essay on goals of life

Essay on Goals in Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on Goals in Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Goals in Life

Introduction.

Goals in life are like a compass, guiding us towards our desired destination. They provide a sense of direction and purpose, helping us focus and organize our efforts efficiently.

Importance of Goals

Goals are important as they motivate us to strive for success. They make us resilient, enabling us to overcome obstacles and challenges that may come our way.

Types of Goals

Goals can be short-term or long-term. Short-term goals are achievable quickly, while long-term goals require time and persistent effort.

In conclusion, setting goals is essential for personal growth and success. Always remember, a goal without a plan is just a wish.

250 Words Essay on Goals in Life

Life is a journey filled with opportunities and challenges. Goals, acting as navigational tools, direct our path through this journey, providing focus, motivation, and a sense of purpose. They are the stepping stones to achieving our ambitions, and they shape our personal, academic, and professional lives.

The Importance of Setting Goals

Setting goals is integral to our growth and progress. They serve as a blueprint for our future, guiding our actions and decisions. Goals foster resilience, as they urge us to persevere despite setbacks. They also encourage self-development, pushing us to acquire new skills and knowledge.

Goals can be broadly classified into short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals act as immediate milestones, while long-term goals shape our vision for the future. Balancing both is crucial, as short-term goals often pave the way to long-term accomplishments.

Goal Setting and Achievement

Effective goal setting requires specificity, measurability, attainability, relevance, and timeliness (SMART). This approach ensures our goals are realistic and achievable. Moreover, consistent evaluation and adjustment of our goals is essential, as it allows us to stay aligned with our evolving aspirations and circumstances.

In conclusion, goals are fundamental to our life’s journey. They provide direction, foster resilience, and encourage personal growth. Balancing short-term and long-term goals, along with effective goal-setting strategies, can lead us to success. Ultimately, it is through setting and achieving our goals that we write our own life story.

500 Words Essay on Goals in Life

Goals are the compass that guides us through life, providing direction and purpose. They are the stepping stones towards achieving our ultimate dreams and aspirations. Goals, whether personal, professional, or academic, are significant as they shape our lives, fuel our ambition, and give us a sense of accomplishment.

Setting goals is a fundamental component to long-term success. The basic reason for this is the ability of goals to create a bridge between our present and our desired future. They serve as motivators, pushing us to step out of our comfort zones, face challenges, and strive for improvement. Goals act as a roadmap, providing clarity and focus, enabling us to make informed decisions and avoid distractions.

Goals also foster resilience, as they often require sustained effort and dedication. They teach us the value of perseverance, as the journey towards achieving them is usually filled with obstacles and setbacks. However, these challenges serve to strengthen us, enhancing our problem-solving skills and fostering personal growth.

Goals can be broadly categorized into short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals are immediate objectives that can be achieved within a relatively short timeframe. These could range from completing a project, passing an exam, or learning a new skill.

Long-term goals, on the other hand, are more extensive and require a significant amount of time and effort. Examples include obtaining a degree, launching a successful career, or buying a house. Short-term goals often serve as stepping stones towards the achievement of long-term goals.

Goal Setting Strategies

Effective goal setting requires thought and planning. One popular method is the SMART framework, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This approach encourages us to set goals that are clear and precise, have a defined timeline, are realistically attainable, and align with our broader life objectives.

Another crucial aspect of goal setting is maintaining flexibility. Life is unpredictable, and circumstances can change unexpectedly. Therefore, it’s essential to be adaptable and open to modifying our goals as needed.

In conclusion, goals are integral to our lives. They provide us with a sense of direction, motivate us to strive for improvement, and offer a sense of accomplishment when achieved. Whether they are short-term or long-term, personal or professional, goals give our lives purpose and meaning. Therefore, the process of setting and achieving goals is a lifelong journey that leads to personal growth and fulfillment.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Yoga a Way of Life
Essay on The Day I Decided to Change My Life
Essay on Parents Role in Our Life

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Products & Resources

JEE Main Knockout April
Free Sample Papers
Free Ebooks
NCERT Notes
NCERT Syllabus
NCERT Books
RD Sharma Solutions
Navodaya Vidyalaya Admission 2024-25
NCERT Solutions
NCERT Solutions for Class 12
NCERT Solutions for Class 11
NCERT solutions for Class 10
NCERT solutions for Class 9
NCERT solutions for Class 8
NCERT Solutions for Class 7
JEE Main 2024
MHT CET 2024
JEE Advanced 2024
BITSAT 2024
View All Engineering Exams
Colleges Accepting B.Tech Applications
Top Engineering Colleges in India
Engineering Colleges in India
Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu
Engineering Colleges Accepting JEE Main
Top IITs in India
Top NITs in India
Top IIITs in India
JEE Main College Predictor
JEE Main Rank Predictor
MHT CET College Predictor
AP EAMCET College Predictor
GATE College Predictor
KCET College Predictor
JEE Advanced College Predictor
View All College Predictors
JEE Advanced Cutoff
JEE Main Cutoff
JEE Advanced Answer Key
JEE Advanced Result
Download E-Books and Sample Papers
Compare Colleges
B.Tech College Applications
KCET Result
MAH MBA CET Exam
View All Management Exams

Colleges & Courses

MBA College Admissions
MBA Colleges in India
Top IIMs Colleges in India
Top Online MBA Colleges in India
MBA Colleges Accepting XAT Score
BBA Colleges in India
XAT College Predictor 2024
SNAP College Predictor
NMAT College Predictor
MAT College Predictor 2024
CMAT College Predictor 2024
CAT Percentile Predictor 2024
CAT 2024 College Predictor
TS ICET 2024 Results
AP ICET Counselling 2024
CMAT Result 2024
MAH MBA CET Cutoff 2024
Download Helpful Ebooks
List of Popular Branches
QnA - Get answers to your doubts
IIM Fees Structure
AIIMS Nursing
Top Medical Colleges in India
Top Medical Colleges in India accepting NEET Score
Medical Colleges accepting NEET
List of Medical Colleges in India
List of AIIMS Colleges In India
Medical Colleges in Maharashtra
Medical Colleges in India Accepting NEET PG
NEET College Predictor
NEET PG College Predictor
NEET MDS College Predictor
NEET Rank Predictor
DNB PDCET College Predictor
NEET Result 2024
NEET Asnwer Key 2024
NEET Cut off
NEET Online Preparation
Download Helpful E-books
Colleges Accepting Admissions
Top Law Colleges in India
Law College Accepting CLAT Score
List of Law Colleges in India
Top Law Colleges in Delhi
Top NLUs Colleges in India
Top Law Colleges in Chandigarh
Top Law Collages in Lucknow

Predictors & E-Books

CLAT College Predictor
MHCET Law ( 5 Year L.L.B) College Predictor
AILET College Predictor
Sample Papers
Compare Law Collages
Careers360 Youtube Channel
CLAT Syllabus 2025
CLAT Previous Year Question Paper
NID DAT Exam
Pearl Academy Exam

Predictors & Articles

NIFT College Predictor
UCEED College Predictor
NID DAT College Predictor
NID DAT Syllabus 2025
NID DAT 2025
Design Colleges in India
Top NIFT Colleges in India
Fashion Design Colleges in India
Top Interior Design Colleges in India
Top Graphic Designing Colleges in India
Fashion Design Colleges in Delhi
Fashion Design Colleges in Mumbai
Top Interior Design Colleges in Bangalore
NIFT Result 2024
NIFT Fees Structure
NIFT Syllabus 2025
Free Design E-books
List of Branches
Careers360 Youtube channel
IPU CET BJMC
JMI Mass Communication Entrance Exam
IIMC Entrance Exam
Media & Journalism colleges in Delhi
Media & Journalism colleges in Bangalore
Media & Journalism colleges in Mumbai
List of Media & Journalism Colleges in India
CA Intermediate
CA Foundation
CS Executive
CS Professional
Difference between CA and CS
Difference between CA and CMA
CA Full form
CMA Full form
CS Full form
CA Salary In India

Top Courses & Careers

Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com)
Master of Commerce (M.Com)
Company Secretary
Cost Accountant
Charted Accountant
Credit Manager
Financial Advisor
Top Commerce Colleges in India
Top Government Commerce Colleges in India
Top Private Commerce Colleges in India
Top M.Com Colleges in Mumbai
Top B.Com Colleges in India
IT Colleges in Tamil Nadu
IT Colleges in Uttar Pradesh
MCA Colleges in India
BCA Colleges in India

Diploma Colleges

Top Diploma Colleges in Maharashtra
UPSC IAS 2024
SSC CGL 2024
IBPS RRB 2024
Previous Year Sample Papers
Free Competition E-books
Sarkari Result
QnA- Get your doubts answered
UPSC Previous Year Sample Papers
CTET Previous Year Sample Papers
SBI Clerk Previous Year Sample Papers
NDA Previous Year Sample Papers

Upcoming Events

NDA Application Form 2024
UPSC IAS Application Form 2024
CDS Application Form 2024
CTET Admit card 2024
HP TET Result 2023
SSC GD Constable Admit Card 2024
UPTET Notification 2024
SBI Clerk Result 2024

Other Exams

SSC CHSL 2024
UP PCS 2024
UGC NET 2024
RRB NTPC 2024
IBPS PO 2024
IBPS Clerk 2024
IBPS SO 2024
Top University in USA
Top University in Canada
Top University in Ireland
Top Universities in UK
Top Universities in Australia
Best MBA Colleges in Abroad
Business Management Studies Colleges

Top Countries

Study in USA
Study in UK
Study in Canada
Study in Australia
Study in Ireland
Study in Germany
Study in China
Study in Europe

Student Visas

Student Visa Canada
Student Visa UK
Student Visa USA
Student Visa Australia
Student Visa Germany
Student Visa New Zealand
Student Visa Ireland
CUET PG 2024
IGNOU B.Ed Admission 2024
DU Admission 2024
UP B.Ed JEE 2024
LPU NEST 2024
IIT JAM 2024
IGNOU Online Admission 2024
Universities in India
Top Universities in India 2024
Top Colleges in India
Top Universities in Uttar Pradesh 2024
Top Universities in Bihar
Top Universities in Madhya Pradesh 2024
Top Universities in Tamil Nadu 2024
Central Universities in India
CUET DU Cut off 2024
IGNOU Date Sheet
CUET DU CSAS Portal 2024
CUET Response Sheet 2024
CUET Result 2024
CUET Participating Universities 2024
CUET Previous Year Question Paper
CUET Syllabus 2024 for Science Students
E-Books and Sample Papers
CUET Exam Pattern 2024
CUET Exam Date 2024
CUET Cut Off 2024
CUET Exam Analysis 2024
IGNOU Exam Form 2024
CUET PG Counselling 2024
CUET Answer Key 2024

Engineering Preparation

Knockout JEE Main 2024
Test Series JEE Main 2024
JEE Main 2024 Rank Booster

Medical Preparation

Knockout NEET 2024
Test Series NEET 2024
Rank Booster NEET 2024

Online Courses

JEE Main One Month Course
NEET One Month Course
IBSAT Free Mock Tests
IIT JEE Foundation Course
Knockout BITSAT 2024
Career Guidance Tool

Top Streams

IT & Software Certification Courses
Engineering and Architecture Certification Courses
Programming And Development Certification Courses
Business and Management Certification Courses
Marketing Certification Courses
Health and Fitness Certification Courses
Design Certification Courses

Specializations

Digital Marketing Certification Courses
Cyber Security Certification Courses
Artificial Intelligence Certification Courses
Business Analytics Certification Courses
Data Science Certification Courses
Cloud Computing Certification Courses
Machine Learning Certification Courses
View All Certification Courses
UG Degree Courses
PG Degree Courses
Short Term Courses
Free Courses
Online Degrees and Diplomas
Compare Courses

Top Providers

Coursera Courses
Udemy Courses
Edx Courses
Swayam Courses
upGrad Courses
Simplilearn Courses
Great Learning Courses

My Goal In Life Essay

A goal is a vision for the future or the desired outcome that an individual commits to imagining, planning, and achieving. People try to achieve their goals in a restricted time by setting deadlines. Here are some sample essays on my goal in life.

100 Words Essay On My Goal In Life

A goal is a desire you have to accomplish yourself. If one wants to succeed in life, one must have a goal. Being a teacher is my life's ambition. A wonderful and responsible profession is teaching. I have made the conscious decision to do all in my ability to promote knowledge among the people. Some people believe that money is life.

However, in my opinion, morality is what makes life truly sweet. In the future, I hope to be a beloved and reputable teacher. I have no clue how far I will get in achieving my goal but I'll give it my best.

200 Words Essay On My Goal In Life

A goal is a vision for the future or a desired outcome that an individual or group of individuals commits to envisioning, planning, and achieving. By setting deadlines, people try to accomplish their goals by setting deadlines.

My current goal is related to my education. I want to come in first place and achieve the top marks in every subject because this will increase my chances of receiving an overseas scholarship. I am putting a lot of effort into achieving this as my objective. Any student wants the chance to pursue their studies overseas, and I have that chance. I also take my coursework seriously and educate myself on all topics pertaining to my field of study, including research, literature, and academic journals.

Additionally, studying overseas will help me get a superior education and a diploma that is recognised across the world, both of which will allow me to compete for prominent jobs. So that I may accomplish my goal, I don't waste time on pointless activities and instead pay attention to my studies. My family is undoubtedly a tremendous benefit for me; they support me at all times and provide me whatever I require. Additionally, I owe a lot of credit for my success to my professors, who are a big help to me in my studies.

500 Words Essay On My Goal In Life

Everybody has a life goal. The aim or aspiration of man is his inner desire. One will not take any action if his or her goals are unclear.

What Is A Goal

The goal of an individual is to achieve a particular objective or target. Goal may also refer to the finish line of a race or the object that a player is attempting to insert as part of a game. As a noun, "goal" has other meanings. A goal is something you strive to achieve after working hard and persistently towards it.

Types Of Goals

Mastery goals | A mastery goal, such as "I will score higher in this event next time," is one that someone sets to attain or master a certain skill.

Performance-approach goals | A performance-approach goal is one where the person aims to outperform their peers. This kind of objective might be to improve one's appearance by dropping 5 pounds or to receive a better performance evaluation.

Performance-avoidance goals | When someone sets a goal, they frequently want to avoid performing worse than their peers, such as setting a goal to avoid receiving negative

Importance Of A Goal

A goal is similar to a specific objective, the anticipated outcome that directs behaviour, or an end, which is a thing, whether it be a tangible thing or an abstract thing, that has inherent worth.

Everyone should have a life goal. When you have a goal, you work hard every day to attain it and live for it. And when you succeed in those efforts, you feel more confident.

Goals provide us a path to follow. We can hold ourselves accountable by having goals. We are able to clarify what we genuinely desire in life when we set goals and strive toward obtaining them. We can better organise our priorities by setting goals.

Goals can be long-term and short-term. For instance, finishing your schoolwork might be a short-term goal. Learning a musical instrument, pursuing a profession as a doctor, or other long-term goals examples.

Due to the length of time required and the fact that we pick our professional objective, long-term goals play crucial roles in life. The most significant effects of choosing a certain career occur both during and after the effort to attain it.

Setting goals encourages us to create plans of action that will help us reach the desired level of performance.

Example Of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam overcame obstacles to achieve his aim while serving as India's 11th president from 2002 to 2007. Dr Abdul Kalam was raised by Muslim parents who spoke Tamil. Being from a low-income household, Dr Abdul Kalam began delivering newspapers after school at a young age to help augment his family's income. This fact allowed him to help support his father financially. He did not succeed academically, but he was a dedicated student who enjoyed mathematics.

Even during his senior project in college, the dean expressed displeasure with the lack of progress and threatened to revoke his scholarship if the assignment wasn't completed by the next three days. He later put forth a lot of effort on his assignment and finished it on time, impressing the dean. From that point on, Dr Kalam worked as a scientist with the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) , eventually rising to the position of organisation chief. What follows is history.

Applications for Admissions are open.

Aakash iACST Scholarship Test 2024

Get up to 90% scholarship on NEET, JEE & Foundation courses

ALLEN Digital Scholarship Admission Test (ADSAT)

JEE Main Important Physics formulas

As per latest 2024 syllabus. Physics formulas, equations, & laws of class 11 & 12th chapters

PW JEE Coaching

Enrol in PW Vidyapeeth center for JEE coaching

JEE Main Important Chemistry formulas

As per latest 2024 syllabus. Chemistry formulas, equations, & laws of class 11 & 12th chapters

ALLEN JEE Exam Prep

Start your JEE preparation with ALLEN

Download Careers360 App's

Regular exam updates, QnA, Predictors, College Applications & E-books now on your Mobile

Certifications

We Appeared in

Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

People need to have goals in their life. According to Aristotle, “Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals”. Achieving our goals makes us happy. As the result, our happiness depends on us. Nobody is guilty if we fail to do something in our life. We are responsible for our life and happiness.

I have a lot of goals in my life and do all my best to realize them in my life. Sometimes, these goals are changed or if I achieve some goals I define new ones for making my life better. I think there is no man in the world who doesn’t have any goal in his life. When a man doesn’t have any goal, life becomes senseless.

