We’ve talked before (a while back) about thinking about and setting life goals:
- Think about your life goals
- A Simple Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Life Goals
- How to Stick to Your Goals When Life Disrupts ‘Em
But I’d like to hear from all of you — what are your top life goals, what are your dreams, what is your mission in life?
If you haven’t given this much thought, or haven’t thought about it in awhile, there’s no better time than the present!
So here’s today’s reader question:
What are your top 3 life goals?
Let us know in the comments!
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174 brilliant comments
Well, the most important thing to me is to be together forever with my bride. For some reasons, we’re separatted by now, but we’re doing all we can to marry, soon.
The second thing is to have financial stability. But of course, work with things I like.
And for last, one thing that everybody wants, and a thing that will came like a result of the others that I wrote: be happy ^^
This promises to be a great thread! My 3 life goals are: (1) my own TV show giving gives advice to teens, immigrants, and minorities answering basic questions about how to succeed in the U.S. (think Sesame Street for an older crowd; or, alternately, the Suze Orman show but for personal development, not just personal finance); (2) get to my target weight and stay there (which is why I started a 100% water fast today and expect to drop 28 lbs. in 14 days and keeping a log about my progress at http://shanelyang.com/2008/07/03/fasting-log-day-1/ ; and (3) publish an inspiring yet fun to read novel for kids/teens.
#1 To bring people lasting peace, happiness and freedom
#2 To learn everything about myself and the world
#3 To discover greater and greater peace, happiness and freedom
I guess they are not really goals. More like missions that take place in every moment, that’s what I think of when I hear ‘life goals’.
1. Helping others to fulfill their dreams in life
2. Living in an an eco village
Cheers
Thomas Herold
CEO Dream Manifesto
My goals are more to do with a state of being and experience rather than actual physical accomplishments:
#1 - To be happy and fulfilled within my professional career
#2 - To raise a wonderful, happy and healthy family
#3 - To grow and develop myself on a daily basis so that I am able to reach my full potential in every experience and endeavor.
On my blog I have created a Goal Setting Mind Map that you guys might find useful in helping you to set and achieve your goals. I hope you like it. It is free to dowload and distribute :)
1. Build a tiny house with my husband
2. Continue self-education
3. Travel more
I actually put these in a list a few months ago:
1) Change the world
2) Create beautiful photographs
3) Help people
To see my girls living successfully on their own.
Retire and not have to eat pet food
Camp at every national park in the US
To own land that I can build a home on and have a small farm.
To film my own independent movie.
To travel the world by sale boat.
1, 2, and 3 To live mindfully. If I can do this I think everything else will follow.
1. To continue the work i’ve started on my inner disciplines.
2. To make good on my goal of having positive effects on the lives of others, even in small ways, every day.
3. To begin Airstreaming the U.S. full-time, with my wife, by the age of 50. (or sooner, depending on financial status.)
1) To get a permanent position in an orchestra somewhere around the world
2) To share my love of music with as many people as possible
3) To travel, learning about the world and its peoples.
1. To get my next novel published (and many more after that).
2. To travel and see as much of the world as I can.
3. To contribute toward raising awareness of and finding a cure for dystonia (the third most common movement disorder after Parkinson’s and tremors).
1. To raise my two boys to be positive, enthusiastic people who will make a difference in the world
2. To travel to obscure corners of this planet and experience life in different cultures
3. To leave a lasting legacy behind that will have made a difference to lots of people
Top Goals:
1. To create a network of thousands of living room concerts, which allow artists to perform in intimate spaces, for attentive audiences, without having their pay decided by how much alcohol is sold.
2. To grow as an artist, husband, and member of my community.
3. To overcome many of my limiting beliefs, so I can spend more time feeling inspired instead of overwhelmed and confused.
1) To figure out what I want to be when I grow up. (read: figure out what it is that I am actually pationate about and go after it)
2) Be the best parent and then (hopefully not toooo soon) the best Gramma I can be.
3) Grow old “healthfully”… I want quality as well as quantity in my years.
(1) become financially independent, stay financially independent, and never use credit again
(2) to write a screenplay that is bought, produced, and filmed and becomes a critical and commercial success
(3) to have children with a loving and faithful wife
…but, to achieve all life goals, smaller short-term goals are my immediate focus!
Keep matchmaking.
Keep writing haiku.
Be present to myself and others.
I’m not sure how stable this list is, but it’s interesting to think about. Thank you, Leo, and everyone else brave enough to go ahead and type their words out loud here.
1. Become an influential science-fiction artist/ illustrator.
2. Become a skilled socializer capable of getting along with and relating to others.
3. Understand myself and others.
After looking at all the things I wanted to be when I was growing up, I noticed a pattern. All of them, from movie director to human rights lawyer, had to do with other people. I always loved being an entertainer. I loved using my sense of humor to cheer people up and ultimately make their lives a little better. That’s how I came to realize my mission in life is to uplift, inspire, and ultimately change the world.
