self about your ideal day. Here are some questions to ask yourself to create your ideal day.
- Create a vision board and look at it daily. A good vision board helps you focus and reminds you to take daily action towards your goals.
- Use the power of mantras to help you manifest your dreams.
- Win the day by investing in a positive morning routine that helps you take action towards your goals.
What are some examples of life goals?
Some life goals are small, yet some life goals are referred to as big hairy audacious goals. goals in the 100 life goal examples are goals you may not view as goals. We all see things differently. There are a few goals in life that I never used to view as goals, yet these actions have assisted me with achieving some of my life goals.
- Setting yourself goals and creating a goal or life plan.
- Visualising your ideal day. You will be amazed by the small actions you can do daily to live your ideal day.
- Writing in a journal. Journaling helps with happiness, gratitude, resilience, and focus.
- Developing healthy habits. Eating, sleeping, exercising, and mindfulness.
- Being true to yourself and your personal values.
- Be kind to yourself and others.
100 Life goal examples
- To find what you love to do
- Become a business coach
- Become location independent by having a laptop lifestyle
- Improve relationships with family
- To create a foundation to help youth and young adults
- To be at my ideal weight
- Live a healthy lifestyle
- Run in a marathon
- Travel to all continents of the world
- Become a marketing consultant
- Volunteer in a developing country
- To speak on stage
- Travel around Australia, visiting many of the places in Australia’s Ultimate Bucket List: The Top 100 Places You Should See In Your Lifetime
. - To climb the seven peaks
- Learn to teach yoga paddling boarding – Yes, it’s a thing.
- Graduate from university – graduated in 2021.
- To live with work-life balance
- Become a public speaker
- Write a personal development book
- To read one book a week, currently, I listen to books via audible audiobooks
- Fly a plane
- Ice skate in New York at Central Park
- See the Northern Lights
- Go on a cruise to Alaska
- To be a giver
- To buy a family home
- Start a business from scratch again.
- To have zero debt
- Learn to play the guitar
- Build a six-figure online business
- Write a children’s book
- Generate a $5,000 online per month
- Walk The Camino de Santiago
- Teach 1000 people blogging skills
- To be a beekeeper
- Become a blood donor
- Attend an All Blacks game – see the haka live
- Go to a rodeo
- Learn sign language
- Fly a kite
- Walk part of the Inca Trail, see Machu Picchu, Peru
- Learn backgammon
- Learn karate
- See a wild koala
- Swim with sharks
- Learn to play the harmonica
- Spend a month being pampered at a health retreat
- Learn chess
- See the Pyramids of Giza, Cairo, Egypt.
- Develop the skill of drawing beautiful pictures like Rose Hill
- Learn how to ride a motorbike
- Knit 100 blanket squares for charity
- Help out at a homeless shelter
- Go to the Super Bowl
- Start a non-profit organisation
- Train a seeing-eye dog
- Go to Las Vegas
- See a Broadway musical
- Sell products on Amazon
- Have a personal trainer
- Run in a 10k charity race
- Cycle on a tandem across the state for charity
- Go white water rafting in New Zealand
- Attend the country music festival in Tamworth
- Write a guest blog post
- Jump out of a plane – with a parachute of course. Tandem Jump.
- Swim with dolphins
- Be an extra in a movie
- Learn Reiki
- Do a firewalk
- Go barramundi fishing
- Live debt-free
- Have an emergency fund that is to the value of at least a years income.
- To go on a bobsled ride in St Moritz
- To walk every day for a year 10,000 steps
- Stay at a spa retreat 4 times a year
- To go on a date night every week with my husband
- Fly first class
- Be featured in a magazine
- To experience van life for a year.
- Master 10 yoga poses
- Be a role model, be inspiring
- Attend a formula one race
- Snorkel in the Maladies
- Go to the Taj Mahal
- Walk over the Zhangjiajie glass bridge, China
- Playoff a single golf handicap
- Own a classic car
- Eat at a 50’s American diner
- Walk down the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- Drive a race car around a race track
- Attend Bathurst 1000, V8 race
- Attend the Summernats in Canberra.