I am a happy person because I have a sense in my life and I realize my goals. I follow certain rules or steps in achieving good results. Firstly, I define for myself what is really important for me and what I want to achieve in my life. It is very important to establish a priority in your values. My family, health, career and friends are very important in my life. The goals should be formulated precisely and clearly. If you want to have a successful career, you should realize what it means for you. For one person it may mean to run the own company, for the other one it may be work which gives pleasure. Pay attention to the relationship between your career goals with private ones. Your goals should not contradict one another. Otherwise, achieving one goal you fail to achieve another one which makes you upset.

Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich provides the following advice: “The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.” There are some ways which help to keep your goals in mind. You may visualize your goals. I usually write down all my goals for a certain period of time on a separate sheet of paper pointing out a particular date when I must achieve these results. The best way to achieve your goal is to make a plan of steps to follow and check all steps which you have done already. I usually use my day planner or a handwritten list where I write the list of steps that help me to realize my goal. There are deadlines for every step which stimulate me to make efforts. This list helps me to analyze the situation and assess my results. If I fail to do the necessary point by the deadline, I don’t change the whole list; I just mark my delay and try to make up leeway. I review my overall progress regularly making certain conclusions about what I must do and what slows down my progress. Don’t give up if you fail to do something, don’t let your goals fade away.

The author of the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , Stephen Covey points out: “All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind.”

I usually visualize my dreams and goals printing out them on separate sheets of paper and hanging it on the wall. A picture on the wall reminds me about my goals every day and makes me work to realize these goals. For example, if you want to travel to many countries, you may find the most beautiful pictures of all places you want to visit and hang them in a plan view. You may cut your photo and stick it on those pictures which help you to imagine yourself in those places of interest. Whatever you want to achieve, visualize your goals. If you want to buy a house or a car, you may also find the pictures of the particular model of a car you wish or a house of your dream and hang them on the wall over your worktable. Other people create a special stand or box of goals and dreams. We should keep in mind all our goals every day which helps us to become closer to their realization.

Nevertheless, everything is changing in our lives and we also change our dreams and goals. Make sure that the goals that you are aiming at are really yours and they are really what you want. Set realistic and attainable goals otherwise, your results will be a disappointment for you. Those people who dream are more likely to experience them in their life. But wishes and dreams are not goals till they are written as a certain plan on paper. One of the most successful businessmen in the world, Lido Iacocca says: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” Everything that happens with us has already happened in our life.

I have a special plan list that helps me to achieve the desired results. Of course, I changed my goals and perhaps I will change them in the future. Nevertheless, these steps always help me to realize my goals and make me happy. As an American writer Elbert Hubbard says: “Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal”. If you want to make your life better, write your goals on paper and do all possible to achieve them. This method really works.

Lessons Learned From Leadership Class
Leadership Styles for Self and Others
“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
A Community Development Plan for Youth 15-18 Years in Kenyan Kibera Slum
Housing Policy and Bridging the Inequality Gap
Three Easy Ways to Improve Your Time Management
Gambling as an Acceptable Form of Leisure
Leisure Time: The Types of Activities
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, January 12). Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness. https://ivypanda.com/essays/goals-of-the-life-personal-experience/

"Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness." IvyPanda , 12 Jan. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/goals-of-the-life-personal-experience/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness'. 12 January.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness." January 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/goals-of-the-life-personal-experience/.

1. IvyPanda . "Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness." January 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/goals-of-the-life-personal-experience/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Goals of the Life: Personal Experience of Responsibility for Life and Happiness." January 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/goals-of-the-life-personal-experience/.

Essays About Goals: Top 5 Examples Plus 10 Prompts

Goals could be a one-time event or a lifelong growth process. Write effectively with the help of our essays about goals and writing prompts in our guide.

Having goals helps us have a sense of purpose. We find our determination, discipline, and strategic thinking tested to their limits. The road toward any goal, especially ambitious ones, is full of thorns and spikes. Some walk away and accept that these goals are not destined for them. Some, however, keep pressing forward, determined to achieve these goals. Gaining confidence in writing can help you achieve your goals by putting pen to paper and starting a plan.

5 Essay Examples

1. are you goal or growth conscious by katherine beneby, 2. how to help an employee figure out their career goals by dorie clark, 3. no goals: why is it so hard to do something for enjoyment’s sake by jenny valentish, 4. get inspired: how four hikers accomplished their 2021 hiking goals by anna roth , 5. does sharing your goals on social media make you more likely to achieve them by kristan russell, 1. my goals in life, 2. travel goals, 3. the goal of forming better study habits, 4. climate goals: are we progressing, 5. importance of fitness goals, 6. fiscal policy goals, 7. failing at your goals, 8. setting lofty vs. light goals, 9. poverty reduction goals, 10. my academic goals.

“The difference between goals and growth is that goals are seasonal, while growth is lifelong. Goals focus on a destination while growth focuses on a journey.”

In this essay, the writer discusses how achieving our goals may be possible if we reframe our minds to think of them as a growth process. This essay enumerates the difficulties of achieving our objectives and offers guidance on what will help put structure in how we formulate our growth plans. You might also be interested in these essays about bad habits .

“It’s not always possible to help the people we supervise identify and work toward their career goals… [S]o when we can assist our employees in getting there, it’s a meaningful way we can make a difference in their lives and their professional success.”

As per our list of topics to write about , this essay looks at how managers must realize their critical roles in the lives of the employees they handle. Their biggest contribution to the development of their employees is helping them achieve their tasks at work while ensuring these victories lead to their broader career goals. You might also be wondering, why write goals down?

“Once, to stave off depression, I set myself the goal-tastic mission of doing something new every day for a year – from flying in a glider to blowing things up – and blogging about it. Right from day one, the sense of focus lifted my mood, and there was frankly no time to overthink.”

In this essay, the writer looks at how atelic activities, or those we do for fun, positively influence our outlook. Our goal-driven world, however, hinders us from seeing the pure joy of doing things without goals. You might be interested in these essays about dream jobs .

“Last year, she set a goal to simply go hiking at all. And she’s thrilled to have made it happen, saying it was one of the best things she could have done for herself and her family during such a challenging year.”

This writer describes points to inspire people to start hiking and to set personal fitness goals. Look no further and turn to the inspiring stories of people who have targeted to hike across states, hike for the first time, hike once a month for health purposes, and hike a hundred miles yearly. For more inspiration, check out these essays about achievement .

“Wellness gurus and fitness bloggers seem to be divided between whether sharing goals on your social media sabotages you or holds you accountable.“

This essay revolves around a nascent study that aims to see if sharing your goals on social media make them more attainable. While initial results show that those who posted made significant progress compared to people who did not post, more questions need to be explored. You might be inspired by these essays about success .

10 Prompts on Essays About Goals

In this essay, delve into your short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. Before anything else, elaborate on what drew you to set these goals. Then, share your action plans to make them a reality. Discuss the obstacles you’ve faced and how you’ve conquered them.

What is the one destination you dream of? For this essay, daydream about your travel goals. Direct that excitement and write your travel itinerary, the duration of your stay, where you will be staying, and what daring activities you will dare yourself to plunge into. You can also talk about whom you would like to be with when you fulfill your travel goals or if you prefer going solo.

It is a challenge to hit the books when we live in a world with unlimited distractions. In this topic prompt, share effective study habits to help students focus on their studies. One helpful tip, for example, is designing your environment to be conducive to a habit change. In the case of study habits, this means temporarily eliminating access to social media and other digital distractions. Cite more tips and conclude your essay with a few words of motivation.

Under the Paris Agreement , the landmark international agreement to fight climate change, countries must jointly strive to arrest global warming and cap it to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. The question is: is this goal still on the table? Read recent news articles on how countries are following through on their Paris Treaty pledges. Listen to what environmentalists say about national efforts and tackle what more must be done to attain the climate goals.

Fitness is a common new year’s resolution but try convincing your readers to start their fitness goals today. First, help your readers explore the right dietary program and workout schedule based on their daily demands.

Then, underscore the importance of a fitness goal for gaining self-esteem and improving physical and mental health. Entice them with the idea of gaining a new exciting skill from a new workout activity and motivate them to start unlocking the fit version of themselves today.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries recorded ballooning debts as governments spent heavily to fight the pandemic and also support struggling sectors. So first, determine whether your country is in a tight fiscal space.

The fiscal space assessment framework created by the International Monetary Fund may help you identify the metrics and data to gather. Then, shed light on your government’s fiscal policy goals to address debt while spending in sectors that guarantee an economy’s long-term health, such as education and social services.

How do people receive failures? Write about people’s attitudes and actions when they fail at their goals. Can people develop depression, and how can they recover from the fall? Try to answer these and share your experience of failing at your goals.

Ask yourself: How did you move forward after that? Then, share your opinions on whether a failure signifies that it would be best for someone to find a new goal altogether or try again with stronger determination and a better-calculated strategy.

Which is better: aiming for a lofty goal that opens risks of failure, which many fear, or light goals that might do little in stretching out your potential? Answer this by listing the pros and cons of each. Then help readers strike the optimum balance between a loft or light goal. Cite examples of lofty and light goals to help your readers better differentiate the two.

For this essay, take a deep dive into the poverty reduction efforts of your government. First, give an overview of an ongoing flagship poverty reduction program and uncover its outcomes since its implementation. Read through government reports about the breakthrough goals of the program and which ones are gaining momentum.

Then, look at the other side of the fence by listening to what critics say about the program. Take note of their laments about bottlenecks in the program and what more can be done to attain poverty reduction goals swiftly.

Start with a descriptive paragraph detailing your academic goals. Writing about it vividly, as though it is the reality, is a creative way to show readers how much you have played out the scenarios of success in your head while helping your readers fully understand your goals. Then snap back to reality and discuss your action plan to realize these goals.

For related topics, you may check our essays about dreams in life . Don’t forget to proofread your essay with the best grammar checkers .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

View all posts

Essay Editor

How to Write an Essay About My Goal: A Comprehensive Guide

In the ever-evolving journey of life, setting clear objectives and ambitions is crucial. Whether these goals are short-term or stretch into the far reaches of our future, they act as guiding lights in our journey. This guide will assist you in articulating and expressing these ambitions effectively, especially when it comes to writing them down.

Understanding the Importance of Goal Setting

Setting life goals is a combination of introspection and foresight. It demands an understanding of one's current standing and a clear vision for the future. By penning down your goals, you not only provide yourself a clear road map but also make a commitment to yourself to achieve them.

How To Write An Essay About My Life Goals

Introduction : Initiate with an engaging hook—be it a quote, question, or anecdote—that aligns with your goal.
State your main goal : Elucidate on what your primary life objective is. Be it professional success, personal achievement, or societal contribution, clarify your aim.
The 'Why' behind the goal : Delve into your motivations. Discuss the driving forces behind this ambition.
Steps to achieve : Provide a roadmap. Enumerate the steps you'd undertake to transform this goal into a reality.
Potential Challenges : Highlight potential obstacles and your strategies to navigate them.
Conclusion : Summarize and re-emphasize your dedication towards your objective.

Career Goal Essay Definition

It's essential to differentiate between life goals and career goals. While the former encompasses broader objectives, a career goal essay underscores your professional aspirations, detailing why they matter and how you plan to attain them.

How Long is a Professional Goal Statement?

A professional goal statement's length can vary but should be concise. Ranging typically from 500 to 1000 words, it should capture your aspirations succinctly. Always adhere to specific guidelines if provided.

What to Avoid While Writing Your Career Goal Essay

• Ambiguity: Always be specific. • Unsubstantiated lofty goals: Your ambitions should be grounded in reality. • Neglecting personal growth: Showcase how your past has shaped your future. • Reiteration: Stay succinct and steer clear of repetition.

My Future Goals Essay: 12 Models

Entrepreneurial Aspirations : Launching a sustainable fashion startup by 2030.
Technological Goals : Developing an AI-driven community healthcare system.
Educational Objectives : Attaining a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics.
Artistic Pursuits : Holding a solo art exhibition in a renowned gallery.
Societal Contributions : Establishing a foundation for underprivileged children's education.
Scientific Aspirations : Contributing to renewable energy research.
Medical Goals : Becoming a pediatric surgeon and researching rare childhood diseases.
Travel Objectives : Visiting every UNESCO World Heritage site.
Sports Ambitions : Completing an Ironman Triathlon.
Literary Goals : Publishing a trilogy of fantasy novels.
Environmental Aims : Pioneering a city-wide recycling initiative.
Leadership Aspirations : Becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Articulating one's life and career goals requires introspection, clarity, and foresight. This guide offers a structured blueprint to ensure your essay not only adheres to academic standards but genuinely resonates with your aspirations and dreams. Whether you're grappling with questions like "what should I write in my college essay?" or "how to draft a goal statement?", this guide is here to light the way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ideal structure for a future career essay? Start with an engaging introduction about your aspirations. In the body, detail the steps you plan to take, experiences that have guided you, and why you chose this career. End with a conclusion summarizing your determination and future vision.
How do I ensure my career goals essay stands out? Incorporate personal stories or experiences that shaped your goals. Be specific about your aspirations and how you plan to achieve them.
How can I relate my past experiences to my future career in the essay? Highlight skills, lessons, or challenges from your past and demonstrate how they have directed or prepared you for your future career.
What should I avoid when writing an essay about my career goals? Avoid being too vague about your goals. Steer clear of clichés, and ensure your goals are realistic and grounded.
How long should my essay about my goal be? This depends on the requirement. Usually, personal statements are between 500-700 words. Always adhere to the specified word limit.
Can I include short-term and long-term goals in my essay? Absolutely! Detailing both shows planning and vision. Highlight how short-term goals will pave the way for long-term objectives.
How do I conclude my essay about my goals effectively? Reiterate your dedication to these goals, reflect on the journey ahead, and end with a note of optimism and determination.

How to write an evaluation essay that engages and persuades: helpful tips and inspiring examples.

Are you feeling unsure about how to effectively evaluate a subject from your own perspective in an evaluation essay? If you're struggling to understand how to present a balanced assessment, don't worry! We're here to guide you through the process of writing an evaluation that showcases your critical thinking skills. What Is an Evaluation Essay? An evaluation essay is a type of writing in which the writer gives their opinion on a topic. You look at something carefully and think about how good ...

Will I Get Caught Using Chat GPT?

ChatGPT has been around for a little over a year but already found popularity among all groups of users. School and college students have taken a particular liking to it. However, many students avoid using the chatbot for fear that their teacher might catch them. Read this article to learn more about ChatGPT, its features, and whether your teacher can actually find out if you use it for your homework. What is Chat GPT? ChatGPT was first introduced to the world in November 2022. At the time, ...

Biographical Essay: Tips and Tricks for Writing a Perfect Biography

Biographical essays are some of the most common texts you can find on the Internet. When you browse a Wiki article about your favorite singer, you are basically reading a biography paper. However, in academia, there are certain rules students need to follow to get perfect marks for their papers. In this article, we will explore what a biographical essay is, why it matters, and how to write an essay about a person. What is a biographical essay? A biographical essay is a paper that focuses on ...

Ace Your Graduation Speech with Aithor

Hello, Aithors! Can you feel it? That's the buzz of graduation season in the air:) And while we're all about the caps flying and the proud smiles, we also know that being asked to write a graduation speech can feel a bit like being handed a mountain to climb. Crafting a graduation speech is all about capturing the spirit of the journey you've been on, from the triumphs to the trials, and everything in between. It's a reflection of where you've been, and a beacon of light pointing towards where ...

Proposal Essay Examples: Convincing Ideas for Your Research Paper or Essay

Struggling to craft a captivating and well-built proposal essay? Many students find it challenging to compose a proposal-based essay and struggle to generate convincing ideas. If this sounds familiar, read on. In this comprehensive guide, we streamline the process of brainstorming and composing work, offering resources like suggestions on how to write a proposal essay, suggested steps when writing, useful examples, and efficient essay-crafting tips. Developed through several years of expertise ...

Create a Perfect Essay Structure

Hello Aithors! We're back again with another feature highlight. Today, we want to talk about a tool that can be a game-changer for your essay writing process - our Table of Contents tool. Writing an essay isn't just about getting your ideas down on paper. It's about presenting them in a clear, structured way that makes sense to your reader. However, figuring out the best structure for your essay can sometimes be a tough nut to crack. That's why we developed the Table of Contents feature. The b ...

Literary Analysis Essay Example: Discover How to Analyze Literature and Improve Your Writing Skills

Creating a literary analysis essay is one of the most interesting assignments during college and high school studies. It needs both good text interpreting and analytical skills. The number of proper forms is great, including short stories and novels, poems and ballads, comedies and dramas. Any literary work may be analyzed. In brief, when writing this paper a student should give a summary of the text and a detailed review of the language, structure, and other stuff the author used to express hi ...

How To Write Reflection Essays

How often do you contemplate how the tapestry of your experiences shapes your thoughts? A reflection paper lets you explore that. It's like deep diving into your life’s precious moments, examining how stories, books, events, or even lectures have influenced your views. This type of academic essay integrates a personal perspective, allowing you to openly express your opinions. In this guide, we will delve into the specifics of reflective writing, share some tips, and show some self-reflection es ...

How To Write A Powerful Essay On Achieving Goals (+ Example)

Writing an essay on achieving your goals can be a great opportunity to share your accomplishments.

Goal setting is a useful strategy to get the most out of life and set yourself up for success. However, there are many things to remember regarding proper goal setting and achievement. When writing a blm argumentative essay , it’s important to provide context on the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and the issues it seeks to address. This can help the reader understand the significance of the essay’s thesis and arguments. Let’s get to grips with the process of goal setting and come up with a powerful essay on achieving goals.