That basically means I go out everyday and spend my time doing things that add value to my life and the lives of other people. And there are tons of those. Every time I read a book, go running, or do a favor for a friend, I like to believe I make a small difference in the world. Silly as it may sound, I believe those things add value to my life and I believe that value gets passed on to everyone around me.
That’s my key to happiness. It’s just a case of living one day at a time and making sure every day counts. It’s about doing little things that have a huge impact. A smile here and a compliment there really go a long way! In the end you realize that happiness is a choice and that you might as well be happy because 99% of the time there’s no reason not to.
1 - Learn how to play the piano.
2 - Write a book.
3 - Travel to every country in the world.
Good thing you only asked for the top 3 :) I have a really long life list.
Top 3 Goals!
1. Create an educational model that will revolutionize education.
2. Write a novel or two.
3. Grow very very old with my wife.
First of all I want to work in a job that I like, second I want to live in Australia (currently Germany) and third I want to be happy :)
i) To be in tune with Spirit.
ii) To have balance.
iii) To give back.
1. Raise an empathetic, independent, joyful daughter.
2. Stop dieting forever
3. Travel to the Italian Riviera
1. Honour and cherish everyday I have with the love of my life and the future children we may have
2. Make a difference in the fight against obesity.
3. Overcome my personal weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
1. Raise happy, healthy children.
2. Have a happy, loving, faithful marriage.
3. Be successful in a job that allows me to be successful in other areas of life (work/life balance and also enough to pay for the life part!)
I know that I have the ability and the means to become so much more. I could travel the world, become a famous dancer, teach hundreds of people, or become a powerful businesswoman. But all I’ve experienced in life has shown me that I love the simple pleasures the deepest.
Well, I’ve got a bit more thinking to do before I construct a list of my own, but I just wanted to pop in and say THANK YOU to all those whose list includes helping others in some way.
It is really heart-warming to read so many courageous goals, by people who obviously care deeply about even one small ’section’ of humanity — and hey, even if that ’small section’ is only one other indivudal!
The world needs more people like you folks.
I am mostly with @sunny — see the girls grow up is great.
1 - Franchise my business so that at some point we can take a break while still growing it further
2 - Learn how to take things a little easier
3 - Find a new passion in life to keep me occupied
- To get my mind and body working together soundly; to achieve optimum health essentially, to support whatever I wish to do in life.
- To become so good at bellydancing that I can dance with the professionals and look like I belong there
- To fully realise a fictional world which I can share online and use to teach scientific principles, history, and stimulate the imaginations of others
To Hit It
To Kick Ass
To Die
1. To be financially free to live my life the way I choose.
2. To have a loving and fulfilling personal relationship.
3. To inspire and help other people in their life journey.
Off the top of my head:
* Live a life of love and realize all my potential. Exactly what this means, I’m not sure of yet.
* Find someone to love and raise a wonderful family with.
* Somehow reach financial independence.
Wow! That felt really good to write. Than you Leo and everybody else for the motivation!
1. Honor and cherish my family: be with and care for my parents and my husband’s parents as they age, stay close with my brother and his family, continue to find joy and trust with my husband, raise the children we hope to have very soon. Include friends who are like family to me.
2. Lean about the world and use that knowledge: continue my career in medical research and clinical practice, letting my curiosity and desire to understand the profound guide me in my attempts to improve the quality of human life at each point at which we experience it.
3. Find, create, recognize and treasure joy.
1. To be in conrtol of my thoughts. Viktor Krankel (sp?) idea - if I can do this then I can be content, happy or whatever no matter what the circumstances
2. Live and love wisely every day
3. And to leave the most positive possible legacy after me when I do “shake off this mortal” skin.
My 3 top life goals, ordered:
#1: Contentment
#2: Knowledge & Understanding
#3: Teaching
No, I’m neither teacher by profession nor buddhist by faith.
1. Bring peace to the world by increasing world prosperity and facilitating understanding between current enemies
2. Nurture my strengths and those of others
3. Have the ability to make people happy and energized to do great things.
1. My life goal is to be working from home 2 days a week by this time next year without loss of income, meaning I only have to leave the house for 3 days. This is because my wife has fallen pregnant with our first child and I want to spend the majority of time with them, not with my colleagues.
2. To do this I’ve focused on marketing my strengths to potential clients and broken down my goal into 12 managable chunks, one for each month, with a to-do list for each month.
3. As these chunks are small and easily managable, if something comes along one month and disrupts them, it won’t be too hard to get back on track the following month.
As a reminder and performance tracker, and to keep me motivated, I wrote my plan down and gave it it’s own dedicated page on my blog and by using this method I cannot foresee any reason as to why it cannot work.
1. Live a life of integrity and happiness.
2. Marry a like-minded partner to spend my life with.
3. Have a fulfilling career that gives me way more than just a lot of money.
I haven’t really thought about these. I mean, I HAVE, but I don’t think of them as life goals in terms of “things to do before I die.” I think of them in terms of “ways to be throughout life.” Y’know? Anyway:
1) Rejoice in living presently.