- Visit Arnhem land, Australia.
- Walk The Great North Walk, Sydney to Newcastle NSW, Australia
- Renovate a small home
- Grow my own fruit and vegetables
- See St. Basil Cathedral, Moscow
- Live in alignment with my values
- Enjoy life to the fullest
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Hopefully, these life goal examples have assisted you. However, if you are still stuck on defining your goals, here are 8 tips to help you set and achieve your goals.
Where to track your goals.
There are many different ways you could keep track of your goals or commence your 100 goal list.
- Write your life goals in your daily journal or in a life goal journal specific to writing and breaking down your goals into those manageable goals.
- Use a printable template to write down your goals.
- Put your goals on your vision board.
- List your goals on a program you use on your computer.
- Keep your goals in a phone app. Remember to back up and download your goals list. You don’t want to lose it. (yes, speaking from experience).
The three types of goals to set in life.
There are three types of goals to set in life. A goal may assist with the progress towards a larger goal or be time or topic based.
Time goals are either long or short-term. An example of a long-term life goal would be to run a marathon with a short-term goal of learning to run. Naturally, when you learn to run, you commence with running shorter distances.
Focus goals. There are the big hairy audacious goals. To clarify, it’s the goal that drives decisions. The big goal must have an emotional attachment for you to remain focused.
Topic goals are goals that are precise and topic-based. Long- and short-term goals, as do personal and business goals, fall in this category. In short, these goals come under specific aspects of life and can be long or short-term goals.
Aiming to create a work-life balance involves balancing many areas of life. Thus, having eight topic goals for life balance is not unusual. Understanding the life wheel is an excellent place to start with writing down your goals for a more balanced life.
What are big hairy audacious goals?
A BHAG, a big hairy audacious goal, is usually a long-term goal, an ultimate life goal. A goal that may take 5 or 10-plus years to achieve. This goal will get you out of your comfort zone and certainly test you.
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years”
Bill Gates
Some big hairy audacious goals are in the list of personal goals above. Everyone is different; what is scary to one person may not be to another. Also, what is audacious to one person may not be to another. An audacious goal, though, is one you may not achieve. However, it is one that stretches you beyond belief to achieve. As you strive for your big goal, you will achieve many smaller goals along the way. One thing to note is if you know you can achieve the goal, it is not big enough.
Discover your personal values, and download the 140 Core Values list.
Example of BHAGs
- To sail around the world
- To be a blogging influencer
- Be the go-to person in your field or industry
- To be a speaker on a TED Talk show
- To build a six-figure business from scratch
- Be a top 10 author
- To climb Mt Everest
- To live in Thailand for a year
- To graduate from university
Life goals may look big and out of reach. Yet, every life goal can be broken down into smaller action steps. It’s mastering habits that help with the achievement of goals. The key to remember is a little action goes a long way.
Did you know when you share your goals, you are more accountable to them? Share one or some of your goals in the comments below. Let’s grow the life goal examples list together.
For a good portion of my adult life I lived from paycheck to paycheck. During that period of time I was focussed on staying well, earning money and making sure my children were safe and happy. Eventually I got out of that stressful situation and was able to address the questions of “life, the universe and everything.”
I appreciate your values oriented approach because it’s very difficult to be happy with anything when you compromise your values.
Thanks, Lydia, it sure is difficult to be happy when values are compromised just as it is difficult to stay focused on your values when life is out of balance. Great to read that questions of life have been answered. I also read you have walked ‘Pilgrims way’ – Camino de Santiago, a walk known for self-reflection. This is one walk I intend to do.
Hi, Angie!
We seem to share the same values – my family and God are the top priority in my life. This has helped me to set the right goals in every other aspect of my life including my career.
That’s why I totally love this post particular the area you wrote about defining your life goals before your career goals.
This is even more important to us as women who want to get it right on every side.
No matter how important your business ideas are, if your life goals are defective, you’ll unavoidably have issues in life to tackle.
Great post, Angie!