Structuring Your Essay on Achieving Goals:

How to write an introduction.

Any academic essay must have a strong beginning. It will establish your point of view and inform the reader of what to expect. An introduction should:

Attract the reader’s attention with a ‘hook’. You can achieve this by quoting a shocking statistic, quote, fact, or controversial statement.
Give some background or historical information about the topic. For instance, psychological theories and models on effective goal setting and achievement.
Present your thesis (main point of your essay) e.g., “Rewarding achievement is the most effective means by which employers can increase workplace productivity”.

How to Write The Main Body of Your Essay

There should be a minimum of three paragraphs in your essay. Each one is a ‘mini-essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Each should include:

Topic sentence: inform the reader about the subject of the paragraph, e.g., “how to measure goal attainment”, or “effective workplace goal setting”.
Evidence sentences: inform the reader about the evidence you’ve uncovered, e.g., a business model and study on effective workplace goal setting.
Analysis sentences : inform the reader of your thoughts on the evidence and its significance. For example, “Model A clearly shows how employers are to set realistic goals with employees and this model has proven to be successful in study x”.
Concluding sentence: summarize what you’ve learned about the topic and how it relates to the essay question. For instance, “Setting realistic goals for employees is straightforward and likely to increase successful goal achievement in the workplace”.

How to Write a Conclusion

To signal the essay is ending, use a suitable word or phrase , such as ‘In summary’ or ‘With all of this in mind’.
Reread your introduction to remind yourself of your thesis. After that, either paraphrase or respond to the thesis.
Summarize the key points stated in each of the assignment’s paragraphs. So, if you wrote three key body paragraphs, the conclusion should include three main themes.
Give your readers a concluding line on the main issue and possibly attempt to urge them to further ponder the topic in its wider context.

Example Of An Essay About Achieving Your Goals

So, let’s put all this information together and check an example essay on achieving goals: Effective Methods to Increase the Likelihood of Goal Achievement Achieving goals can be extremely rewarding and result in a more satisfying and successful life. Many people set goals yet cannot achieve them. However, there are ways to avoid or reduce the likelihood of missing the mark. By ensuring that goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), using visualization techniques, and rewarding goal attainment, the chances of success increase. First, ensure your goals are SMART. This means that goals should be specific and measurable in terms of outcomes, e.g., test scores . Goals should be achievable and realistic to the person’s capabilities and resources available. Also, a goal should apply to the person’s work, education, hobbies, or interests and include a deadline. If there is no specificity of outcome, there’s no real way to see how someone has improved—or how they might be falling short. And if goals are not SMART, they are more difficult to achieve. Second, by imagining and visualizing the feelings and outcomes of achievement of the goal , the likelihood of high achievement increases. The imagination can be a powerful tool. Imagining the feelings of accomplishment helps to increase self-efficacy and motivation. A Canadian study found that imagery skills moderate the effect of mental practice on self-efficacy. The effects of visualization techniques are valuable in goal achievement. Third, once the goal has been accomplished, a reward is required. Getting a reward for hard work will increasingly motivate an individual to set and achieve the next goal. The offer of a reward gives employees and students an extra boost of motivation. Rewards help the cycle of goal setting and goal achieving to continue. In summary, by ensuring the goals set are SMART, visualizing and rewarding success, goal achievement becomes more likely. Achieving goals is a cyclic process that’s possible to master if the right method is in place.

The Basics of Setting and Achieving Goals

Getting things done is often more difficult than you may think. You may have a strong desire to see positive changes, including better grades, weight loss, or passing an educational course. But success requires more than just motivation. The right goal-achievement skill set can help you see the exact steps you need to perform to take your life to the next level. Of course, it all starts with setting a goal and there’s a useful (SMART) acronym to remember:

Goals should be specific and free of generalizations, or they are unlikely to get done. Instead of stating that your goal is to improve your English skills, make it more specific by stating that your goal is to learn and use one new word every weekday to boost your English vocabulary.

A goal should be measurable because you need to keep your finger on the pulse and know where you’re at. For instance, a test or assessment score can provide evidence that you have reached your goal.

A goal needs to be possible to achieved. If it’s beyond your capabilities or requires resources you cannot access, then you will set yourself up for failure.

Goals must have some relevance. It is pointless to set a goal if it’s not relevant to your life, work, education, interests, hobbies, etc.

You must set a completion date for your goal. If you do not set a deadline, you may lack the motivation to reach it. Once you have your SMART goal, record it clearly on paper or a mobile device and then visualize the outcome of achieving that goal. Imagine how happy you will feel when you achieve it. This vivid mental imagery will provide you with the extra motivation to go for it. Finally, when you reach your goal, it’s time to celebrate! Reward yourself with a trip, an item you desire, relaxation time with friends, or whatever else that will make you feel happy.

Ready to write an essay about achieving goals?

Hopefully, the information in the article has given you the basics to help you write a powerful essay on achieving goals. I also hope that this article has helped you think about how you can work toward achieving your own goals. There are many great books about the science of goal achievement. I especially recommend ones written by Brian Tracy , as they have helped me a great deal in my pursuit of happiness . You can also create an engaging presentation about achieving goals and objectives using this goal presentation template . Next up, you may want to explore an ultimate guide to writing expository essays .

Get your free PDF report: Download your guide to 80+ AI marketing tools and learn how to thrive as a marketer in the digital era.

Rafal Reyzer

Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

Call us Topics in English
Privacy Policy
terms of use

Topics in English Topics in english to learn and fluent pronunciation and writing and facilitate conversation between you and others, whether in school, work or daily life

My goal in life essay 18 Models

My goal in life essay is one of the important and indispensable essays, and it is asked periodically from students so that they can get to know themselves more. In order to improve their level of expression and description of what they see as the life goals they wish to achieve.

This type of article is required from all educational levels, so we will provide you with several short samples, and long models about my goal in life essay, so that you can understand the topic well.

My goal in life essay

All students have dreams and desires that they strive to achieve. The largest percentage of them may be similar to one of the parents, as parents in many times are the role models for their children. Therefore, we may find that children aspire to achieve some of the goals and achievements that their parents have achieved.

In some other cases, we find some students aspire to achieve their own achievements. And there are students who may have a famous personality to imitate and want to achieve some of the great achievements he has done.

Therefore, we will provide you with a series of different models that include multiple and different cases that are suitable for all students.

My goal in life is to have good health, and practice all the wonderful hobbies that I love before I graduate, work, and start a family and a social life.

I like to practice the hobby of skydiving, diving and traveling to new and wonderful places, and I also like to work in some fun places during summer vacations, such as the beach so that I can work and enjoy and be in places that have a lot of noise and life, getting to know new friends and gaining a lot of experience.

These are the goals I’m planning at this point, they may differ in the future as I could add some serious work, but that’s just what I’m thinking about right now.

There is no doubt that planning is the way to success, we should not let our lives go in a random way. But we must define our goals and know what are the best ways to achieve these goals. Setting goals makes us achieve them in the easiest way and in the shortest time.

My dreams and goals in life essay

My dreams in life are to be a famous football player. I am very fascinated by the Egyptian player, Mohamed Salah, and the Argentine player, Lionel Messi. They have great talent, and they are always keen to develop their skills.

A football player must have high physical skills and physical fitness, because skill and talent are necessary in addition to serious training, and this is what makes a player distinct from another player.

Also, the player’s insistence on improving his level is important to his success and obtaining international awards.

Both Mohamed Salah and Lionel Messi have achieved great success with their clubs, and have won many awards such as the Golden Boot award and the Best Player award and others.

I love to be a famous football player because this game will make me rich and will make me gain people’s love too. There are millions of young people around the world watching the matches of Mohamed Salah or Messi and cheering them on with enthusiasm.

My goals in life as a student essay

My goals at this stage are related to studies. I want to always be in the first place and get the final grades in all subjects because this will give me the opportunity to get a scholarship abroad. This is my goal that I am working hard to achieve.

The opportunity to complete my education abroad is a really good opportunity that every student desires. Therefore, I study my lessons seriously and learn a lot about everything related to my field of study, including research, books and scientific journals.

Also, studying abroad will allow me a better education, as well as obtaining an internationally recognized certificate that I can work with in a prestigious job. Therefore, I do not waste my time on useless things, but focus on my studies in order to achieve my goal.

Certainly, my family has a great advantage, they always encourage me and provide me with everything I need. Also, my teachers have a great credit for my excellence, they help me a lot in my studies.

My goal in life short essay

I have a talent in drawing, since I was a child at the age of seven and I draw cartoon characters skillfully. All my family encourage me and say “You are talented at drawing”.

My teachers praise my paintings and decorate the classroom with them, and my colleagues are surprised when they see my drawings.

I draw in my spare time because drawing is my favorite hobby, but the rest of the time is devoted to studying because I want to excel in my studies as well.

My goal in life is to be a cartoonist or creator of new cartoon characters. Therefore, I am interested in my studies in order to join a prestigious university. My goal is to join the College of Fine Arts, because talent needs academic study in order to grow and develop.

I also go to many exhibitions and museums that include works of art such as paintings or photography because they are very useful for me as I gain new experiences.

Examples of goals in life of a student essay

There is no doubt that having a role model in our lives facilitates many things related to our future. My role model is my father, he is a petroleum engineer and works in one of the international companies. This job is very prestigious and provides him with a great salary. Therefore, in the future, I want to be a petroleum engineer like my father.

This function has many advantages as well as some disadvantages. One of its most important features is the high salary that the engineer receives, and this salary can provide him and his family a life in which there is a large amount of luxury. The most important disadvantage of this job is working in remote places and being away from home for a long time.

But I like to work in this job so that I can buy a beautiful house and a modern car and be able to travel on holidays to different tourist places. My goal at this stage is to study at the College of Engineering, Petroleum Department.

My goals in life paragraph

My goal in life is to be a person of high social standing and to be loved by others. Therefore, I would like to be a doctor in the future, because the doctor’s profession is a great humanitarian profession, through which he helps people and ensures himself a prestigious position and good financial income.

Although there are great risks in the doctor’s profession, as he deals with patients directly and closely, which may expose him to infection and serious diseases, this profession is highly humane because the doctor sacrifices himself in order to save others.

I love to work in this profession, so I work hard in my studies until I study in the Faculty of Medicine. Studying at the Faculty of Medicine is interesting and useful, and studying medicine requires continuous learning and being acquainted with everything new in the medical field, so that the doctor can provide the best medical service to his patients.

My personal goal in life essay

My personal goal in life is to be a fashion designer, this profession requires innovation, and this is what distinguishes me, as I design some clothes for myself or for my relatives.

In fact, all the outfits I designed were so impressive that they said they wouldn’t buy any clothes and I would be their designer.

Fashion design is a fine art and requires a sophisticated taste and information about fashion and the latest designs designed by international fashion houses, with self-reliance and not imitating others.

The fashion designer must also be familiar with the types of fabrics and be able to employ the fabric in an attractive way.

Fashion design needs to be familiar with fashion in terms of the prevailing colors at the time, whether the fabrics are suitable for the temperatures and many other details. Therefore, I am training in a fashion house and I hope to be a famous fashion designer in the future.

My ultimate goal in life essay

Undoubtedly, each of us has a goal that he is trying hard to achieve, and my goal is to be a police officer, because I believe that the job of a police officer is important for the stability and progress of society.

One of the duties of a police officer is to bring security to his community, allowing people to live in peace. Without security, people will not be able to go to work, and there will be no production.

Likewise, the peasants will not be able to cultivate their fields, and thus there will be no crops, vegetables, or fruits, and merchants will not be secure in their trade, and consequently, shops, stores, and others will be closed.

Thus, we see the importance of the police officer’s work, as he maintains the security and safety of the community, and thus everyone can work seriously to increase production and advance the country. Therefore, my goal in life is to be a distinguished police officer.

My goal in life essay for class 6

My goal in life is to be a teacher, thanks to my teacher because she is my role model. She is an excellent teacher who can explain our lessons to us in a simplified manner, in addition to that she treats us well, she listens to our problems and helps us solve them.

My teacher not only teaches me my school lessons, but also teaches me good manners, because all her behavior is good. She always advises us to be superior and to be characterized by good qualities.

I love and respect my teacher, she is just like my mother who is afraid of me and advises me and helps me understand my lessons.

The profession of a teacher is great, as she not only teaches, but also educates and instills in her students noble values. She also helps us in forming our personality and self-reliance. The teacher prepares the future generation.

Essay about goals and dreams in life

I dream of being a successful businessman in the future. Businessmen participate in the country’s development and progress, and provide many job opportunities for young people. My father is my role model in this field.

My father is a successful man, he did not depend on anyone, but he started his working life young until he became a famous businessman. It was a difficult path, but thanks to his determination, he was able to overcome all the problems he encountered.

Therefore, I consider myself more fortunate than my father, as he has a lot of experiences that I can learn from him, and my father paved the way for me, but I want to achieve better than what is expected of me.

Therefore, I’ll study business administration because this will gain me a lot of information and experience. I am also training in one of the companies owned by my father, as this will give me practical experience.

My goals in life as a student – Intended for US students

My goals in life as a student living in the United States are to pursue a career in technology and use my skills to help my family and community.

I believe that technology is the future, and I want to be a part of it. I am passionate about using technology to solve problems and make the world a better place.

I grew up in a family that was not always able to afford the latest technology. However, my parents always encouraged me to learn about technology and how to use it. I am grateful for their support, as it has helped me to develop a strong foundation in technology.

I am now a student at a top university in the United States. I am majoring in computer science, and I am planning to pursue a career in software engineering. I want to use my skills to create innovative products and services that will make a positive impact on the world.

I also want to use my skills to help my family and community. I see how technology can be used to improve people’s lives, and I want to be a part of that. For example, I could use my skills to develop educational apps for children in developing countries, or I could create websites that provide information and resources to people in need.

I am excited about the future, and I am confident that I can achieve my goals. I am committed to using my skills to make a difference in the world.

My goal in life – Intended for US students

My goals in life as a student living in the United States are to become a creative and innovative teacher who loves children.

I have always been passionate about education. I love learning new things, and I believe that everyone has the potential to learn and grow. I am also passionate about children. I love their energy and enthusiasm, and I believe that they are the future.

I grew up in a family that valued education. My parents always encouraged me to learn and to ask questions. They also taught me the importance of helping others. I am grateful for their support, as it has helped me to develop a strong foundation in education and in service to others.

I am currently a student at a top university in the United States. I am majoring in education, and I am planning to pursue a career as a teacher. I want to use my skills to help children learn and grow. I also want to create a classroom that is fun and engaging, where children feel comfortable to take risks and to explore their own potential.

My goal is – Intended for US students

My goals in life as a middle school student living in the United States are to become a creative and innovative teacher who loves children and changes the lives of many children.

I believe that I can make a real difference in the lives of children. I am committed to using my skills to help children learn and grow, and to create a better future for them.

My goal in life is to be successful – Intended for US students

My goals in life as a student living in the United States are to achieve success, become a famous figure that others will read about one day, and be a role model and pride for my family.

I have always been ambitious and driven to succeed. I believe that I have the potential to achieve great things, and I am committed to working hard to achieve my goals.

I am also passionate about making a difference in the world. I believe that everyone has the potential to make a positive impact, and I want to use my skills and talents to make the world a better place.

I know that achieving success will not be easy. It will require hard work, dedication, and perseverance. However, I am confident that I can achieve my goals if I set my mind to it.

Here are some specific examples of how I plan to achieve my goals:

I will focus on my studies and work hard to get good grades.

I will participate in extracurricular activities and clubs to develop my skills and talents.

I will network with other people who can help me achieve my goals.

I believe that if I work hard and never give up on my dreams, I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I am excited to see what the future holds for me, and I am confident that I will make my family proud.

My goals in life as a student – Model for South African students

As a student in secondary school living in South Africa, my goal in life is to achieve success in playing football and try to become a professional player in one of the English clubs. I also want to be a source of pride for my family.

I have been playing football since I was a child. I love the sport and I am passionate about it. I believe that I have the talent and the determination to achieve my goals.

I am currently training hard and I am working on improving my skills. I am also learning about the English Premier League and the clubs that I would like to play for.

I know that it will be difficult to achieve my goals, but I am determined to work hard and never give up. I believe that if I put in the effort, I can achieve anything I set my mind to.

I am also committed to being a good role model for my family and friends. I want to show them that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.

I am confident that I can achieve my goals and I am excited to see what the future holds.

My goals in life – Model for South African students

As a student in secondary school living in South Africa, my goal in life is to become a distinguished tour guide and establish my own company, attracting many tourists to see the beautiful side of Africa.

I have always been fascinated by history and culture, and I love sharing my knowledge with others. I believe that South Africa is a beautiful and diverse country with a rich history and culture, and I want to share it with the world.

I am currently studying hard and I am working on improving my knowledge of South African history and culture. I am also learning about the tourism industry and how to run a successful tour company.

My goal in life is to be successful – Model for South African students

I am a middle school student living in South Africa. I come from a large family with many siblings. I want to be a role model for them and achieve success in my country that makes all of my people proud.

I am currently thinking about developing technology that is tailored to South Africa. I believe that I can add something special to the future of my country.

My short-term goals:

To excel in my studies and get into a good university.

To learn more about technology and how it can be used to solve problems.

To get involved in community service and make a difference in the lives of others.