2) Be in love
3) Help others
I’m going to be more specific about my goals:
1. Travel the world
2. Make new friends
3. Get a 6-pack
1. Find a wonderful woman to live with her till the end
2. Only doing work that I really appreciate
3. Learn as much as possible
Writing these down (again) makes me realise that I need to focus more on actually achieving these!
1) Generate Income without a 9-5 job, or at least create my own business that I love to work at.
2) Be in a band - I’m a guitarist - just a covers band for a laugh, rather that a world conquering super band.
3) Be Happy and Healthy
1. Constantly work on becoming better at everything that I do.
2. Enjoying the journey of live.
3. Make a positive difference in other peoples lives.
Everything else will come from those.
Become financially independent, find true love and on the way change the world to be a better place
1. Work on my creative skills (taking photographs, writing for my blog)
2. keep on learning and be open for new things
3. stay in contact with people I like and I can learn from; make new contacts with people I can learn from; share my knowledge with them.
1) Create internet startup & company which provide me some money that i will not have to work in Wendys or MCDonald as a part-time
2)Work on my physique, gain 5 more kilograms of muscles & to win my first fight in thai boxing
3)Find long term relationship with some smart girl who i simply love
health, wealth and hot sex!
1. To end my doctorate thesis on Social Creativity (it is at 80%).
2. To keep at hand my lots of books, notes, clippings, etc. (I mean in order of battle).
3. To keep my marriage as happy as it has been during the last 49 years (we are more than 70).
1. to practice being a loving person
2. to anchor my sense of peace and security WITHIN me and not outside of me…to be inner referented.
3. to be a published writer
To Live with integrity - I do what I say I’m going to do
To Enjoy life - being healthy, present, grateful and having fun
To be generous and make a difference in the world
1. Give up hope in the future.
2. Make peace with my existence.
3. Live my love.
1) To be happy, content.
2) Happy my own education institute college in a third world, developing, poor, country.
3) Do something positive that will make a lasting impression on the world in a very positive way for many years to come and will benifit many many people.
I stated my life purpose as Follows: “Interesting and joyfull life of freedom, understanding and simplicity for me and others”. To live my life puspose my current top 3 goals is
1. lay fondation for long term stong health.
2. work for my plesure and on my chosen time.
3. become financially independant
At first, sorry for my bad english im trying to improve it.
1. Reach goals of my life
2. Reach happines inside me
3. Extend happines outside me
Be happy!
I loved this post and especially people’s comments and their ability to share what really matters to them. Just writing down important life goals is a big first step in achieving them, and the next is to ask yourself “what’s currently stopping you?” And then what? And then what? Until you get to the point where any fears you have or perceived barriers just don’t seem to affect you or hold you back anymore. So often life has a habit of getting in the way of what really matters, and this post was wonderful for helping people to just stop for a minute and take stock. One of my own personal, if not life, goals is to think and do - don’t worry about getting it right, just get going.
1. Become rich
2. Marry a beautiful, caring, intelligent wife
3. Save the world
There’s some really cool comments in here already, but topping my top three goals in life currently:
1) Work From a Beach - In December I’ll be leaving for South East Asia to Travel, and try my hand at travel writing and some blogging and website projects - The logic been since all I need to do my job is a computer, why would I stay in a sleepy little town in the north of England when I can work just as well sitting in a hammock on a desert island.
2) Travel The World and Be Useful Along the Way - This sort of carries on from the first one, with a keep moving slant to it. I don’t really have the sort of mentality to want to save the world, but I do want to do my bit to help, so as part of my travel plans I’m looking at things like work on organic farms with WWOOF.
3) Be Awesome.
I don’t think I have a “top three”… I basically have one major goal: to relax, let go of perfectionism/ overachieving and enjoy NOW rather than race toward goals that are ultimately not important.
@Vered, why not enjoy now WHILE striving for goals worth achieving? (I agree that racing towards goals that are not important is a waste of time).
To be happy, understanding & intelligent
My first two goals are quite clear:
#1 - create
#2 - help others unleash their authentic, individual creativity
#3 is less clear. Perhaps: be a great friend and partner, have a life of fun and fulfillment with great people.
1) Become financially free and independent.
2) Experience as many places and as many people as I possibly can.
3) Promote sustainability in my life, business and society - touching on any relevant aspect - through writing, speaking, and consulting.
Toward #3, I have started my own blog, Simple Sustainability, which discusses the use of minimalist design principles (from any/every discipline) to create more sustainable businesses. It is at http://simplesustainability.blogspot.com/
To glorify God
To enjoy Him forever
To steward and enjoy the people and circumstances He brings to me in this world
1. Create successful World Wide Web Company.
2. Balance in life: sports, wisdom, spirituality, freedom.
3. Nice girl :)
1. The success of my company - http://www.ReimagineIt.com
2. To make a feature length movie.
3. To get my black belt in Jiu Jitsu.
http://www.YinVsYang.com
Wow, what a question.
1.- To be a saint (don’t be too shocked, please :) )
2.- To have a family
3.- To write
This is a great post! My life goals are the same as the most popular here: better finances, true love, happiness or helping others. I work on it every day.
