What if someone walks up to you and asks: what is your life mission? what is the one thing you have set out to do with your life? What would your response be? This is a question that requires some deep reflection, and it is about the end goal of your life. It is fine to have career goals, financial goals, travel goals, and all that. But to make meaning out of life, there has to be an ultimate goal - a definite purpose around which every other thing revolves. Below is a walkthrough on how you can create an end goal for your life.
How to Create Your End Goal in Life
When it comes to creating your life’s end goal, you have to consider certain factors to come up with a goal that is truly worth it. These include your life experiences, heart desires, personality type, potentials, and other things.
What Has Your Life Experience Been Like?
Your experiences in life shape you in many ways, and they can be a precursor to what would be your main goal in life. These include experiences growing up, education, career, etc.
Family Background
Family background affects your value system and can shape your thoughts about what is ideal as a life pursuit. For example, if you are from an affluent family, you will probably be thinking in terms of continuing the legacy of your family's wealth. And if you are from an average income family, you will want to work hard to bequeath something of great value to the generation coming after you. If your family has a philanthropic or political legacy, you might want to tow that path too. Even if you think differently from what your background has impressed on you, it can still provide you with some clues in shaping your future.
Educational Upbringing
The kind of formal and informal education you have had opens you up to certain areas of opportunities. Education makes a specialist out of you and determines the area of your proficiency. Education is continuous, and you can choose to break into new areas as you progress in life. All of your education gives you capabilities for the future that is ahead of you.
Career Progression
Your experience in the world of work can help you determine your end goal. Your career has exposed you and has shaped you for the future in many ways. If your career has made a great impression on you, seeking a broader platform in your career can be an end goal to pursue.
Other Formative Experiences
Apart from family, education, and career, there are other formative experiences you may have had that can help you realize your true dream. This might be based on the environment you grew up in, the city or community where you live, the people you interact with, or other influences from entertainment, media, and the internet.
What Kind of Person Are You?
Your personality type (the kind of person you are) can influence the way you see life and set your goal. There are about 16 personality types. Some of these are the Analysts, which is comprised of the architect, logician, commander, and debater; Diplomats, comprised of the advocate, mediator, protagonist, and campaigner; Sentinels, referring to the logistician, defender, executive, and consul; and Explorers, which involves the virtuoso, adventurer, entrepreneur, and entertainer.((16Personalities:
Personality Types)) When you learn more about these personality types, you will understand and appreciate your unique personality and how it sets you apart for life’s pursuits.
What Are Your Burning Desires?
Desires do not really die, though they can be suppressed by other things when they are not properly nurtured. Amid all the noises, deadlines and other work demands, some things may easily get your attention; things you feel you should have more time to do or which you can not wait to do. Your passion is tied to the things you wish to do with your life if you had all the available time and resources. Such deep desires can indicate what your end goal should be.
What Are Your Potentials?
Your potentials are the qualities or abilities that you have that can be harnessed and developed for your future success. In terms of potentials and how they connect to your goal, you can consider the following:
What Are Your Talents, Skills, and Abilities?
Life is only meaningful when talents, skills, and abilities are fully developed and deployed. These three can show you what you can do and how you can shape your goal for the future.
How Has Your Potential Defined Your Life in the Past?
The way your potentials became helpful to you in getting where you are now can also be an indicator of how they can shape your future.
What Do You See Yourself Becoming With Respect to Your Potentials?
You can envision your growth and future depending on your potential, and you can use this to formulate your goal.
What Is Your Public Identity/Image?
Forget about your job description for a while, and consider the following questions:
- What do people think about you?
- What do they look up to you for?
- What problems are you mostly called to solve?
- When does your opinion count?
- What endears people to you?
- Why do people want to have an audience with you or listen to you?
- What do people request from you most?
Finding genuine answers to the questions above will reveal what your immediate world expects from you. It can also help you to identify what you can offer to the world. There are also other things that can give you ideas, such as your perception of the current and future needs in your immediate environment or around the world, and where you think you stand to help or benefit in the scheme of things.
Bringing the Pieces Together
If you carefully go through the steps outlined above, you will be able to come up with a lot of information about yourself. The next thing to do is to synchronize all the information together and identify the ones that matter most or strikes you the most. Then look at the points of intersection between your background and family, education, career, and exposure, personality and potential, deepest desires, and public image, as well as the need(s) you have seen around you. After this exercise, you should be able to come up with an end goal - something worth pursuing with your entire life.
End Goal Examples of Highly Successful People
Here are some end goal samples curated from statements made by some influential figures. Reading them might help you find some ideas on how you might write or structure your own goal.
1. Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook CEO
Zuckerberg is as popular as Facebook itself, and the impact of this world’s number 1 social media platform speaks loudly for itself. Facebook’s goal is:((The Guardian:
Zuckerberg drops personal challenges in favor of big-picture plans for the decade))
"To bring the world closer together.”
Zuckerberg did make a mention of his own goal as follows:((Inc.:
Here's Why Mark Zuckerberg Sets Himself a Personal Goal Every Year (and You Should Too))).
"My work is about connecting the world and giving everyone a voice.”
2. Jeff Bezos - Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos founded the multinational technology company Amazon. The goal of the company, which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence, is to be:((CNBC:
Jeff Bezos: This Is How I Organize My Time))
"Earth's most customer-centric company.”
3. Elon Musk - SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk created Space X, Tesla, and SolarCity to actualize his vision, which is:((YouTube:
The Mind Behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity))
“To change the world and help humanity, reduce global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reduce the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.”
4. Oprah Winfrey - Celebrity and American Media Executive
Oprah has many goals, but one goal that seems to capture everything else is her goal:((Justin Gesso:
Early Success Goals of the Famous: Oprah Winfrey))
“To help people take better control of their life and destinies.”
Final Thoughts
Your end goal might be just about anything that captures your dreams and passion. It might be about a business that is meant to serve a unique purpose, a commitment to a cause that impacts humanity, or a mission to make a significant difference in the world in your lifetime. You might not be able to put your end goal perfectly together at once. However, you will have to put it down first in whatever form it occurs to you. You then have to continue refining, expanding and updating it as your journey becomes clearer to you.
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