My long-term goals:

To start my own business that uses technology to help people in South Africa.

To become a leader in my community and inspire others to achieve their dreams.

I know that I have a lot of work to do to achieve my goals, but I am determined to make them a reality. I am excited to see what the future holds for me and my country.

What I Want to Achieve in Life Essay – Model for South African Students

I am a university student living in South Africa. I come from a large family with many siblings. I want to be a role model for them and achieve success in my sport that makes all of my people proud.

I am currently training hard to be a top long-distance runner. I believe that I have the potential to be a world champion.

To win the national long-distance running championship.

To be selected for the South African national team.

To compete in the World Championships.

To win an Olympic medal.

To be inducted into the South African Sports Hall of Fame.

We have provided you with an My goal in life essay, and you can read more through the following link:

Essay on bhagat Singh in English
Essay on discipline
Essay on teachers day

About admin

Essays On My Hobby 2 Models

Essay on old age home

Essay on farmer

Essays on Life Goals

Your life goals essay may reflect on the idea of how extremely easy it is to drift through life’s currents without paying much attention to where you're going. This way of living often makes people "wake up" and realize that they are unsatisfied with their life – they feel unfulfilled, unaccomplished, and regretful. Many essays on life goals reveal why it’s important to set life goals and milestones – they will help you keep your life in check and note your progress. Life goals essays teach us that goals can be completely different. Our essays encourage you to determine your own goals, even if they differ from the ones that society imposes. A quote by Robert Frost gives much insight on the matter: “I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” View our life goals essay samples – below are essay samples we find most insightful.

A psychologist argues that different people have the different characteristics and attributes. These characteristics involve the personal interests, skills personality types, and values. Every person has different personal interests, and it is proven that even the identical twins cannot rhyme in this personal characteristics (Smith at el pg3). A focus...

In most cases, it is difficult to define the purpose of life In most cases, it is difficult to define the purpose of life in a way that people would concur duly. Each looks at the aim of life differently because not everyone shares the same beliefs and have the same...

Words: 1307

Setting career goals help an individual in laying out directions for their ideal future. With long term and short term goals acting as a guide in helping people succeed in their careers, a person can envision themselves in reality as they make their desired progress. Following my dreams to be...

Words: 1436

Setting up effective goals will make it more difficult to achieve success. I have the chance to push myself to advance in my work and realize my lifelong goals by setting SMART goals. Furthermore, doing such measures will enable me to influence my future by the decisions I make on...

Human beings have a unique feature that draws them towards success in such a way that they will do anything to achieve their desired success dreams. It is everyone's desire to achieve their life goals at all times. Humans have demonstrated to be capable of going to any length to...

Paul Graham's paper claims that a person's identity is defined by a variety of circumstances. These variables include, among others, our deeds, where we live, who we contact with, and how we see ourselves. Identity is something that we encounter more frequently, making it an inevitable component of our lives....

Words: 1236

Found a perfect essay sample but want a unique one?

Request writing help from expert writer in you feed!

Iman (13 years old) attends White Star Academy and lives in Highrise Estate. She is a grade 8 student. Iman is a very driven kid who aspires to excel academically and take first place in his class. He hopes to study medicine and become a doctor so that he may...

Words: 2932

Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture: A Life-Changing PerspectiveRandy Pausch's The Last Lecture has caused me to reconsider my life goals. Pausch's work had exciting ideas that gave me new insights into life and a unique viewpoint on circumstances. I've found that life is too short to be miserable, so I...

Addressing the general question of laziness Addressing the general question of laziness remains a contentious issue, with numerous individuals testifying their attempts to tackle sluggishness. Numerous explanations seem to indicate the origins of laziness, and my experience here is a perception of it. For example, being unable to work enough overtime...

Words: 1243

When I m alone and left to my reflections, my mind always wanders to another world. During these moments, my dreams for the future form a mental picture of how my life should be in the future. I ve wanted to own my own company since I was a teenager,...

Overcoming Communication Barriers Throughout elementary and middle school, I was known as the quietest student in the class. As I entered 11th grade, the condition deteriorated, and my classmates dubbed me "the quiet one." I was the one that everybody assumed would shrink in the back of the classroom if a...

My organizational strategy for obtaining and achieving my future career goals is based primarily on the four management roles of schedule, coordinate, lead, and monitor. Question: My long-term career goal is to earn a Master s degree in business management so that I can contribute to my country s political and...

15 Ways to Find Your Purpose of Life & Realize Your Meaning

“ You don’t find meaning; you create it ,” was my answer to the question, what is meaning?

Drawn in by the unforgiving directness of the existentialist philosophers, I was (perhaps naively) attempting to respond to the question that Albert Camus said must be answered before all others: Is there meaning in life ? Or, to state it more clearly: Is a life worth living? (Camus, 1975).

This article explores a few of the questions central to the vast and complex topic of meaning and purpose in life and introduces techniques and tools to help clients find answers.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free . These creative, science-based exercises will help you learn more about your values, motivations, and goals and will give you the tools to inspire a sense of meaning in the lives of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is the purpose of life a philosophical and psychological take, how to find the purpose of your life, 10 techniques to help yourself and others, 4 useful worksheets, a note on finding meaning after trauma, divorce, and others, positivepsychology.com’s resources, a take-home message.

In The Myth of Sisyphus , Albert Camus (1975), when faced with what he saw as the meaninglessness of existence, suggested we live life to its fullest rather than attempt an escape.

For Camus, as with his contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism concerns itself with the uniqueness of the human condition (Sartre, 1964). According to the existentialist formula, life has no inherent meaning. We have free choice and, therefore, choose our values and purpose.

But where did existentialism come from?

The sense of freedom that existentialism offers is crucial – jolting us out of a comfortable malaise. It builds on Friedrich Nietzsche’s thinking that there are no universal facts and that man is isolated. He is born, lives, and dies – alone (Nietzsche, 1911; Kaufmann, 1976).

Rather than dictating how the reader should live, Nietzsche tells us we should create our values and our sense of purpose.

And yet, if cast free, how do we create meaning and purpose?

Existentialism is indebted to Edmund Husserl’s work on perception to answer this and other questions. Writing in 1900, Husserl regards meaning, along with perception, as the creation of the individual. Meaning is not objective – to be found in the external world – but built up from our mental states (Warnock, 1970).

Martin Heidegger – often described as the first true existentialist – picks up on this idea in the heavy-weight Being and Time , written in 1927. For us to be authentic – following a state of anxiety born out of a realization that we are free – we must take responsibility for our actions, our purpose, and our meaning (Heidegger, 1927/2013).

Existentialism and the struggle for meaning

Sartre continues this line of thinking in Being and Nothingness (1964):

“…every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man.”

Separate from the world, we must realize the horror that we are free to do and create meaning . And yet, to avoid bad faith (or inauthenticity), we must accept that we are responsible not only for ourselves but also for all people.

To the existentialist, our sense of meaning and purpose comes from what we do.

But can science and psychology help us find either? Yes, probably .

Meaning and psychology

Increasingly, psychologists have begun to realize the importance of meaning to our wellbeing and happiness.

Recent research suggests that people with increased meaning are better off – they appear happier, exhibit increased life satisfaction, and report lowered depression (Huo et al., 2019; Ivtzan, Lomas, Hefferon, & Worth, 2016; Steger, 2009).

Nevertheless, meaning is a complex construct that can be approached from multiple angles; for example, cognitively, appraising situations for meaning, and motivationally to pursue worthwhile goals (Eysenck & Keane, 2015; Ryan & Deci, 2018).

While there are many definitions of meaning in psychology, Laura King, a psychologist at the University of Missouri, provides us with the following useful description (Heintzelman & King, 2015):

Meaning in life “may be defined as the extent to which a person experiences his or her life as having purpose, significance, and coherence.”

Whether meaning is derived from thoughtful reflection or only as a byproduct of cognitive processing, it is vital for healthy mental functioning. After all, we only attach importance to an experience and see it as significant if it has meaning. Similarly, a sense of meaning and purpose is crucial to create an environment for pursuing personal goals.

A fascinating study in 2010 took a very different perspective, bringing us closer to our initial, philosophical discussion. The realization that there is only one certainty in life – death – can cause great anxiety for many.

The Terror Management Theory (TMT) suggests that features that remind us of our mortality are likely to heighten fear around death (Routledge & Juhl, 2010). However, TMT also suggests that a life “ imbued with meaning and purpose ” can help stave off such angst.

Philosophically and psychologically, it is clear that meaning is a fundamental component of our human existence.

Meaning refers to how we “ make sense of life and our roles in it ,” while purpose refers to the “ aspirations that motivate our activities ” (Ivtzan et al., 2016).

The terms are sufficiently close to saying that in the absence of either, our life lacks a story. As humans, we need something to strive for and a sense of connectedness between the important moments that make up our existence (Steger, 2009).

Sometimes, seeing the bigger picture or recognizing our place in the broader scheme can bring great insights and even play a role in our experience of meaning in life (Hicks & King, 2007).

Share the following ideas and insights with your clients:

Mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

In 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan convinced NASA to spin the Voyager 1 Space Probe around to take one last look at Earth as the probe left the solar system. The picture it took was unlike any other before or since. Roughly 3.7 billion miles away and traveling at 40,000 miles per hour, it captured Earth as a small pale blue dot against a band of sunlight.

The image either leaves you with a sense of deep horror at our insignificance in a vast, uncaring universe or a sense of wonder at how we came into being in such a “ vast cosmic arena .”

This realization is captured beautifully in Carl Sagan’s words and this stunning computer simulation.

Broadening the mind

Alternate points of view that broaden the mind may help an individual experience an increased sense of meaning in life (Hicks & King, 2007). With that in mind, work with your client to widen their outlook and experience others’ thoughts to challenge what they know and think.

Ask your client to:

Read widely . Explore new ideas and beliefs that reach beyond your comfort zone.
Widen your group of friends and contacts . Seek out those who have unique ways of looking at things – positive people who will encourage you to grow.
Learn the methods of evidence-led, scientific thinking . Rational thinking can provide the opportunity to free yourself from biased judgments.

Finding meaning through growth

Adopting a growth mindset can also lead to increased purpose in life. Help your client move away from a fixed mindset and open up to finding new purpose through exploration and challenge (Lee, Hwang, & Jang, 2018; Smith, 2018).

Work with your client to:

Find and build on their strengths . Try out some free online questionnaires such as the Values in Action Inventory or the CliftonStrengths Assessment . Once identified, see how they can use their strengths more regularly in daily life.
Explore weaknesses . If they aren’t holding the client back, help them to accept their weaknesses. If weaknesses prevent the client from living the life they wish to lead, try out techniques to build resilience and adopt a growth mindset .
Help the client understand that the meaning they give to life is subjective and just as valid as anyone else’s.
Accept that mistakes are part of learning.
Encourage them to find ways to motivate themselves by building on intrinsic factors such as tasks that they feel related to, autonomous in, and can grow in competence (Ryan & Deci, 2018). After all, meaning is fundamental to motivation (Heintzelman, 2018).
Help others . Work for charities or provide support where needed.
Studies have shown that fostering a sense of awe, gratitude, and altruism can help strengthen a sense of purpose.
Ask the client to listen to the positive things people have to say about them.
Writing or reading about personal experiences can help develop a shared understanding of meaning. Not only does it build a sense of who we are, but it also makes sense of our experiences.

Download 3 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to find meaning in life help and pursue directions that are in alignment with values.

Download 3 Free Meaning Tools Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

The sources of meaning and a sense of purpose in our lives are highly personal, subjective, and will vary throughout our lives.

Promotion of happiness themes

The following activities and techniques can promote key themes in our lives as sources of meaning (Ivtzan at al., 2016):

Support others (and receive others’ support) by joining clubs – strengthening bonds and building relationships .
Share feelings, desires, hopes, goals, successes, and failures with a close friend or significant other to increase intimacy .
Focus outside yourself on causes, pursuits, and responsibilities to self-transcend .
Pursue goals and strive for achievement in areas aligned with your values.
Become comfortable in who you are. Feel the satisfaction of meaning by practicing self-acceptance .
Express and experience respect and fairness .
Obtaining materialistic desires can be significant and meaningful for some.
Working towards professional goals can be purposeful for many.
Pursuit of pleasure and happiness brings meaning and purpose to many but can be short lived.

Reflect on your sources of meaning

Having shared the above list with your client, ask them to:

Rank on a sheet of paper their personal sources of meaning (italics above).
Review which ones are central and most influential.
Reflect on the opportunities to strengthen the ones that rank less highly.

The following tools and techniques are taken from our Positive Psychology Toolkit© and can support your work with clients in their search for purpose and meaning. The exercises are briefly explained, and can be access with a subscription to the Toolkit, which contains over 400 useful tools.

Living a meaningful life can be facilitated by a greater awareness of core values and the thoughts behind them. The insights provided by understanding personal values can help regain a sense of meaning to improve motivation.

Values represent what we consider essential and what we live for in life. They combine both the core psychological needs of the self and society’s norms.

Work with your client to identify what is most valuable to them before they commit to action; for example, being creative, learning, or showing compassion to others.

The Value Cards group exercise provides 42 values (plus some blanks) that can be cut out to form a deck of cards.

Ask each person in the group to:

Lay the value cards out in front of you.
Study and reflect on each one.
Identify the five cards that best represent your core values.
If comfortable, share your core values with others in the group to see what each person has chosen.
Once completed, select the card that represents your strongest value.
Explain to another person in the group why it is your strongest value and offer examples (enjoy this celebration of successes).
Select another value that you would like to live into more and discuss with another person in the group.
Select and share your core value with the group.

Life domains

Some values are specific to life domains. For example, productivity may be more suited to our professional life and compassion in our home life; as our domains change throughout our lives, so too can our values.

A Values Vision Board can provide an excellent visual means for clients to become more aware and connect to their values.

Create a vision board, using pictures cut from magazines and stuck to paper or software such as Powerpoint or Keynote.
Try grouping the images by domain or in order of overall life values.
Work on it through feeling rather than rational thinking, with no goals in mind.
Share your thoughts about the vision board with the therapist or a close friend.
Place the vision board somewhere it can be seen daily. Regularly return to the board to see if values have shifted and whether life is still balanced with the core values.

Emotion and goal-driven behavior

Despite the importance of our values, they can easily be ignored or even avoided.

Powerful emotions often overtake our values in directing our behavior. We fear writing the book we have always wanted or doubt our ability to commit to a relationship.

While goals can be vital to meeting our long-term plans, they can cause us to lose sight of what is important. We may be so focused on finding a partner, owning a house, or starting a family that we lose sight of enjoying life and building a group of friends.

The Values-Based Goal Setting exercise can help translate values into committed action.

Ask the client to:

Choose a life domain, for example, parenting, relationship, work, etc.
Think about what you would like to change in that domain.
Consider why it is essential to make that change.
Write down beside each reason what value it underpins, for example, work/life balance, love, etc.
Use the SMART acronym (specific, meaningful, adaptive, realistic, time-framed) to translate these values into concrete goals.
Review regularly to confirm that these are your goals (not someone else’s) and that your core values remain unchanged.

Shifting and replacing values

Near-death experiences are frequently associated with a re-assessment of a person’s values, including increased concern for others, an appreciation for life, and a decrease in materialism.

Considering our mortality (while challenging) can improve our awareness of what is genuinely important.

The My Gravestone exercise is a powerful tool for reevaluating how we spend our time on Earth. If appropriate to the client’s circumstances, ask your client to:

Imagine their life is over.
Using the shape of a tombstone, write out their name, birth date, etc.
Write a couple of sentences or phrases that capture how they would like to be remembered and how they would like to have spent their time.

This is an extremely difficult exercise for many and should only be performed if the client is ready and willing to cope with the emotions that may arise.

A near-death experience, serious illness, separation, or loss of a loved one can all shake our sense of who we are and force us to reevaluate our core values, life purpose, and sense of meaning.

Indeed, research on trauma survivors has observed post-traumatic growth and the capacity to extract meaning from adversity (Routledge & Juhl, 2010).

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.

Updated monthly. 100% Science-based.

“The best positive psychology resource out there!” — Emiliya Zhivotovskaya , Flourishing Center CEO

Our Masterclass on Meaning and Valued Living© provides an intuitive and accessible way to apply positive psychology.

This excellent online program is for therapists, psychologists, counselors, coaches, and practitioners who want to help their clients find meaning and discover their values, connecting them to their ‘why’ so that they can bear the ‘how.’

if you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others discover meaning, this collection contains 17 validated meaning tools for practitioners. Use them to help others choose directions for their lives in alignment with what is truly important to them.

The meaning we attach to our self, the world around us, and our role within it form our narrative. Our purpose – our aim and goals – motivates the activities that take us through it.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that both meaning and purpose are vital to our wellbeing as well as crucial to who we are.

If we accept the existentialists’ view, then we are free to lead a life according to our values, assign a meaning to what we see as vital, and pursue a unique purpose.

As Sartre points out, this realization may begin with anguish and spiral to a sense of vertiginous nausea before we act. After all, it is like being dropped at a cliff’s edge, without the option of going back and an uncertain future ahead.

Instead, we must choose our values and the meaning we assign to who we are, how we live, and what we do. Our goals are personal, and we must decide whether to follow them or let them drift out of sight.

But failing to act authentically and live according to the meaning and purpose we have chosen would result in a less-well-lived life. So, try the exercises within this article – if only to better understand who you are, your core values, and your place in your surroundings – and explore potential yet to be written.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free .