When I read so many like-minded posts, it simply makes the world smaller and reminds me of how much we all have in common.
These may not actually be goals, but here goes.
To live my life with
- passion
- trust
- caring
My goals reflect my fundamental priorities in life:
1. Family - Love them, spend time together and learn and grow with each other.
2. Health - Live a life that keeps me fit physically, mentally and spirtually.
3. Success in my endeavors (to support #1 and #2) - Apply my skills and background to take calculated risks to achieve financial independence on my own terms to support my top priorities.
Thanks.
-Have a family
- Finish the many books I have started to write but stopped for some reason
- Continue to develop professionally throughout my career
1. To complete a marathon.
2. To compete in a body building competition (obviously can not be simultaneous with the marathon training)
3. To travel around the world
1. To love a much as possible.
2. To learn as much as possible.
3. To smile as much as possible.
It is good to see so many goals about marriage and family! Here are mine:
1) Stay married and together raise our daughters to be healthy, productive adults.
2) Become the millionaire next door.
3) Spend ample time traveling the world, meeting interesting people, and having numerous adventures.
These are what I consider the keys to living life to the fullest!
1. Live in a positive way that contributes to the well-being of whoever or whatever I come in contact with (this includes the Earth).
2. Love enormously.
3. Contribute and be as productive as I can, for as long as I can.
Hey Mate!
Top 3 goal’s yea???
1) Get a 350 + on my OAT on August 20th 2008
2) Get into a great optometry school for fall 2009
3) Get my blog http://www.thegrowingroom.net to get some more readers! hahah!
Leo, are you back from vacation yet? I have a vibe that you are still away but I am not sure..
Well hopefully you are enjoying yourself no matter what!
Cya Leo,
Matt
- Live a Life Worth Living, No Regrets Ever
- Help Others to Find Happiness and Health
- Live in the Present Moment…All the Time.
Of course these will change as things always do. Right now, they are:
1. See the Grand Canyon. Yes, sounds trivial to some but I want to hike down into it and raft out .. I want to see that immensity up close and personal. It just gets to me right to my core.
2. Live mindfully .. I’m immersed in Eckhard Tolle right now and weaving his teachings into my life.
3. Live well into old age.
Have my own company, with my wife as my partner. This would allow me to share more time with my family (kids included) while I am still making money. I don’t want to be a lazy rich, I enjoy working. Second, I would like to live in North America or Europe. I live in Venezuela and I would like to live in a place where my kids have more opportunities to develop and grow, and in a safe place. Third, I want to leave something for the future: a book, a park, a statue… something to give hope to anyone who looks/reads/walks at it.
These are my goals.
straight to the point !kinda ambitioous
1.Attain state of buddhism
2.witness truth
3.Build cutting edge robots
Hey,
My top 3 goals in life
1) Die for something I believe in
2) Travel the world and document cultures
3) Love with truth to myself and others without fear
Dear Friends,
I have communicated with several of you and want to share my thoughts:
This will be a glorious year! The parent body is energized and very enlightened! This is a “transition” year in personnel (the “head teacher” is mostly for school district purposes), not in operation, so the proper term is RENEWAL—no “re-structuring.”
Personally, my goal is to document the school year and submit it for a Nobel Peace Prize. From the First Day of School to the year-end Pancake Breakfast, there are stories to share. Think about it—a school is the only thing in the world that doesn’t grow old—teachers lead the children and parents in a never-ending cycle of celebrations. There is magic and miracle every day.
“Child-centered” is an educational philosophy alive and well at OAS—Aristotle, John Dewey, Howard Gardner; “teacher-directed” is methodology and curriculum; “parent-involved” is a simple matter of good volunteer management and meeting facilitation. (Perplexed? There’s Sergiovanni’s Building Community in Schools or Straus and Doyle’s How to Make Meetings Work—never read them myself but I used to work for David Straus. I prefer picture story books.) My “art” is articulation and celebration.
Rachel Gately and Taymar Pixley are producing a video documentary—Gwen Phillips is “The Head Teacher”, Liz Varni-Rivera is “The Master Teacher” and OAS is “The School of Our Dreams”. Perfect casting! As the “torch” is handed off to Nitin and Alex, let’s articulate who and what we are. We have thirty-three years of revelations and reflection to compile. Ever see the Academy-award winning film, “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing?” Gwen Phillips plays the piano and hopefully will accompany us as we sing The Songs. (She makes me feel like singing!)
Cheers!
Kate
1. Raise my sons to be happy, healthy young men who are able and confident to do anything they desire.
2. Become a filmmaker . . . hopefully successful.
3. Reach the point where I can live anywhere in the world without having to spend my days slaving away for money.
1. Stay Happy
2. Financial Security
3. Babies
Easy!
I want my life to be a blessing to the earth and all its species. Any three goals I could name would all come down to that. I am working toward that goal with my writings in http://www.diamondcutlife.org/. Blessings to you!
My top three life goals are:
• To learn as much I can about the world around me and how to better it.
