set life goals

My life will be fulfilling by having amazing experiences where every breath I take is a gift.

I treasure my immediate family relationships and respect their uniqueness.

I will search for, and discover that one big thing that will give me a real sense of accomplishment & pride that I have made a real and positive difference in this world.

I will create a wholeness by caring for my body & spirit in a way that we will have a long relationship together, I will enjoy a peace that comes with being whole.

My life will be fun and I will strive for happiness by creating happiness and joy.

Each night I will got to bed, knowing if I don’t wake up, that I will have experienced an amazing and fulfilling life.

I enjoy building & experiencing connections, helping others have a better life.

I will continue to learn and grow as if I was to live forever.

I will feed my creative spirit by developing my thoughts and interests in arts & ideas.

Making the most every day by making a positive difference!

looking to set new goals now that I’ve achieved the old ones

It mentioned setting life goals which sounded like a good idea. 43T has done this for me, but I intend to keep a journal of what I want to achieve/ do.

I’m a little bit slow on the uptake, but earlier I had an epiphany about this goal. I was thinking about the Invest in Myself entry I made five months ago, and I realised that the goals contained in that post are actually my life goals. What I wrote there encompasses everything that is important to me. Life goals, it seems to me, are not there to be attained. Rather, they are there as guiding principles, something to measure myself against at regular periods. When my life draws to a close, I will measure myself against them one last time, and I intend to be happy with the results.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t other things I want to achieve in my lifetime – of course there are – but at the end of it all, the only thing that matters is how well I’ve done against these.

I made a slide to print out and pin to the wall. I think I’ll make smaller versions to carry with me, and to place strategically. As I go through life, I should be sure to take time to look at the list, and ask myself what I’ve done recently towards each item.

I’m constantly expanding life goals strategies on my site Life Strategy Tips and 43 things/places is helping with that as well. It’s a good thing to add your goals your list so you can feel proud when you finally get to mark something off.

This is kinda nifty. Just seeing the way they’ve broken down the goals is helping clarify my thinking.

Business 2.0 recently ran an article which is essentially a series of soundbites from business people and other luminaries. I don’t know why it’s only supposed to be applicable to 2007, since most of the suggestions are a lot more permanent that the headline would suggest.

My particular favourites are (in order of appearance):

1. 9 (Michael Dell)
2. 10 (Andre Agassi)
3. 11 (Kevin Rose – seems oddly relevant here)
4. 24 (Chris Albrecht)
5. 28 (Stewart Butterfield)
6. 41 (Marc Benioff)

Have any of you guys made a Before I’m 30 List? I’d really like to. I just can’t decide what is most important.

Any ideas?

-DoLLy

I considered creating this as a new thing, but instead I’ve decided that investing in myself should be an unending life goal. So what do I mean by it?

• It means looking after myself by eating the right foods and exercising properly. I’ve tried improving my diet before but never had the right support, but this last year has seen me begin to succeed in ways I hadn’t thought I could. Tennis and cycling are definitely going to help me improve my fitness level.
• It means I should never stop learning. You may have noticed I get through a lot of books. I also get through a lot of magazines too. I intend to be more imaginative and creative about how I obtain the books – getting review copies of business books I’m interested in is a good start. The only magazine I intend to read regularly is The Economist, which I have a pretty cheap subscription to.
• It means never losing control of my finances again, so that I can invest in myself. I readily admit to not having done such a bang-up job on this in the past. However, with the debt mountain dwindling every month, my spending mostly under control, and new targets forming, this is not something that will ever happen again. Note that I didn’t say “I never want this to happen again”, but rather “it will never happen again”.
• It means creating an environment for myself where I am surrounded by people I want to be surrounded by, and to be happy with the place I call home. Career-wise, I’m doing pretty well on this. Since I left for university, I’ve never had anywhere which felt like home, although I have now found somewhere that feels very much like home.
• It means exploring life with the people I love. This is related to the second point, since I always learn so much from others.
• It means making other people happy. I consider this to be an investment in myself, since nothing gives me greater pleasure than making those I love and care for happy, especially if I can do it in unexpected and creative ways. It sounds really selfish to put it like that, but that’s not how it’s meant! This also means letting those people be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and providing support to them in those ambitions.

This turns out to be a sort of catch-all for a few other things I’ve checked off over time, but I like the idea of having an over-arching goal for this. My intention from now on is to give anything which falls in the above categories a priority over other, more minor things. That means giving more conscious thought to decisions I make, listening more to how I feel about things, and making my case more confidently and cogently than I have in the past.

I’m constantly adding to my expanding life goals list (link: http://wand3rlust.com/life-goals ) and 43 things/places is helping with that as well. It’s a great thing to add big goals and small goals to your list so you can feel proud when you finally get to mark something off. Also, it fun to view others goals and lists that sometimes inspire new goals.