Camus, A. (1975). The myth of Sisyphus . London: Penguin Books.
Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2015). Cognitive psychology: A student’s handbook . New York: Psychology Press.
Heidegger, M. (2013). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Malden: Blackwell. (Original work published in 1927 and translated in 1962)
Hicks, J. A., & King, L. A. (2007). Meaning in life and seeing the big picture: Positive affect and global focus. Cognition & Emotion , 21 (7), 1577–1584.
Huo, J.-Y., Wang, X.-Q., Steger, M. F., Ge, Y., Wang, Y.-C., Liu, M.-F., & Ye, B.-J. (2019). Implicit meaning in life: The assessment and construct validity of implicit meaning in life and relations with explicit meaning in life and depression. The Journal of Positive Psychology , 15 (4), 500–518.
Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T., Hefferon, K., & Worth, P. (2016). Second wave positive psychology: Embracing the dark side of life . London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Kaufmann, W. (1976). The portable Nietzsch e. London: Penguin Books
Heintzelman, S. J. (2018). Eudaimonia in the contemporary science of subjective well-being: Psychological well-being, self-determination, and meaning in life. In E. Diener, S. Oishi, & L. Tay (Eds.), Handbook of well-being . Salt Lake City, UT: DEF.
Heintzelman, S. J., & King, L. A. (2015). Meaning in life and intuition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 110 (3), 477–492.
Lee, C. S., Hwang, Y. K., & Jang, H. Y. (2018). Moderating effect of growth mindset on the relationship between attitude toward tourism and meaning in life. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics , 120 (6), 5523–5540.
Nietzsche, F. (1911). Beyond good and evil (H. Zimmern, Trans.). Edinburgh: Darrien Press.
Routledge, C., & Juhl, J. (2010). When death thoughts lead to death fears: Mortality salience increases death anxiety for individuals who lack meaning in life. Cognition & Emotion , 24 (5), 848–854.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2018). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness . New York: Guilford Press.
Sartre, J. (1964). Being and nothingness: An essay in phenomenological ontolog y. New York: Citadel Press.
Smith, J. A. (2018). How to find your purpose in life. Greater Good Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2020, from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_find_your_purpose_in_life
Steger, M. F. (2009). Meaning in life. In S. J. Lopez (Ed.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 679–687). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Warnock, M. (1970). Existentialism . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Share this article:

Article feedback

What our readers think.

We obviously don’t exist in a vacuum so we have a stack of existing phenomena to analyse and interpret. Emanuel Kant said “Two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence …. the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

Excellent Article. The way ‘ meaning’ and ‘Purpose’ is differentiated is giving clarity to many who get caught in a hazy situation.Purpose is constant and meaning may shift along the journey of life.Purpose is Values driven and Meaning is Actions driven. Enjoyed a lot

Excellent article. I especially liked the differentiation of “meaning” and “purpose” and ways to explore these and become more self-aware. Such poignancy and a great invitation for a deeply meaningful life.

Excellent article. I loved the included YouTube video and funnily enough this is a practice (visualizing myself “zoneing out”- like in the video) I use to ground myself. Refreshing 🙂

The term “existentialism” was given by Catholic existence philosopher Gabriel Marcel to Jean-Paul Sartre’s version of existence philosophy. Nietzsche is not an existentialist, rather, a vitalist. Kierkegaard preceded him and has more existential themes later philosophers like Heidegger built on. “Existentialism” was later associated with Sartre and his followers with “existential phenomenology” being more Heidegger’s suit.

Meaning is objective for Husserl insofar as the laws of logic, morality, and mathematics are independent of the human mind.

Wow, what an insert to capture. I was in a Ministry meeting last night and it was the first one. I listened to several of the ladies say they have no idea of their purpose. So to read this today is a Godsend to share in the next group. This is so profound and just in learning to live.

Thanks for this — especially meaningful at this time of year, in this year. I shared The Blue Dot video to my FB page. But how can we download and share your essay?

Glad you liked the article! Unfortunately, we don’t currently have a download button for our posts, but if you hit ‘Yes’ on the ‘Did you find this article useful?’ button (near the reference list), a range of sharing options will appear. 🙂

– Nicole | Community Manager

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Existential Crisis: How to Cope With Meaninglessness

Recent statistics suggest that over a quarter of UK nationals feel a deep sense of meaninglessness (Dinic, 2021). In the wake of multiple global economic, [...]

9 Powerful Existential Therapy Techniques for Your Sessions

While not easily defined, existential therapy builds on ideas taken from philosophy, helping clients to understand and clarify the life they would like to lead [...]

15 Values Worksheets to Enrich Clients’ Lives (+ Inventory)

It’s not always easy to align our actions with our values. And yet, by identifying and exploring what we find meaningful, we can learn to [...]

3 Meaning Exercises Pack (PDF)

How it works

Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.

Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.

We pair AI with the latest in human-centered coaching to drive powerful, lasting learning and behavior change.

Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.

Build resilience, well-being and agility to drive performance across your entire enterprise.

Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders.

Unlock business impact from the top with executive coaching.

Foster a culture of inclusion and belonging.

Accelerate the performance and potential of your agencies and employees.

See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce.

Discover how BetterUp measurably impacts key business outcomes for organizations like yours.

A demo is the first step to transforming your business. Meet with us to develop a plan for attaining your goals.

What is coaching?

Learn how 1:1 coaching works, who its for, and if it's right for you.

Accelerate your personal and professional growth with the expert guidance of a BetterUp Coach.

Types of Coaching

Navigate career transitions, accelerate your professional growth, and achieve your career goals with expert coaching.

Enhance your communication skills for better personal and professional relationships, with tailored coaching that focuses on your needs.

Find balance, resilience, and well-being in all areas of your life with holistic coaching designed to empower you.

Discover your perfect match : Take our 5-minute assessment and let us pair you with one of our top Coaches tailored just for you.

Research, expert insights, and resources to develop courageous leaders within your organization.

Best practices, research, and tools to fuel individual and business growth.

View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions.

The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace.

BetterUp Briefing

The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today.

Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more.

Founded in 2022 to deepen the understanding of the intersection of well-being, purpose, and performance

We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion.

Join us and create impactful change.

Read the buzz about BetterUp.

Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce.

For Business

For Individuals

9 meaningful life goals to pursue for long-term fulfillment

Jump to section

Why you should set life goals

9 examples of meaningful life goals, how to motivate yourself to achieve life goals: 4 tips, turn your goals into reality.

Everyone’s journey in life is different. You probably know someone who meanders through life with frequent stops to smell the roses — and someone else who rushes around at breakneck speed, knocking things off their task priority list and hardly pausing to take a breath.

Whether you’re the wanderer, the whirlwind, or somewhere in between, you can benefit from thinking about your life goals. If you go with the flow, clarifying your goals can help you dig in and fight for what’s important. And if you rush from one short-term goal to the next, setting life goals can help you stand back and use your energy more strategically.

It’s well worth setting aside some time to develop a list of life goals that deeply align with your values , are built around your life’s purpose , and are part of your overall life plan .

Most children have clear life goals. Take Toby, David, and Alina, three kindergarteners who were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up .

Toby said he wanted to be “a veterinarian so I can help pets get better.” David said, “a fireman since I like explosions and fire.” And Alina said, “I want to be a customer in a store. I will buy broccoli, tomatoes, and carrots. When I get home, I will make soup.”

Whether you’re a go-getter like David or more in Alina’s speed, your life goals might feel less concrete as you age. It’s easy to let financial imperatives and seemingly urgent tasks distract you from more important objectives.

But communicating your life goals (even just to yourself) has surprising health benefits. One study found that journaling about life goals for 20 minutes on four consecutive days reduced physical illness five months later. Another found that students who either wrote or talked about their life goals were less likely to visit the health center due to illness.

Setting your overarching priorities also offers you a sense of purpose in everything you do, so you don’t wake up one day wondering what you have to show for the time that’s passed.

Here are nine life goal examples you can adapt to suit your interests and personal values .

1. Challenge yourself every day

Getting out of your comfort zone is a great way to develop new skills, conquer your fear of failure , and stay humble. It also helps you cultivate a growth mindset — the understanding that you can improve your skills immeasurably through constant learning, determination , and hard work.

You could challenge yourself to grow personally by doing something that scares you ( public speaking , skydiving, or networking ). But this goal isn’t about going bungee jumping every day. Instead, it’s about getting comfortable being uncomfortable .

For you, that might look like steadily working toward a fitness or health goal, taking steps to achieve a professional goal, or taking social risks while pursuing a friendship goal .

2. Become more mindful

Practicing mindfulness, or slowing down and paying attention to the present moment, has impressive benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, improves memory and focus, makes you a better problem-solver, and improves your relationships , to name only a few.

Setting a mindfulness-related personal goal might look like developing a regular yoga or meditation practice , cultivating a healthier relationship with food through mindful eating , or committing to manage stress and improve your well-being through mindful breathing .

3. Fulfill your professional dream

Perhaps you secretly think you’d do a great job as CEO of your company. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to start your own business or work in a different industry .

Whatever it is, saying it out loud and turning it into a concrete goal sets you on the path toward achieving it. Defining success means you can start planning the small steps you must take to get there.

This might involve improving your leadership skills , preparing for a promotion , making a career change in your 40s , or changing careers in your 50s .

Man-Holding-Mug-in-Front-of-Laptop-life-goals

4. Gain financial freedom

Deciding to work toward financial security is a powerful way to focus your attention on what you need to do to get there. Potential financial life goals include:

Handling your debt
Buying a home
Setting up a passive income stream
Investing a certain amount of your paycheck each month

Choose the financial goal that motivates you most and then break it into milestones you can work toward and celebrate along the way.

5. Look after yourself or others

Balancing the needs of self and others is one of life’s most challenging and gratifying tasks. If you tend to care for everyone else and put yourself last, set a life goal to fill your own cup first through self-care practices , asking for help , and carving out time for yourself .

And if you want to focus on others and strengthen your connections, you could set a relationship goal to become a better friend , parent , or partner.

6. Learn something new

Learning something new puts you on a fast track to personal growth by cultivating humility , critical thinking skills , and mental clarity . If you’ve wanted to dive into a new skill but haven’t found the time, turning it into a life goal might motivate you to pursue it more seriously.

It doesn’t matter what your new skill is — you just need to feel excited about it. Here are some suggestions:

A musical instrument
Self-defense
Woodworking
Car maintenance

Whenever you learn a new skill, you’re also learning how to learn , which sets you up to learn new skills in the future.

7. Expand your family

For most people, adding a new family member is both exciting and intimidating. While you can never fully prepare for a birth, adoption, foster child, or even pet adoption, setting family goals can help you consider any financial, emotional, and professional conditions you’d like to satisfy before welcoming the new arrival.

Setting a goal to expand your family may affect other big life decisions. If you plan to start a family in the next few years, you might want to structure your job searches to prioritize paid parental leave and benefits like flexible paid time off.

8. Start (and finish) a big creative project

If you have a book, poetry collection, or album of original songs locked inside you, maybe now’s the time to pursue this creative dream. It’s far too easy to put creative projects on the back burner when you’re just trying to make it through your workday. But for many, it’s these projects that make them feel most alive.

Stories abound of creative people who were working normal jobs before they got their big break. Harper Lee started off as an airline clerk, Anne Rice was an insurance claims examiner, and Art Garfunkel was a math teacher. Maybe you’ll be next. If you don’t set this meaningful creative goal, you’ll never know.

9. Give back

Giving back to your community or the world in general makes you happier, healthier, and more connected . Research even shows that life goals that focus on improving life for others make you happier than goals where you’re the only one who benefits .

Here are some ways to give back:

Making financial donations to causes you care about
Volunteering
Planting trees or picking up litter
Supporting local small businesses
Entering local politics
Writing a memoir or a book about something you’d like to share

Man-Assisting-elder-Person-with-Walker-life-goals

The sheer magnitude of most life goals can make them feel overwhelming . It’s important to break them down into smaller, more manageable pieces that support your achievement of larger long-term goals. Here are a few ways to stay motivated as you transform important life goals into action.

1. Create a vision board

A vision board is a visual representation of a goal. To create a vision board, find photos, quotes, and other objects (get creative!) that inspire you and put them together. Then put the board above your desk or in a place where you’ll pass by it frequently.

2. Set SMART goals

The SMART goal framework adds helpful structure to goals that are too vague or abstract. According to this framework, goals should be:

M easurable
A ttainable
T ime-bound

If your goal is to learn to cook, a SMART version might be: “Learn to cook five different healthy dinners that the whole family enjoys by the end of this year.”

Some life goals better suit the SMART goal framework than others, so experiment to find out what works.

young-woman-reading-a-calendar-life-goals

3. Mark milestones

Breaking big goals into more manageable steps keeps you on track and prevents you from becoming overwhelmed. If your goal is to learn Arabic, you could break that into the following milestones:

First month: Learn the alphabet
Second month: Have a simple conversation
Third month: Increase vocabulary to 500 words

Milestones encourage you to measure — and, more importantly, celebrate — your progress regularly.

4. Create an action plan

An action plan is a map of the steps you’ll take to realize your goal. A good action plan describes the tasks and subtasks involved in achieving your goal and sets a target date for each.

Creating an action plan is an excellent way to avoid becoming stymied by what programmers call “ yak shaving ”: the seemingly endless series of preliminary tasks you have to do before you can start the real task.

If you want to learn self-defense, you might realize you need to research a local self-defense school. And before you do that, you need to learn about different self-defense methods to find the right one.

Figuring out these sub-tasks and writing them down as action steps with deadlines will help you make steady progress and stop procrastination in its tracks .

Setting life goals is the first step toward achieving them. After that, you’ll need to call on motivation, inspiration , and sheer grit to reach them.

It’s important to fight for goals you really care about. But if your priorities change, there’s no shame in dropping one life goal and picking up another. You’re not the same person you were five years ago, and you won’t be the same person five years from now.

The best goals are those you revisit periodically and adapt to changing circumstances .

You might find, for example, that buying your dream car no longer seems like the best path to a fulfilling life. Instead, like Alina, you just want to make a great vegetable soup.

Achieve your life goals

Discover how personalized coaching can guide you toward fulfilling your dreams and ambitions.

Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

10 wellness goals to boost your overall health

Being the boss: 10 tips to find work-life balance for managers, how being intentional can improve your life, a goal for each part of your life: 13 types of goals that you need to set, emotional goals: 20 examples and how to reach them, how to write a 10 year plan (with examples) and reach your goals, how to make an action plan to achieve your goals and follow it, setting smart health goals: be clever about your well-being, how to get your life together in 10 simple steps, similar articles, 20 family goals to practice with your loved ones, long-term versus short-term goals: use both to succeed, moving toward your dreams or just moving yearly goals can help, how to help working parents navigating back-to-school, what is a long-term goal and how can i achieve it, grow model for coaching: achieve goals and boost performance, setting goals for 2024 to ring in the new year right, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

3100 E 5th Street, Suite 350 Austin, TX 78702

Platform Overview
Integrations
Powered by AI
BetterUp Lead™
BetterUp Manage™
BetterUp Care®
Sales Performance
Diversity & Inclusion
Case Studies
Why BetterUp?
About Coaching
Find your Coach
Career Coaching
Communication Coaching
Life Coaching
News and Press
Leadership Team
Become a BetterUp Coach
BetterUp Labs
Center for Purpose & Performance
Leadership Training
Business Coaching
Contact Support
Contact Sales
Privacy Policy
Acceptable Use Policy
Trust & Security
Cookie Preferences

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How to Find Your Purpose in Life

Do you have a sense of purpose?

For decades, psychologists have studied how long-term, meaningful goals develop over the span of our lives. The goals that foster a sense of purpose are ones that can potentially change the lives of other people, like launching an organization, researching disease, or teaching kids to read.

Indeed, a sense of purpose appears to have evolved in humans so that we can accomplish big things together—which may be why it’s associated with better physical and mental health. Purpose is adaptive, in an evolutionary sense. It helps both individuals and the species to survive.

Many seem to believe that purpose arises from your special gifts and sets you apart from other people—but that’s only part of the truth. It also grows from our connection to others, which is why a crisis of purpose is often a symptom of isolation. Once you find your path, you’ll almost certainly find others traveling along with you, hoping to reach the same destination—a community.

Here are six ways to overcome isolation and discover your purpose in life.

Reading connects us to people we’ll never know, across time and space—an experience that research says is linked to a sense of meaning and purpose. (Note: “Meaning” and “purpose” are related but separate social-scientific constructs. Purpose is a part of meaning; meaning is a much broader concept that usually also includes value, efficacy, and self-worth.)

In a 2010 paper , for example, Leslie Francis studied a group of nearly 26,000 teenagers throughout England and Wales—and found that those who read the Bible more tended to have a stronger sense of purpose. Secular reading seems to make a difference, as well. In a survey of empirical studies , Raymond A. Mar and colleagues found a link between reading poetry and fiction and a sense of purpose among adolescents.

“Reading fiction might allow adolescents to reason about the whole lives of characters, giving them specific insight into an entire lifespan without having to have fully lived most of their own lives,” they suggest. By seeing purpose in the lives of other people, teens are more likely to see it in their own lives. In this sense, purpose is an act of the imagination.

Many people I interviewed for this article mentioned pivotal books or ideas they found in books.