• To help others around me, whether that is friends/family or complete strangers.
• To live with complete peace and happiness inside of me and not let others effect that.
The last one I am sure I can play around with the words but that’s always how it seems to come out! Great post Leo!
Simple.
1) Live
2) Laugh
3) Love
Help people reach their potential by offering them tools to unburden themselves from insecurity, unhealthy boundaries, unresolved issues, self-doubt, and bad habits.
Help people stop being victims who don’t “own their own stuff” so they can fully embrace the liberty found in personal responsibility.
Learn to impart all of the above with more love, helpfulness, compassion, passion, and fun.
what are your top life goals, what are your dreams, what is your mission in life?
Wow, 90 comments already on a Holiday! You folks have your act together. Thanks so much for the insightful and creative goals.
• to be rich
• to be healthy
• to be happy
1. To be able to inspire others like how I have been inspired
2. To be able to heal
3. To love and care for people who are truly important in my life
To perform to the fullest whatever tasks God sets before me.
To grow spiritually.
To accomplish earthly goals with total committed fervor and with good intent.
Hey, this is a great thread.
1. Hold my children’s children (if they want children, that is)
2. Publish a book that brings joy to others
3. Learn to meditate
I have soooo many goals… to narrow them down to the most important three..hmmm.. kind of challenging, but here goes–
1. To become and maintain a healthy mind, body, and spirit
2. To become finanically FREE while enjoying what I do for work
3. To continue learning (get another degree- or two, learn a new language- fluently, and learn an instrument- proficiently!
I never subscribe to comments but I did to this one. Just about every one makes me smile and I think, yes, I have that goal too. Thank you for this gift.
To learn how to paint again.
To learn how to write again.
To learn not to worry again.
Thanks, great question.
Hmm… good question, didn’t really give it a good time to ponder. Some ideas, but nothing really life-centric. One would be to have my own bursarie foundation which gives 1000$(CAD) each year for studies in urban planning and transports.
Did you notice ? Most life goals are vague and not easy to identify as ’succed’. What is a healthy body and mind ? How can you do this when you live near a highway and thus, the air quality is lower than average ?
How come most life goals are vague and poorly defined ? Instead of ‘traveling more’ how about ‘visiting all continents ?’, ‘travelling to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland and France’ ?
Have a good day by fulfilling your day’s objective ;-)
The truly enlightened are aware there are no goals. All is now as it should be, and perfect as it is.
You are not Zen…
Rex
1) To run a marathon (done)
2) To write a database management system in BASIC (done)
3) To write a book (in progress)
As it happens, the first goal taught me a lot about physical discipline, the second about intellectual discipline, and the third about spiritual discipline (probably).
1) Be financially free. Not because I crave wealth, but because I want to do the other things that cost money, like…
2) Travel. Anywhere. Everywhere. What better way to gain a better perspective on the world and my own (small) place in it.
3) Always be learning. Any and all kinds. For example, I only speak English. I’d like to learn more. To do it formally costs money. To do it through travel costs money. Yeah… the interconnectedness of it all.
Oh I love this topic!
1) To master Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
2) Write a book
3) Have the world know my name
1. To transform money from an impediment into an asset.
2. To transform my body from an impediment into an asset.
3. To love fully and move through the universe with an open heart.
For the next five years:
1. Finish a marathon
2. Go on a safari in Africa
3. Complete a Yoga Teacher Certification program in Greece
Live Big, everybody!
Jenny
Just 3?
1. soulmate
2. understand god/universe
3. make one significant contribution to the human race(invention)
1. achieve financial freedom
2. travel the world
3. make a difference in the lives of others (i’m in college to earn my degree in counseling/psychology and human services)
#1 Finally have our dream house built (permits are finally pending, after 7 years).
#2 Give my son his wings as he goes to college in the fall.
#3 Go wherever my creativity takes me in my life and marriage.
1. Die while giving my live meaning (by helping others - this can take years!)
2. Attain financial freedom (by generating enough money to be self sustaining)
3. To make other people understand that they can make a difference in this world.
Wonderful question!
1. Do my part to help children become curious, critically-thinking, happy adults.
2. Keep shifting from reactive to proactive.
3. Be a curious, crtically-thinking, happy adult.
I dont have any goals .I’ve realised actually I am pretty comfortable at the moment ,but,I want some direction and
something to aim for .I dont want to drift through life yet I dont know what I want .Guess I need to do some soul searching .
1. Set clear priorities and day by day stay focused on what’s important and shed the rest.
2. Grow my family in health of the spirit, loving each other, curious about the world but steady on the centrality of the family
3. Grow my kids free, corageous, confident by letting them understand that money is not wealth and that they can choose to live in a system (maybe not in the US) where they aren’t born with “the original sin” of being into debts. Like my wife and me have done.
As an actor, I’ve found it’s easy to get pulled off course chasing fame, or opportunity, or money. Similarly, it’s easy to get pulled the other way by rejection or bouts of un- or under-employment. I’ve found having a mission statement to be hugely helpful to remind me why I’m doing this in the first place.