The writing of historian W.E.B. Du Bois pushed social-justice activist Art McGee to embrace a specific vision of African-American identity and liberation. Journalist Michael Stoll found inspiration in the “social responsibility theory of journalism,” which he read about at Stanford University. “Basically, reporters and editors have not just the ability but also the duty to improve their community by being independent arbiters of problems that need solving,” he says. “It’s been my professional North Star ever since.” Spurred by this idea, Michael went on to launch an award-winning nonprofit news agency called The San Francisco Public Press .

So, if you’re feeling a crisis of purpose in your life, go to the bookstore or library or university. Find books that matter to you—and they might help you to see what matters in your own life.

2. Turn hurts into healing for others

Of course, finding purpose is not just an intellectual pursuit; it’s something we need to feel. That’s why it can grow out of suffering, both our own and others’.

Kezia Willingham was raised in poverty in Corvallis, Oregon, her family riven by domestic violence. “No one at school intervened or helped or supported my mother, myself, or my brother when I was growing up poor, ashamed, and sure that my existence was a mistake,” she says. “I was running the streets, skipping school, having sex with strangers, and abusing every drug I could get my hands on.”

When she was 16, Kezia enrolled at an alternative high school that “led me to believe I had options and a path out of poverty.” She made her way to college and was especially “drawn to the kids with ‘issues’”—kids like the one she had once been. She says:

I want the kids out there who grew up like me, to know they have futures ahead of them. I want them to know they are smart, even if they may not meet state academic standards. I want them to know that they are just as good and valuable as any other human who happens to be born into more privileged circumstances. Because they are. And there are so damn many messages telling them otherwise.

Sometimes, another person’s pain can lead us to purpose. When Christopher Pepper was a senior in high school, a “trembling, tearful friend” told him that she had been raped by a classmate. “I comforted as well as I could, and left that conversation vowing that I would do something to keep this from happening to others,” says Christopher. He kept that promise by becoming a Peer Rape Educator in college—and then a sex educator in San Francisco public schools.

Why do people like Kezia and Christopher seem to find purpose in suffering—while others are crushed by it? Part of the answer, as we’ll see next, might have to do with the emotions and behaviors we cultivate in ourselves.

3. Cultivate awe, gratitude, and altruism

Certain emotions and behaviors that promote health and well-being can also foster a sense of purpose—specifically, awe , gratitude , and altruism .

Several studies conducted by the Greater Good Science Center’s Dacher Keltner have shown that the experience of awe makes us feel connected to something larger than ourselves—and so can provide the emotional foundation for a sense of purpose.

Of course, awe all by itself won’t give you a purpose in life. It’s not enough to just feel like you’re a small part of something big; you also need to feel driven to make a positive impact on the world. That’s where gratitude and generosity come into play.

“It may seem counterintuitive to foster purpose by cultivating a grateful mindset, but it works,” writes psychologist Kendall Bronk , a leading expert on purpose. As research by William Damon, Robert Emmons, and others has found, children and adults who are able to count their blessings are much more likely to try to “contribute to the world beyond themselves.” This is probably because, if we can see how others make our world a better place, we’ll be more motivated to give something back.

Here we arrive at altruism. There’s little question, at this point, that helping others is associated with a meaningful, purposeful life. In one study, for example, Daryl Van Tongeren and colleagues found that people who engage in more altruistic behaviors, like volunteering or donating money, tend to have a greater sense of purpose in their lives .

Interestingly, gratitude and altruism seem to work together to generate meaning and purpose. In a second experiment, the researchers randomly assigned some participants to write letters of gratitude—and those people later reported a stronger sense of purpose. More recent work by Christina Karns and colleagues found that altruism and gratitude are neurologically linked, activating the same reward circuits in the brain.

4. Listen to what other people appreciate about you

Giving thanks can help you find your purpose. But you can also find purpose in what people thank you for.

Like Kezia Willingham, Shawn Taylor had a tough childhood—and he was also drawn to working with kids who had severe behavioral problems. Unlike her, however, he often felt like the work was a dead-end. “I thought I sucked at my chosen profession,” he says. Then, one day, a girl he’d worked with five years before contacted him.

“She detailed how I helped to change her life,” says Shawn—and she asked him to walk her down the aisle when she got married. Shawn hadn’t even thought about her, in all that time. “Something clicked and I knew this was my path. No specifics, but youth work was my purpose.”

The artists, writers, and musicians I interviewed often described how appreciation from others fueled their work. Dani Burlison never lacked a sense of purpose, and she toiled for years as a writer and social-justice activist in Santa Rosa, California. But when wildfires swept through her community, Dani discovered that her strengths were needed in a new way: “I’ve found that my networking and emergency response skills have been really helpful to my community, my students, and to firefighters!”

Although there is no research that directly explores how being thanked might fuel a sense of purpose, we do know that gratitude strengthens relationships —and those are often the source of our purpose, as many of these stories suggest.

5. Find and build community

As we see in Dani’s case, we can often find our sense of purpose in the people around us.

Many people told me about finding purpose in family. In tandem with his reading, Art McGee found purpose—working for social and racial justice—in “love and respect for my hardworking father,” he says. “Working people like him deserved so much better.”

Environmental and social-justice organizer Jodi Sugerman-Brozan feels driven “to leave the world in a better place than I found it.” Becoming a mom “strengthened that purpose (it’s going to be their world, and their kids’ world),” she says. It “definitely influences how I parent (wanting to raise anti-racist, feminist, radical kids who will want to continue the fight and be leaders).”

Of course, our kids may not embrace our purpose. Amber Cantorna was raised by purpose-driven parents who were right-wing Christians. “My mom had us involved in stuff all the time, all within that conservative Christian bubble,” she says. This family and community fueled a strong sense of purpose in Amber: “To be a good Christian and role model. To be a blessing to other people.”

The trouble is that this underlying purpose involved making other people more like them. When she came out as a lesbian at age 27, Amber’s family and community swiftly and suddenly cast her out. This triggered a deep crisis of purpose—one that she resolved by finding a new faith community “that helped shape me and gave me a sense of belonging,” she says.

Often, the nobility of our purpose reflects the company we keep. The purpose that came from Amber’s parents was based on exclusion, as she discovered. There was no place—and no purpose—for her in that community once she embraced an identity they couldn’t accept. A new sense of purpose came with the new community and identity she helped to build, of gay and lesbian Christians.

If you’re having trouble remembering your purpose, take a look at the people around you. What do you have in common with them? What are they trying to be? What impact do you see them having on the world? Is that impact a positive one? Can you join with them in making that impact? What do they need? Can you give it them?

If the answers to those questions don’t inspire you, then you might need to find a new community—and with that, a new purpose may come.

6. Tell your story

Reading can help you find your purpose—but so can writing,

Purpose often arises from curiosity about your own life. What obstacles have you encountered? What strengths helped you to overcome them? How did other people help you? How did your strengths help make life better for others?

“We all have the ability to make a narrative out of our own lives,” says Emily Esfahani Smith , author of the 2017 book The Power of Meaning . “It gives us clarity on our own lives, how to understand ourselves, and gives us a framework that goes beyond the day-to-day and basically helps us make sense of our experiences.”

That’s why Amber Cantorna wrote her memoir, Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God . At first depressed after losing everyone she loved, Amber soon discovered new strengths in herself—and she is using her book to help build a nonprofit organization called Beyond to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians in their coming-out process.

One 2008 study found that those who see meaning and purpose in their lives are able to tell a story of change and growth, where they managed to overcome the obstacles they encountered. In other words, creating a narrative like Amber’s can help us to see our own strengths and how applying those strengths can make a difference in the world, which increases our sense of self-efficacy.

This is a valuable reflective process to all people, but Amber took it one step further, by publishing her autobiography and turning it into a tool for social change. Today, Amber’s purpose is to help people like her feel less alone.

“My sense of purpose has grown a lot with my desire to share my story—and the realization that so many other people have shared my journey.”

About the Author

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC's online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

You May Also Enjoy

Living With a Purpose Changes Everything

Can the Science of Purpose Help Explain White Supremacy?

Five Ways to Foster Purpose in Adolescents

Seven Paths to a Meaningful Life

Could Stress Help You Find Your Purpose in Life?

Can Purpose Keep You Alive?

Table of Contents
Random Entry
Chronological
Editorial Information
About the SEP
Editorial Board
How to Cite the SEP
Special Characters
Advanced Tools
Support the SEP
PDFs for SEP Friends
Make a Donation
SEPIA for Libraries
Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

Friends PDF Preview
Author and Citation Info
Back to Top

The Meaning of Life

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms (with such talk having arisen only in the past 250 years or so, on which see Landau 1997). Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. Relatedly, think about Koheleth, the presumed author of the Biblical book Ecclesiastes, describing life as “futility” and akin to “the pursuit of wind,” Nietzsche on nihilism, as well as Schopenhauer when he remarks that whenever we reach a goal we have longed for we discover “how vain and empty it is.” While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and virtue (and their opposites), they are straightforwardly construed (roughly) as accounts of which highly ranked purposes a person ought to realize that would make her life significant (if any would).

Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only since the 1980s or so that a distinct field of the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy, on which this survey focuses, and it is only in the past 20 years that debate with real depth and intricacy has appeared. Two decades ago analytic reflection on life’s meaning was described as a “backwater” compared to that on well-being or good character, and it was possible to cite nearly all the literature in a given critical discussion of the field (Metz 2002). Neither is true any longer. Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy of life’s meaning has become vibrant, such that there is now way too much literature to be able to cite comprehensively in this survey. To obtain focus, it tends to discuss books, influential essays, and more recent works, and it leaves aside contributions from other philosophical traditions (such as the Continental or African) and from non-philosophical fields (e.g., psychology or literature). This survey’s central aim is to acquaint the reader with current analytic approaches to life’s meaning, sketching major debates and pointing out neglected topics that merit further consideration.

When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people tend to pose one of three questions: “What are you talking about?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, and “Is life in fact meaningful?”. The literature on life's meaning composed by those working in the analytic tradition (on which this entry focuses) can be usefully organized according to which question it seeks to answer. This survey starts off with recent work that addresses the first, abstract (or “meta”) question regarding the sense of talk of “life’s meaning,” i.e., that aims to clarify what we have in mind when inquiring into the meaning of life (section 1). Afterward, it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question about the nature of meaningfulness (sections 2–3). There is in the making a sub-field of applied meaning that parallels applied ethics, in which meaningfulness is considered in the context of particular cases or specific themes. Examples include downshifting (Levy 2005), implementing genetic enhancements (Agar 2013), making achievements (Bradford 2015), getting an education (Schinkel et al. 2015), interacting with research participants (Olson 2016), automating labor (Danaher 2017), and creating children (Ferracioli 2018). In contrast, this survey focuses nearly exclusively on contemporary normative-theoretical approaches to life’s meanining, that is, attempts to capture in a single, general principle all the variegated conditions that could confer meaning on life. Finally, this survey examines fresh arguments for the nihilist view that the conditions necessary for a meaningful life do not obtain for any of us, i.e., that all our lives are meaningless (section 4).

1. The Meaning of “Meaning”

2.1. god-centered views, 2.2. soul-centered views, 3.1. subjectivism, 3.2. objectivism, 3.3. rejecting god and a soul, 4. nihilism, works cited, classic works, collections, books for the general reader, other internet resources, related entries.

One of the field's aims consists of the systematic attempt to identify what people (essentially or characteristically) have in mind when they think about the topic of life’s meaning. For many in the field, terms such as “importance” and “significance” are synonyms of “meaningfulness” and so are insufficiently revealing, but there are those who draw a distinction between meaningfulness and significance (Singer 1996, 112–18; Belliotti 2019, 145–50, 186). There is also debate about how the concept of a meaningless life relates to the ideas of a life that is absurd (Nagel 1970, 1986, 214–23; Feinberg 1980; Belliotti 2019), futile (Trisel 2002), and not worth living (Landau 2017, 12–15; Matheson 2017).

A useful way to begin to get clear about what thinking about life’s meaning involves is to specify the bearer. Which life does the inquirer have in mind? A standard distinction to draw is between the meaning “in” life, where a human person is what can exhibit meaning, and the meaning “of” life in a narrow sense, where the human species as a whole is what can be meaningful or not. There has also been a bit of recent consideration of whether animals or human infants can have meaning in their lives, with most rejecting that possibility (e.g., Wong 2008, 131, 147; Fischer 2019, 1–24), but a handful of others beginning to make a case for it (Purves and Delon 2018; Thomas 2018). Also under-explored is the issue of whether groups, such as a people or an organization, can be bearers of meaning, and, if so, under what conditions.

Most analytic philosophers have been interested in meaning in life, that is, in the meaningfulness that a person’s life could exhibit, with comparatively few these days addressing the meaning of life in the narrow sense. Even those who believe that God is or would be central to life’s meaning have lately addressed how an individual’s life might be meaningful in virtue of God more often than how the human race might be. Although some have argued that the meaningfulness of human life as such merits inquiry to no less a degree (if not more) than the meaning in a life (Seachris 2013; Tartaglia 2015; cf. Trisel 2016), a large majority of the field has instead been interested in whether their lives as individual persons (and the lives of those they care about) are meaningful and how they could become more so.

Focusing on meaning in life, it is quite common to maintain that it is conceptually something good for its own sake or, relatedly, something that provides a basic reason for action (on which see Visak 2017). There are a few who have recently suggested otherwise, maintaining that there can be neutral or even undesirable kinds of meaning in a person’s life (e.g., Mawson 2016, 90, 193; Thomas 2018, 291, 294). However, these are outliers, with most analytic philosophers, and presumably laypeople, instead wanting to know when an individual’s life exhibits a certain kind of final value (or non-instrumental reason for action).

Another claim about which there is substantial consensus is that meaningfulness is not all or nothing and instead comes in degrees, such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others. Note that one can coherently hold the view that some people’s lives are less meaningful (or even in a certain sense less “important”) than others, or are even meaningless (unimportant), and still maintain that people have an equal standing from a moral point of view. Consider a consequentialist moral principle according to which each individual counts for one in virtue of having a capacity for a meaningful life, or a Kantian approach according to which all people have a dignity in virtue of their capacity for autonomous decision-making, where meaning is a function of the exercise of this capacity. For both moral outlooks, we could be required to help people with relatively meaningless lives.

Yet another relatively uncontroversial element of the concept of meaningfulness in respect of individual persons is that it is logically distinct from happiness or rightness (emphasized in Wolf 2010, 2016). First, to ask whether someone’s life is meaningful is not one and the same as asking whether her life is pleasant or she is subjectively well off. A life in an experience machine or virtual reality device would surely be a happy one, but very few take it to be a prima facie candidate for meaningfulness (Nozick 1974: 42–45). Indeed, a number would say that one’s life logically could become meaningful precisely by sacrificing one’s well-being, e.g., by helping others at the expense of one’s self-interest. Second, asking whether a person’s existence over time is meaningful is not identical to considering whether she has been morally upright; there are intuitively ways to enhance meaning that have nothing to do with right action or moral virtue, such as making a scientific discovery or becoming an excellent dancer. Now, one might argue that a life would be meaningless if, or even because, it were unhappy or immoral, but that would be to posit a synthetic, substantive relationship between the concepts, far from indicating that speaking of “meaningfulness” is analytically a matter of connoting ideas regarding happiness or rightness. The question of what (if anything) makes a person’s life meaningful is conceptually distinct from the questions of what makes a life happy or moral, although it could turn out that the best answer to the former question appeals to an answer to one of the latter questions.

Supposing, then, that talk of “meaning in life” connotes something good for its own sake that can come in degrees and that is not analytically equivalent to happiness or rightness, what else does it involve? What more can we say about this final value, by definition? Most contemporary analytic philosophers would say that the relevant value is absent from spending time in an experience machine (but see Goetz 2012 for a different view) or living akin to Sisyphus, the mythic figure doomed by the Greek gods to roll a stone up a hill for eternity (famously discussed by Albert Camus and Taylor 1970). In addition, many would say that the relevant value is typified by the classic triad of “the good, the true, and the beautiful” (or would be under certain conditions). These terms are not to be taken literally, but instead are rough catchwords for beneficent relationships (love, collegiality, morality), intellectual reflection (wisdom, education, discoveries), and creativity (particularly the arts, but also potentially things like humor or gardening).

Pressing further, is there something that the values of the good, the true, the beautiful, and any other logically possible sources of meaning involve? There is as yet no consensus in the field. One salient view is that the concept of meaning in life is a cluster or amalgam of overlapping ideas, such as fulfilling higher-order purposes, meriting substantial esteem or admiration, having a noteworthy impact, transcending one’s animal nature, making sense, or exhibiting a compelling life-story (Markus 2003; Thomson 2003; Metz 2013, 24–35; Seachris 2013, 3–4; Mawson 2016). However, there are philosophers who maintain that something much more monistic is true of the concept, so that (nearly) all thought about meaningfulness in a person’s life is essentially about a single property. Suggestions include being devoted to or in awe of qualitatively superior goods (Taylor 1989, 3–24), transcending one’s limits (Levy 2005), or making a contribution (Martela 2016).

Recently there has been something of an “interpretive turn” in the field, one instance of which is the strong view that meaning-talk is logically about whether and how a life is intelligible within a wider frame of reference (Goldman 2018, 116–29; Seachris 2019; Thomas 2019; cf. Repp 2018). According to this approach, inquiring into life’s meaning is nothing other than seeking out sense-making information, perhaps a narrative about life or an explanation of its source and destiny. This analysis has the advantage of promising to unify a wide array of uses of the term “meaning.” However, it has the disadvantages of being unable to capture the intuitions that meaning in life is essentially good for its own sake (Landau 2017, 12–15), that it is not logically contradictory to maintain that an ineffable condition is what confers meaning on life (as per Cooper 2003, 126–42; Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014), and that often human actions themselves (as distinct from an interpretation of them), such as rescuing a child from a burning building, are what bear meaning.

Some thinkers have suggested that a complete analysis of the concept of life’s meaning should include what has been called “anti-matter” (Metz 2002, 805–07, 2013, 63–65, 71–73) or “anti-meaning” (Campbell and Nyholm 2015; Egerstrom 2015), conditions that reduce the meaningfulness of a life. The thought is that meaning is well represented by a bipolar scale, where there is a dimension of not merely positive conditions, but also negative ones. Gratuitous cruelty or destructiveness are prima facie candidates for actions that not merely fail to add meaning, but also subtract from any meaning one’s life might have had.

Despite the ongoing debates about how to analyze the concept of life’s meaning (or articulate the definition of the phrase “meaning in life”), the field remains in a good position to make progress on the other key questions posed above, viz., of what would make a life meaningful and whether any lives are in fact meaningful. A certain amount of common ground is provided by the point that meaningfulness at least involves a gradient final value in a person’s life that is conceptually distinct from happiness and rightness, with exemplars of it potentially being the good, the true, and the beautiful. The rest of this discussion addresses philosophical attempts to capture the nature of this value theoretically and to ascertain whether it exists in at least some of our lives.

2. Supernaturalism

Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning in life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.e., fundamental and general principles, that are meant to capture all the particular ways that a life could obtain meaning. As in moral philosophy, there are recognizable “anti-theorists,” i.e., those who maintain that there is too much pluralism among meaning conditions to be able to unify them in the form of a principle (e.g., Kekes 2000; Hosseini 2015). Arguably, though, the systematic search for unity is too nascent to be able to draw a firm conclusion about whether it is available.

The theories are standardly divided on a metaphysical basis, that is, in terms of which kinds of properties are held to constitute the meaning. Supernaturalist theories are views according to which a spiritual realm is central to meaning in life. Most Western philosophers have conceived of the spiritual in terms of God or a soul as commonly understood in the Abrahamic faiths (but see Mulgan 2015 for discussion of meaning in the context of a God uninterested in us). In contrast, naturalist theories are views that the physical world as known particularly well by the scientific method is central to life’s meaning.

There is logical space for a non-naturalist theory, according to which central to meaning is an abstract property that is neither spiritual nor physical. However, only scant attention has been paid to this possibility in the recent Anglo-American-Australasian literature (Audi 2005).

It is important to note that supernaturalism, a claim that God (or a soul) would confer meaning on a life, is logically distinct from theism, the claim that God (or a soul) exists. Although most who hold supernaturalism also hold theism, one could accept the former without the latter (as Camus more or less did), committing one to the view that life is meaningless or at least lacks substantial meaning. Similarly, while most naturalists are atheists, it is not contradictory to maintain that God exists but has nothing to do with meaning in life or perhaps even detracts from it. Although these combinations of positions are logically possible, some of them might be substantively implausible. The field could benefit from discussion of the comparative attractiveness of various combinations of evaluative claims about what would make life meaningful and metaphysical claims about whether spiritual conditions exist.

Over the past 15 years or so, two different types of supernaturalism have become distinguished on a regular basis (Metz 2019). That is true not only in the literature on life’s meaning, but also in that on the related pro-theism/anti-theism debate, about whether it would be desirable for God or a soul to exist (e.g., Kahane 2011; Kraay 2018; Lougheed 2020). On the one hand, there is extreme supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for any meaning in life. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life is meaningless. On the other hand, there is moderate supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for a great or ultimate meaning in life, although not meaning in life as such. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life could have some meaning, or even be meaningful, but no one’s life could exhibit the most desirable meaning. For a moderate supernaturalist, God or a soul would substantially enhance meaningfulness or be a major contributory condition for it.

There are a variety of ways that great or ultimate meaning has been described, sometimes quantitatively as “infinite” (Mawson 2016), qualitatively as “deeper” (Swinburne 2016), relationally as “unlimited” (Nozick 1981, 618–19; cf. Waghorn 2014), temporally as “eternal” (Cottingham 2016), and perspectivally as “from the point of view of the universe” (Benatar 2017). There has been no reflection as yet on the crucial question of how these distinctions might bear on each another, for instance, on whether some are more basic than others or some are more valuable than others.

Cross-cutting the extreme/moderate distinction is one between God-centered theories and soul-centered ones. According to the former, some kind of connection with God (understood to be a spiritual person who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful and who is the ground of the physical universe) constitutes meaning in life, even if one lacks a soul (construed as an immortal, spiritual substance that contains one’s identity). In contrast, by the latter, having a soul and putting it into a certain state is what makes life meaningful, even if God does not exist. Many supernaturalists of course believe that God and a soul are jointly necessary for a (greatly) meaningful existence. However, the simpler view, that only one of them is necessary, is common, and sometimes arguments proffered for the complex view fail to support it any more than the simpler one.

The most influential God-based account of meaning in life has been the extreme view that one’s existence is significant if and only if one fulfills a purpose God has assigned. The familiar idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one’s life is meaningful just to the degree that one helps God realize this plan, perhaps in a particular way that God wants one to do so. If a person failed to do what God intends her to do with her life (or if God does not even exist), then, on the current view, her life would be meaningless.

Thinkers differ over what it is about God’s purpose that might make it uniquely able to confer meaning on human lives, but the most influential argument has been that only God’s purpose could be the source of invariant moral rules (Davis 1987, 296, 304–05; Moreland 1987, 124–29; Craig 1994/2013, 161–67) or of objective values more generally (Cottingham 2005, 37–57), where a lack of such would render our lives nonsensical. According to this argument, lower goods such as animal pleasure or desire satisfaction could exist without God, but higher ones pertaining to meaning in life, particularly moral virtue, could not. However, critics point to many non-moral sources of meaning in life (e.g., Kekes 2000; Wolf 2010), with one arguing that a universal moral code is not necessary for meaning in life, even if, say, beneficent actions are (Ellin 1995, 327). In addition, there are a variety of naturalist and non-naturalist accounts of objective morality––and of value more generally––on offer these days, so that it is not clear that it must have a supernatural source in God’s will.

One recurrent objection to the idea that God’s purpose could make life meaningful is that if God had created us with a purpose in mind, then God would have degraded us and thereby undercut the possibility of us obtaining meaning from fulfilling the purpose. The objection harks back to Jean-Paul Sartre, but in the analytic literature it appears that Kurt Baier was the first to articulate it (1957/2000, 118–20; see also Murphy 1982, 14–15; Singer 1996, 29; Kahane 2011; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). Sometimes the concern is the threat of punishment God would make so that we do God’s bidding, while other times it is that the source of meaning would be constrictive and not up to us, and still other times it is that our dignity would be maligned simply by having been created with a certain end in mind (for some replies to such concerns, see Hanfling 1987, 45–46; Cottingham 2005, 37–57; Lougheed 2020, 111–21).

There is a different argument for an extreme God-based view that focuses less on God as purposive and more on God as infinite, unlimited, or ineffable, which Robert Nozick first articulated with care (Nozick 1981, 594–618; see also Bennett-Hunter 2014; Waghorn 2014). The core idea is that for a finite condition to be meaningful, it must obtain its meaning from another condition that has meaning. So, if one’s life is meaningful, it might be so in virtue of being married to a person, who is important. Being finite, the spouse must obtain his or her importance from elsewhere, perhaps from the sort of work he or she does. This work also must obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is meaningful, and so on. A regress on meaningful conditions is present, and the suggestion is that the regress can terminate only in something so all-encompassing that it need not (indeed, cannot) go beyond itself to obtain meaning from anything else. And that is God. The standard objection to this relational rationale is that a finite condition could be meaningful without obtaining its meaning from another meaningful condition. Perhaps it could be meaningful in itself, without being connected to something beyond it, or maybe it could obtain its meaning by being related to something else that is beautiful or otherwise valuable for its own sake but not meaningful (Nozick 1989, 167–68; Thomson 2003, 25–26, 48).

A serious concern for any extreme God-based view is the existence of apparent counterexamples. If we think of the stereotypical lives of Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, and Pablo Picasso, they seem meaningful even if we suppose there is no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good spiritual person who is the ground of the physical world (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 31–37, 49–50; Landau 2017). Even religiously inclined philosophers have found this hard to deny these days (Quinn 2000, 58; Audi 2005; Mawson 2016, 5; Williams 2020, 132–34).

Largely for that reason, contemporary supernaturalists have tended to opt for moderation, that is, to maintain that God would greatly enhance the meaning in our lives, even if some meaning would be possible in a world without God. One approach is to invoke the relational argument to show that God is necessary, not for any meaning whatsoever, but rather for an ultimate meaning. “Limited transcendence, the transcending of our limits so as to connect with a wider context of value which itself is limited, does give our lives meaning––but a limited one. We may thirst for more” (Nozick 1981, 618). Another angle is to appeal to playing a role in God’s plan, again to claim, not that it is essential for meaning as such, but rather for “a cosmic significance....intead of a significance very limited in time and space” (Swinburne 2016, 154; see also Quinn 2000; Cottingham 2016, 131). Another rationale is that by fulfilling God’s purpose, we would meaningfully please God, a perfect person, as well as be remembered favorably by God forever (Cottingham 2016, 135; Williams 2020, 21–22, 29, 101, 108). Still another argument is that only with God could the deepest desires of human nature be satisfied (e.g., Goetz 2012; Seachris 2013, 20; Cottingham 2016, 127, 136), even if more surface desires could be satisfied without God.

In reply to such rationales for a moderate supernaturalism, there has been the suggestion that it is precisely by virtue of being alone in the universe that our lives would be particularly significant; otherwise, God’s greatness would overshadow us (Kahane 2014). There has also been the response that, with the opportunity for greater meaning from God would also come that for greater anti-meaning, so that it is not clear that a world with God would offer a net gain in respect of meaning (Metz 2019, 34–35). For example, if pleasing God would greatly enhance meaning in our lives, then presumably displeasing God would greatly reduce it and to a comparable degree. In addition, there are arguments for extreme naturalism (or its “anti-theist” cousin) mentioned below (sub-section 3.3).

Notice that none of the above arguments for supernaturalism appeals to the prospect of eternal life (at least not explicitly). Arguments that do make such an appeal are soul-centered, holding that meaning in life mainly comes from having an immortal, spiritual substance that is contiguous with one’s body when it is alive and that will forever outlive its death. Some think of the afterlife in terms of one’s soul entering a transcendent, spiritual realm (Heaven), while others conceive of one’s soul getting reincarnated into another body on Earth. According to the extreme version, if one has a soul but fails to put it in the right state (or if one lacks a soul altogether), then one’s life is meaningless.

There are three prominent arguments for an extreme soul-based perspective. One argument, made famous by Leo Tolstoy, is the suggestion that for life to be meaningful something must be worth doing, that something is worth doing only if it will make a permanent difference to the world, and that making a permanent difference requires being immortal (see also Hanfling 1987, 22–24; Morris 1992, 26; Craig 1994). Critics most often appeal to counterexamples, suggesting for instance that it is surely worth your time and effort to help prevent people from suffering, even if you and they are mortal. Indeed, some have gone on the offensive and argued that helping people is worth the sacrifice only if and because they are mortal, for otherwise they could invariably be compensated in an afterlife (e.g., Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Another recent and interesting criticism is that the major motivations for the claim that nothing matters now if one day it will end are incoherent (Greene 2021).

A second argument for the view that life would be meaningless without a soul is that it is necessary for justice to be done, which, in turn, is necessary for a meaningful life. Life seems nonsensical when the wicked flourish and the righteous suffer, at least supposing there is no other world in which these injustices will be rectified, whether by God or a Karmic force. Something like this argument can be found in Ecclesiastes, and it continues to be defended (e.g., Davis 1987; Craig 1994). However, even granting that an afterlife is required for perfectly just outcomes, it is far from obvious that an eternal afterlife is necessary for them, and, then, there is the suggestion that some lives, such as Mandela’s, have been meaningful precisely in virtue of encountering injustice and fighting it.

A third argument for thinking that having a soul is essential for any meaning is that it is required to have the sort of free will without which our lives would be meaningless. Immanuel Kant is known for having maintained that if we were merely physical beings, subjected to the laws of nature like everything else in the material world, then we could not act for moral reasons and hence would be unimportant. More recently, one theologian has eloquently put the point in religious terms: “The moral spirit finds the meaning of life in choice. It finds it in that which proceeds from man and remains with him as his inner essence rather than in the accidents of circumstances turns of external fortune....(W)henever a human being rubs the lamp of his moral conscience, a Spirit does appear. This Spirit is God....It is in the ‘Thou must’ of God and man’s ‘I can’ that the divine image of God in human life is contained” (Swenson 1949/2000, 27–28). Notice that, even if moral norms did not spring from God’s commands, the logic of the argument entails that one’s life could be meaningful, so long as one had the inherent ability to make the morally correct choice in any situation. That, in turn, arguably requires something non-physical about one’s self, so as to be able to overcome whichever physical laws and forces one might confront. The standard objection to this reasoning is to advance a compatibilism about having a determined physical nature and being able to act for moral reasons (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77). It is also worth wondering whether, if one had to have a spiritual essence in order to make free choices, it would have to be one that never perished.

Like God-centered theorists, many soul-centered theorists these days advance a moderate view, accepting that some meaning in life would be possible without immortality, but arguing that a much greater meaning would be possible with it. Granting that Einstein, Mandela, and Picasso had somewhat meaningful lives despite not having survived the deaths of their bodies (as per, e.g., Trisel 2004; Wolf 2015, 89–140; Landau 2017), there remains a powerful thought: more is better. If a finite life with the good, the true, and the beautiful has meaning in it to some degree, then surely it would have all the more meaning if it exhibited such higher values––including a relationship with God––for an eternity (Cottingham 2016, 132–35; Mawson 2016, 2019, 52–53; Williams 2020, 112–34; cf. Benatar 2017, 35–63). One objection to this reasoning is that the infinity of meaning that would be possible with a soul would be “too big,” rendering it difficult for the moderate supernaturalist to make sense of the intution that a finite life such as Einstein’s can indeed count as meaningful by comparison (Metz 2019, 30–31; cf. Mawson 2019, 53–54). More common, though, is the objection that an eternal life would include anti-meaning of various kinds, such as boredom and repetition, discussed below in the context of extreme naturalism (sub-section 3.3).

3. Naturalism

Recall that naturalism is the view that a physical life is central to life’s meaning, that even if there is no spiritual realm, a substantially meaningful life is possible. Like supernaturalism, contemporary naturalism admits of two distinguishable variants, moderate and extreme (Metz 2019). The moderate version is that, while a genuinely meaningful life could be had in a purely physical universe as known well by science, a somewhat more meaningful life would be possible if a spiritual realm also existed. God or a soul could enhance meaning in life, although they would not be major contributors. The extreme version of naturalism is the view that it would be better in respect of life’s meaning if there were no spiritual realm. From this perspective, God or a soul would be anti-matter, i.e., would detract from the meaning available to us, making a purely physical world (even if not this particular one) preferable.

Cross-cutting the moderate/extreme distinction is that between subjectivism and objectivism, which are theoretical accounts of the nature of meaningfulness insofar as it is physical. They differ in terms of the extent to which the human mind constitutes meaning and whether there are conditions of meaning that are invariant among human beings. Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i.e., depends on an individual’s pro-attitudes such as her particular desires or ends, which are not shared by everyone. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she strongly wants it or intends to seek it out and she gets it. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is at least partly mind-independent, i.e., obtains not merely in virtue of being the object of anyone’s mental states. Here, something is meaningful (partially) because of its intrinsic nature, in the sense of being independent of whether it is wanted or intended; meaning is instead (to some extent) the sort of thing that merits these reactions.

There is logical space for an orthogonal view, according to which there are invariant standards of meaningfulness constituted by what all human beings would converge on from a certain standpoint. However, it has not been much of a player in the field (Darwall 1983, 164–66).

According to this version of naturalism, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one’s variable pro-attitudes. Common instances are views that one’s life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, achieves one’s highly ranked goals, or does what one believes to be really important (Trisel 2002; Hooker 2008). One influential subjectivist has recently maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94, 2004). Another recent proposal is that meaningfulness consists of “an active engagement and affirmation that vivifies the person who has freely created or accepted and now promotes and nurtures the projects of her highest concern” (Belliotti 2019, 183).

Subjectivism was dominant in the middle of the twentieth century, when positivism, noncognitivism, existentialism, and Humeanism were influential (Ayer 1947; Hare 1957; Barnes 1967; Taylor 1970; Williams 1976). However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, inference to the best explanation and reflective equilibrium became accepted forms of normative argumentation and were frequently used to defend claims about the existence and nature of objective value (or of “external reasons,” ones obtaining independently of one’s extant attitudes). As a result, subjectivism about meaning lost its dominance. Those who continue to hold subjectivism often remain suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value (e.g., Trisel 2002, 73, 79, 2004, 378–79; Frankfurt 2004, 47–48, 55–57; Wong 2008, 138–39; Evers 2017, 32, 36; Svensson 2017, 54). Theorists are moved to accept subjectivism typically because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are reasonably sure that meaning in life obtains for some people, but do not see how it could be grounded on something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural or the supernatural (or the non-natural). In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of their lives. Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism.