My Mission Statement: To entertain and enlighten people all over the world.
I’ve also found that goal setting helps gets your goals done, and you have to keep moving the goalposts! That said, my current big temporal goals are to win an Academy Award, visit Paris and Venice, stay at my goal weight of a lean 168, pay off the house, keep improving balance of work and family . . .
My top life goal is to be able to die knowing that I left nothing undone and that I did as little harm as possible.
My more immediate goals are to
- continue creating my website to help others who find themselves unemployed in this difficult economy,
-to help my children leave the nest with all of the tools they need to survive and thrive, including a work ethic, life skills and education,
-and finally just to love - everyone I come in contact with, including myself.
Of course, these are in no particular order. :)
Top 3 goals:
To always make a difference
To always keep learning and taking risks
To always keep smiling and be happier
My 3 main goals are:
1. Being financially ‘free’.
2. Becoming a well rounded person (i.e. like the great rennaissance men, like Da Vinci).
3. I want to see everything the world has to offer.
1 ) Happiness
2 ) A happy life for those special people around me (esp. my wife)
3 ) Get all those random thoughts out of my head and onto a piece of paper (in the form of a novel)
Three Life Goals:
1) Simplicity
2) An Awakened Mind
3) A Fully Enlivened Heart
Health
Happiness
Success
Great post, Leo!
@Adam from Study Matrix Art - thanks for directing us to your site! I found your post really helpful in making the following 3 life goals - and your mind map is very cool.
1) Conscious and self-sustainable living - this goal is motivated by loving the Earth, myself and others.
2) Healthy, happy and fulfilling relationship for life - motivated by gratitude for my current relationship. A life goal like this is a constant reminder to love and respect my hubby (and myself because I deserve a loving relationship!).
3) Achieve total health and teach others. Motivated by self-love and love for others. Already in progress as I’ve lost over 50 lbs and 50 inches on my health journey, and I’m sharing how in my total health blog, Live Lighter.
Thanks for sharing, everyone!
My top three are:
1. Continue to enjoy my wonderful wife and family (including my fantastic mother-in-law who lives with us);,
2. maintain my financial independence through prudent investing;
3. visit all places of great historic importance, after reading a lot about them, including fiction.
And even though Leo only asked for three, here are two more:
4. to continue to write philosophical essays and to gain both in philosophical depth and recognition;
and
5. to read widely, to play the American songbook on the piano, (at least 300 songs), and to draw in watercolor.
Now I also want to comment on the idea of goals and objectives. The reason mnost people don’t have specific goals is that most goials are simply not specific. The goal comes from an inner sense of who you are (happy, wealthy, philosophical) and it comes before the objectives (#1 million dollars, 5 published philosophy books).
The confusion between goals and their associated objectives is one of the biggest obstacles to getting anywhere in life. Goals typically form without ANY objectives, and then the objectives for to give the goals direction. Objectives without goals are meaningless. I have a friend who wants to paint 100 paintings. That’s a clear objective, all right, but the question is “Why”. Does she want to be a good and recognized painter or not? Goals come first.
To paraphrase Kant, Goals without Objectives are blind, and Objectives without Goals are empty.
1. worry less
2. live in a simple cottage with my husband and a couple of cats.
3. be financially stable.
All my “goals” are on-going, never ending. (I suppose it’s a kind of goal of mine, or at least a guiding principle, not to be too ‘goal-driven’.) Maybe I should call them ‘life principles’ instead.
They are:
1. Do anything for love. (Romantic love. I’m in a huge love relationship now, for 12 years so far, and will be forever.)
2. Pay attention! Listen, learn, look. There’s always a lot going on. Be passionate about it.
3. Be courageous. For me, this means going through emotional difficulties without collapsing. And collapsing without giving up. And no matter how bad things get, or people are, always keep my moral principles strong and clear. Do what’s right.
Anyway, sometimes I fail, but these are my goals; they are most central to who I am.
1. Be able to look upon my life with happiness and contentment.
2. Make the world a better place, by being a great parent to a child.
3. Find love.
Now that I’ve to think of only 3 goals, its really difficult. After much thought I narrowed myself to 3 that will become the foundation for my other goals.
1. Improve health
2. Keeping learning new subjects
3. Improve my patience
To merge with HIM and never born again.
1. Health and healthy relationships with people and nature
2. Being content with what I have
3. Read a book a week (at least 3000 more)
@ other commentors: Those are some great goals! Given that there are only three to chose from, it makes narrowing down difficult. But, also helps provide focus.
1.) Raise my children to be their personal best possible.(Race an Ironman triathlon with my children.)
2.) Be a lifelong warrior, adventurer, and creator.
3.) Live an authentic life of integrity in accordance with my Christian values.
I am very grateful for the life I have right now.
1. Have good health
2. Be the person my dogs think I am
3. Travel
1. To be with my family, when they need me.
2. To re-engineer, revive, rediscover life - and write / share about it.
3. To teach a culture where wealth is valued, not money :)
1. Be happy and comfortable with who I am, but challenging myself to be better each day.
2. Have financial stability, so I can put my future children through undergrad and for myself and my future husband to travel the world.
3. Have a strong and beautiful family that will support each other and love each other through tough times and bad.
1. To stay healthy and exercise daily
2. To motivate our sons to become successful human beings(Two more sons to go)
2. To Travel with my wife and continue our weekly hikes
1. To remain healthy
2. to motivate and guide our sons to become successful and healthy adults
3. To travel with my wife.
1) Make the world a better place
2) Love my family, fully and deeply
3) Find true happiness … again
Great comments! Mine are from a newspaper clipping on the definition of success that I discovered in my Mom’s things after she died. It’s become sort of a personal mantra for me:
Live well, laugh often, love much.
The mantra really helps because it keeps me focused on what I want and helps me think through what I’m doing and whether it’s really living up to the mantra or not.
The specific goals under each category evolve as I get older and wiser and cross things off the list or abandon them and I think that’s ok. At the moment the goals in each category are:
1 Reinventing my writing career so that it’s more satisfying to me and more service oriented and also more fun -and hopefully more profitable
2 Doing more yoga and hiking as I’m just happier when I get out in nature and take care of my health.
3 Dating again with the an eye to finding a life partner
Good question.
1. Provide for my family
2. Provide while doing something I’m passionate about
3. Provide a service to others
That about sums it up….
Rick
What is up with Thomas Herold??? Unfortunate to see such a beautiful idea maniupated into something for commercial gain. My guess is that Thomas has a lot to learn…
My goals:
1. Be a person of value
2. Live to be 110
3. Appraoch every day with the energy of a young child and the wisdom of an old man
To live a mindful, unstressed, simple, uncluttered life
To create original music and art and books
To care for other humans, animals and birds
In no particular order:
1) Have a career that brings enjoyment and financial stability to my life.
2) Have a successful marriage and family.
3) To live a content and joyful life and be spiritually sound with God.
My top three life goals are to:
1. Live in the present and seize the day
2. Listen to my passion and take action to its wishes
3. Give back more than I take
1.) Making lots and lots of money
2.) Doing everything I can to make my parents happy
3.) Travel all over the world when I am rich and try out all sorts of new things … (like rafting, sky diving etc etc )
My first goal is to create a little society base upon the one depict in Marrion Zimmer Bradley novel “The Climbing Wave”. My part is to have a farm for my personnal primary needs and a four month per year activity for my achievments needs.
My second goal is to become a warrior. I don’t want to wage war. Althought It involves combat skill, it’s more a matter of values and fitness. It also involves hunting.
My third goal is to continue my spiritual journey throught pre-monotheistic mythology, legends, philosophy and symbolism.
It might seems very broad, but it defines the purpose of every little and punctual goal I have or might have.
1. Enjoy the simple life with my husband
2. Watch my girls grow into beautiful kind women.
3. I want to know and respect my own Inner Nature.
If you don’t know your top 3 life goals, try this exercise:
1) read obituaries every day for a week or a month;
2) write your own obituary, NOW, whether you are 20 or 70;
Most people, at the end of their life, have the same 3 life goals:
• one successful, loving marriage,
• raising intelligent, loving, successful children,
• and most of all spending time with family and friends.
Everything else is not that important.
The family is the most important social group there is.
jcard21
1. Reach financial stability (making enough money doing what I love)
2. Become comfortable socializing with others.
3. Be happy.
1) To be successful in my sport (Equine) which is my passion … what makes me breath!
2) To start my own business in which I believe I will find some financial freedom and eventually create more time for myself … create jobs opportunities for other and create a network to help people.
3) Still struggling to find the third one … more confidence in myself (I believed I had but realised I was bluffing myself)
I think I just want to do what I’m good at - currently I’m not doing what I m good at and I’m working towards achieving that.
1. To provide financial stability for my children which includes being able to send them to college through earning a substantial income.
2. To be physically fit enough when my children are 18 to be able to mountain bike and rock climb with them through treating my body with respect.
3. To provide my children with the life skills to become successful people through leading by example.
my goal before i reach the age of 25 is to have a mansion. lol
1. To survive, to live as long as possible, including pursuit of immortality through any means necessary.
2. To make the world where people bond together by goals and mutual appreciation despite the diversity of nations and religious pursuits.
3. To leave legacy, where people will progress with my ideas and goals even without me.
1. Always make honor in the present
2. Trust only movement
3. Change not the outside things (happinings) only those within side your forehead.
thanks
Zenez’s
I have three life goals:
1. Use my mind
2. Enjoy life
3. Maintain the financial stbility that will allow me to do the first two.
Oddly enough it is number two where I have the greatest problem.
My life goals are:
1) Raise a happy healthy family and be a loving wife
2) Enjoy life to the maximus
3) Live a financially secure life that allows me to provide my family with nice things and be able to travel
I see im about the 100th commenter here, but this one got me a little excited.
My three highest priority life goals right now are as follows:
to start a non-profit raising young people’s awareness of fitness and nutrition, and another for teaching fiscal responsibility (teach young people the dangers of credit, importance of saving, etc.)
to become a better writer and spread my message of the importance of self improvement to readers at http://www.zencollegelife.com
to help others live more consciously. This will be done through living example, talking to friends and family, writing at zencollegelife, and any other business or philanthropic ventures I decide to take part in.
Thanks for letting me share Leo. Kudos to you for what you do here at ZenHabits!
I have no goals in the ‘milestone’ sense - I’m a third of the way to death, and I just don’t care enough about the daily grind. All that matters is that people I love and respect think well of me and can depend upon me (in a true, not a superficial, sense).
Nothing I do for myself means anything; it all amounts to scratching whichever itch presents itself. No one will remember me in a generation or so. I measure myself by asking “Will I be able to live with myself when I’m on my deathbed, and will anyone stand with me at that time?”
In the meantime, I enjoy and value my life very much. It’s amazing how freeing it is to acknowledge one’s own self as something that will end one day. All the day-to-day strains don’t feel so heavy - they just don’t matter. It feels like a gift.
These lists are inspiring! My goals are…
1. Get my grades up and keep them there / never get a C ever again.
2. Create a first or second grade curriculum that teaches all the academic subjects through the lens of the arts.
3. Let go of all my grudges and stop creating new ones.
1. Be Present
2. Be At Peace
3. See 1 & 2
I am very fortunate to be living into my life’s goals - and equally fortunate to have discovered them, albeit at mid-life. They are:
1. To complete my PhD in a way that is authentic and useful to my research participants and others.
2. To always appreciate, and be true to, the tremendous privilege of touching people’s lives.
3. To engage only in endeavours that are either interesting, important or fun, and preferably all three.
1. Do the work that satisfies me and makes a positive impact on the world.
2. Find everlasting companionship.
3. Live by the sea.
1. To Be The Next Don Juan
2. To Travel The World
3. To gain enough knowledge and experience so that any market weakness, recession, lay-offs, job loss does not bother me and deter me from achieving my other 2 goals
1. Peaceful and meaningful relationships (requires constant effort).
2. A house (need money for down payment).
3. A steady job that I can work at till retirement (about to start a new job, dunno how steady it’s going to be).
1. Pay off the home I prayed for and thought I could never achieve, but now I have and I want to cut the 30 yr. down to 8 yrs.
2. Cook on Sunday and deliver at least four meals to elderly shut ins in my neighborhood; with a short visit and a smile. ( I have to start somewhere, who knows where it could lead.)
3. Take a selfish cruise!
1. Loving my wife and and any future children.
2. Following my bliss
3. To live in Abundance and Gratitude..
1. To be a best selling novelist
2. To travel the world and contribute to different communities
3. To have meaningful relationships with my husband, son, family and friends and explore all opportunities for connecting and learning with others
Great topic for the day.
Kelly
1. To have a loving family.
2. To be a social entrepreneur.
3. To enjoy life and be present in the experience.
1. Own publishing empire (print or web, most likely web).
2. Own a home in a nice part of LA — not Beverly Hills but not somewhere dilapidated.
3. To enjoy my life.
Yay!
1 - To make a significant contribution to the spiritual and intellectual betterment of mankind within my lifetime through my own ability to research, innovate and produce.
2 - To make a significant contribution to the spiritual and intellectual betterment of every person I meet when I meet them by being a potential source of advice and support.
3 - To make a significant contribution to the spiritual and intellectual betterment of my family every day by being the best I can be from moment-to-moment; giving them light, life, sustenance and joy.
It took me hours to read all the comments. Yet it’s worthwhile.
Here’s mine:
1) To setup my own business
2) To travel the world
3) Create something (a book, a film, or even just a song) that make people happy.
1. Become an entertainer.
2. Rise to the top.
3. Makes lots of money.
I’ve thought a lot about what I wanted to accomplish for a long time. In the end, I threw away my beliefs about seeking knowledge and wisdom, and started the road to a more realistic end.
By doing those 3, i’ll be eternally blessed with happiness.
# 1,2,3: Give a correct answer to the question “Who am I?”
Leo,
Are you going to continue with your Write to Done blog. I haven’t seen anything new since June and the home page says its suppose to be twice a week. I hope your not dropping the blog. I really enjoyed it.
1. inner peace
2. loving and healthy relationships with my family and friends
3. a lifestyle of simple contentment, with less work and less money
My three life goals.
1. Become fluent in Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
2. Cultivate a deep sense of inner peace and deservedness.
3. Produce Television and Film internationally.
Mine are:
- Achieve and maintain inner peace
- Achieve balance in life (family, friends, self, work).
- Learn about other ways of life (perspectives) to avoid being judgemental… and to share this idea with others.
My 3;
1. Be a better teacher
2. Learn how to meditate
3. To be fit
My 3 top goals in life are . . .
1) Build and open my own business (Cybercafe, Theme resto.
2) Finance my own Fire and Rescue Volunteer, To help more who needs us, Help more children.
3) Live a simple life with my family and friends. (Financially Stable and Free)
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