There is a cluster of other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism, according to which this theory best explains certain intuitive features of meaning in life. For one, subjectivism seems plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94). If a person’s life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of those matters for which the person cares. For another, it is uncontroversial that often meaning comes from losing oneself, i.e., in becoming absorbed in an activity or experience, as opposed to being bored by it or finding it frustrating (Frankfurt 1988, 80–94; Belliotti 2019, 162–70). Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective elements involved. For a third, meaning is often taken to be something that makes life worth continuing for a specific person, i.e., that gives her a reason to get out of bed in the morning, which subjectivism is thought to account for best (Williams 1976; Svensson 2017; Calhoun 2018).

Critics maintain that these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: they neglect the role of objective value (or an external reason) in realizing oneself, losing oneself, and having a reason to live (Taylor 1989, 1992; Wolf 2010, 2015, 89–140). One is not really being true to oneself, losing oneself in a meaningful way, or having a genuine reason to live insofar as one, say, successfully maintains 3,732 hairs on one’s head (Taylor 1992, 36), cultivates one’s prowess at long-distance spitting (Wolf 2010, 104), collects a big ball of string (Wolf 2010, 104), or, well, eats one’s own excrement (Wielenberg 2005, 22). The counterexamples suggest that subjective conditions are insufficient to ground meaning in life; there seem to be certain actions, relationships, and states that are objectively valuable (but see Evers 2017, 30–32) and toward which one’s pro-attitudes ought to be oriented, if meaning is to accrue.

So say objectivists, but subjectivists feel the pull of the point and usually seek to avoid the counterexamples, lest they have to bite the bullet by accepting the meaningfulness of maintaining 3,732 hairs on one’s head and all the rest (for some who do, see Svensson 2017, 54–55; Belliotti 2019, 181–83). One important strategy is to suggest that subjectivists can avoid the counterexamples by appealing to the right sort of pro-attitude. Instead of whatever an individual happens to want, perhaps the relevant mental state is an emotional-perceptual one of seeing-as (Alexis 2011; cf. Hosseini 2015, 47–66), a “categorical” desire, that is, an intrinsic desire constitutive of one’s identity that one takes to make life worth continuing (Svensson 2017), or a judgment that one has a good reason to value something highly for its own sake (Calhoun 2018). Even here, though, objectivists will argue that it might “appear that whatever the will chooses to treat as a good reason to engage itself is, for the will, a good reason. But the will itself....craves objective reasons; and often it could not go forward unless it thought it had them” (Wiggins 1988, 136). And without any appeal to objectivity, it is perhaps likely that counterexamples would resurface.

Another subjectivist strategy by which to deal with the counterexamples is the attempt to ground meaningfulness, not on the pro-attitudes of an individual valuer, but on those of a group (Darwall 1983, 164–66; Brogaard and Smith 2005; Wong 2008). Does such an intersubjective move avoid (more of) the counterexamples? If so, does it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?

Objective naturalists believe that meaning in life is constituted at least in part by something physical beyond merely the fact that it is the object of a pro-attitude. Obtaining the object of some emotion, desire, or judgment is not sufficient for meaningfulness, on this view. Instead, there are certain conditions of the material world that could confer meaning on anyone’s life, not merely because they are viewed as meaningful, wanted for their own sake, or believed to be choiceworthy, but instead (at least partially) because they are inherently worthwhile or valuable in themselves.

Morality (the good), enquiry (the true), and creativity (the beautiful) are widely held instances of activities that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow––along with the counterexamples to subjectivism above––are not. Objectivism is widely thought to be a powerful general explanation of these particular judgments: the former are meaningful not merely because some agent (whether it is an individual, her society, or even God) cares about them or judges them to be worth doing, while the latter simply lack significance and cannot obtain it even if some agent does care about them or judge them to be worth doing. From an objective perspective, it is possible for an individual to care about the wrong thing or to be mistaken that something is worthwhile, and not merely because of something she cares about all the more or judges to be still more choiceworthy. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the existence and nature of value are again relevant to appraising this rationale.

Some objectivists think that being the object of a person’s mental states plays no constitutive role in making that person’s life meaningful, although they of course contend that it often plays an instrumental role––liking a certain activity, after all, is likely to motivate one to do it. Relatively few objectivists are “pure” in that way, although consequentialists do stand out as clear instances (e.g., Singer 1995; Smuts 2018, 75–99). Most objectivists instead try to account for the above intuitions driving subjectivism by holding that a life is more meaningful, not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of propositional attitudes such as cognition, conation, and emotion. Particularly influential has been Susan Wolf’s hybrid view, captured by this pithy slogan: “Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 2015, 112; see also Kekes 1986, 2000; Wiggins 1988; Raz 2001, 10–40; Mintoff 2008; Wolf 2010, 2016; Fischer 2019, 9–23; Belshaw 2021, 160–81). This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one’s life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not truly worthwhile, or if one takes up a truly worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, or care about it. A related approach is that, while subjective attraction is not necessary for meaning, it could enhance it (e.g., Audi 2005, 344; Metz 2013, 183–84, 196–98, 220–25). For instance, a stereotypical Mother Teresa who is bored by and alienated from her substantial charity work might have a somewhat significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she felt pride in it or identified with it.

There have been several attempts to capture theoretically what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning in a person’s life. Over the past few decades, one encounters the proposals that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: positively connecting with organic unity beyond oneself (Nozick 1981, 594–619); being creative (Taylor 1987; Matheson 2018); living an emotional life (Solomon 1993; cf. Williams 2020, 56–78); promoting good consequences, such as improving the quality of life of oneself and others (Singer 1995; Audi 2005; Smuts 2018, 75–99); exercising or fostering rational nature in exceptional ways (Smith 1997, 179–221; Gewirth 1998, 177–82; Metz 2013, 222–36); progressing toward ends that can never be fully realized because one’s knowledge of them changes as one approaches them (Levy 2005); realizing goals that are transcendent for being long-lasting in duration and broad in scope (Mintoff 2008); living virtuously (May 2015, 61–138; McPherson 2020); and loving what is worth loving (Wolf 2016). There is as yet no convergence in the field on one, or even a small cluster, of these accounts.

One feature of a large majority of the above naturalist theories is that they are aggregative or additive, objectionably treating a life as a mere “container” of bits of life that are meaningful considered in isolation from other bits (Brännmark 2003, 330). It has become increasingly common for philosophers of life’s meaning, especially objectivists, to hold that life as a whole, or at least long stretches of it, can substantially affect its meaningfulness beyond the amount of meaning (if any) in its parts.

For instance, a life that has lots of beneficence and otherwise intuitively meaning-conferring conditions but that is also extremely repetitive (à la the movie Groundhog Day ) is less than maximally meaningful (Taylor 1987; Blumenfeld 2009). Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful (or otherwise desirable) parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful (desirable) parts but ends with few or none of them (Kamm 2013, 18–22; Dorsey 2015). Still more, a life in which its meaningless (or otherwise undesirable parts) cause its meaningful (desirable) parts to come about through a process of personal growth seems meaningful in virtue of this redemptive pattern, “good life-story,” or narrative self-expression (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Wong 2008; Fischer 2009, 145–77; Kauppinen 2012; May 2015, 61–138; Velleman 2015, 141–73). These three cases suggest that meaning can inhere in life as a whole, that is, in the relationships between its parts, and not merely in the parts considered in isolation. However, some would maintain that it is, strictly speaking, the story that is or could be told of a life that matters, not so much the life-story qua relations between events themselves (de Bres 2018).

There are pure or extreme versions of holism present in the literature, according to which the only possible bearer of meaning in life is a person’s life as a whole, and not any isolated activities, relationships, or states (Taylor 1989, 48–51; Tabensky 2003; Levinson 2004). A salient argument for this position is that judgments of the meaningfulness of a part of someone’s life are merely provisional, open to revision upon considering how they fit into a wider perspective. So, for example, it would initially appear that taking an ax away from a madman and thereby protecting innocent parties confers some meaning on one’s life, but one might well revise that judgment upon learning that the intention behind it was merely to steal an ax, not to save lives, or that the madman then took out a machine gun, causing much more harm than his ax would have. It is worth considering how far this sort of case is generalizable, and, if it can be to a substantial extent, whether that provides strong evidence that only life as a whole can exhibit meaningfulness.

Perhaps most objectivists would, at least upon reflection, accept that both the parts of a life and the whole-life relationships among the parts can exhibit meaning. Supposing there are two bearers of meaning in a life, important questions arise. One is whether a certain narrative can be meaningful even if its parts are not, while a second is whether the meaningfulness of a part increases if it is an aspect of a meaningful whole (on which see Brännmark 2003), and a third is whether there is anything revealing to say about how to make tradeoffs between the parts and whole in cases where one must choose between them (Blumenfeld 2009 appears to assign lexical priority to the whole).

Naturalists until recently had been largely concerned to show that meaning in life is possible without God or a soul; they have not spent much time considering how such spiritual conditions might enhance meaning, but have, in moderate fashion, tended to leave that possibility open (an exception is Hooker 2008). Lately, however, an extreme form of naturalism has arisen, according to which our lives would probably, if not unavoidably, have less meaning in a world with God or a soul than in one without. Although such an approach was voiced early on by Baier (1957), it is really in the past decade or so that this “anti-theist” position has become widely and intricately discussed.

One rationale, mentioned above as an objection to the view that God’s purpose constitutes meaning in life, has also been deployed to argue that the existence of God as such would necessarily reduce meaning, that is, would consist of anti-matter. It is the idea that master/servant and parent/child analogies so prominent in the monotheist religious traditions reveal something about our status in a world where there is a qualitatively higher being who has created us with certain ends in mind: our independence or dignity as adult persons would be violated (e.g., Baier 1957/2000, 118–20; Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 121–41). One interesting objection to this reasoning has been to accept that God’s existence is necessarily incompatible with the sort of meaning that would come (roughly stated) from being one’s own boss, but to argue that God would also make greater sorts of meaning available, offering a net gain to us (Mawson 2016, 110–58).

Another salient argument for thinking that God would detract from meaning in life appeals to the value of privacy (Kahane 2011, 681–85; Lougheed 2020, 55–110). God’s omniscience would unavoidably make it impossible for us to control another person’s access to the most intimate details about ourselves, which, for some, amounts to a less meaningful life than one with such control. Beyond questioning the value of our privacy in relation to God, one thought-provoking criticism has been to suggest that, if a lack of privacy really would substantially reduce meaning in our lives, then God, qua morally perfect person, would simply avoid knowing everything about us (Tooley 2018). Lacking complete knowledge of our mental states would be compatible with describing God as “omniscient,” so the criticism goes, insofar as that is plausibly understood as having as much knowledge as is morally permissible.

Turn, now, to major arguments for thinking that having a soul would reduce life’s meaning, so that if one wants a maximally meaningful life, one should prefer a purely physical world, or at least one in which people are mortal. First and foremost, there has been the argument that an immortal life could not avoid becoming boring (Williams 1973), rendering life pointless according to many subjective and objective theories. The literature on this topic has become enormous, with the central reply being that immortality need not get boring (for more recent discussions, see Fischer 2009, 79–101, 2019, 117–42; Mawson 2019, 51–52; Williams 2020, 30–41, 123–29; Belshaw 2021, 182–97). However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make. Being bored for an eternity would not be blissful or even satisfying, to be sure, but if it served the function of preventing others from being bored for an eternity, would it be meaningful (at least to some degree)? If, as is commonly held, sacrificing one’s life could be meaningful, why not also sacrificing one’s liveliness?

Another reason given to reject eternal life is that it would become repetitive, which would substantially drain it of meaning (Scarre 2007, 54–55; May 2009, 46–47, 64–65, 71; Smuts 2011, 142–44; cf. Blumenfeld 2009). If, as it appears, there are only a finite number of actions one could perform, relationships one could have, and states one could be in during an eternity, one would have to end up doing the same things again. Even though one’s activities might be more valuable than rolling a stone up a hill forever à la Sisyphus, the prospect of doing them over and over again forever is disheartening for many. To be sure, one might not remember having done them before and hence could avoid boredom, but for some philosophers that would make it all the worse, akin to having dementia and forgetting that one has told the same stories. Others, however, still find meaning in such a life (e.g., Belshaw 2021, 197, 205n41).

A third meaning-based argument against immortality invokes considerations of narrative. If the pattern of one’s life as a whole substantially matters, and if a proper pattern would include a beginning, a middle, and an end, it appears that a life that never ends would lack the relevant narrative structure. “Because it would drag on endlessly, it would, sooner or later, just be a string of events lacking all form....With immortality, the novel never ends....How meaningful can such a novel be?” (May 2009, 68, 72; see also Scarre 2007, 58–60). Notice that this objection is distinct from considerations of boredom and repetition (which concern novelty ); even if one were stimulated and active, and even if one found a way not to repeat one’s life in the course of eternity, an immortal life would appear to lack shape. In reply, some reject the idea that a meaningful life must be akin to a novel, and intead opt for narrativity in the form of something like a string of short stories that build on each other (Fischer 2009, 145–77, 2019, 101–16). Others, though, have sought to show that eternity could still be novel-like, deeming the sort of ending that matters to be a function of what the content is and how it relates to the content that came before (e.g., Seachris 2011; Williams 2020, 112–19).

There have been additional objections to immortality as undercutting meaningfulness, but they are prima facie less powerful than the previous three in that, if sound, they arguably show that an eternal life would have a cost, but probably not one that would utterly occlude the prospect of meaning in it. For example, there have been the suggestions that eternal lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency (Nussbaum 1989, 339; Kass 2002, 266–67), could not exemplify virtues such as courageously risking one’s life for others (Kass 2002, 267–68; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94), and could not obtain meaning from sustaining or saving others’ lives (Nussbaum 1989, 338; Wielenberg 2005, 91–94). Note that at least the first two rationales turn substantially on the belief in immortality, not quite immortality itself: if one were immortal but forgot that one is or did not know that at all, then one could appreciate life and obtain much of the virtue of courage (and, conversely, if one were not immortal, but thought that one is, then, by the logic of these arguments, one would fail to appreciate limits and be unable to exemplify courage).

The previous two sections addressed theoretical accounts of what would confer meaning on a human person’s life. Although these theories do not imply that some people’s lives are in fact meaningful, that has been the presumption of a very large majority of those who have advanced them. Much of the procedure has been to suppose that many lives have had meaning in them and then to consider in virtue of what they have or otherwise could. However, there are nihilist (or pessimist) perspectives that question this supposition. According to nihilism (pessimism), what would make a life meaningful in principle cannot obtain for any of us.

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of extreme supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether a spiritual realm exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither is real, then you are committed to nihilism, to the denial that life can have any meaning. Athough this rationale for nihilism was prominent in the modern era (and was more or less Camus’ position), it has been on the wane in analytic philosophical circles, as extreme supernaturalism has been eclipsed by the moderate variety.

The most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism, or at least not explicitly. One cluster of ideas appeals to what meta-ethicists call “error theory,” the view that evaluative claims (in this case about meaning in life, or about morality qua necessary for meaning) characteristically posit objectively real or universally justified values, but that such values do not exist. According to one version, value judgments often analytically include a claim to objectivity but there is no reason to think that objective values exist, as they “would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977/1990, 38). According to a second version, life would be meaningless if there were no set of moral standards that could be fully justified to all rational enquirers, but it so happens that such standards cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim (Murphy 1982, 12–17). According to a third, we hold certain beliefs about the objectivity and universality of morality and related values such as meaning because they were evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors, not because they are true. Humans have been “deceived by their genes into thinking that there is a distinterested, objective morality binding upon them, which all should obey” (Ruse and Wilson 1986, 179; cf. Street 2015). One must draw on the intricate work in meta-ethics that has been underway for the past several decades in order to appraise these arguments.

In contrast to error-theoretic arguments for nihilism, there are rationales for it accepting that objective values exist but denying that our lives can ever exhibit or promote them so as to obtain meaning. One version of this approach maintains that, for our lives to matter, we must be in a position to add objective value to the world, which we are not since the objective value of the world is already infinite (Smith 2003). The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time (or at least the stars in the physical universe) have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite. If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value remains infinity. One way to question this argument, beyond doubting the value of space-time or stars, is to suggest that, even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly comes from being the source of certain values.

A second rationale for nihilism that accepts the existence of objective value is David Benatar’s (2006, 18–59) intriguing “asymmetry argument” for anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would always be on balance bad for them. For Benatar, the bads of existing (e.g., pains) are real disadvantages relative to not existing, while the goods of existing (pleasures) are not real advantages relative to not existing, since there is in the latter state no one to be deprived of them. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, it follows that existing is always worse compared to not existing. Although this argument is illustrated with experiential goods and bads, it seems generalizable to non-experiential ones, including meaning in life and anti-matter. The literature on this argument has become large (for a recent collection, see Hauskeller and Hallich 2022).

Benatar (2006, 60–92, 2017, 35–63) has advanced an additional argument for nihilism, one that appeals to Thomas Nagel’s (1986, 208–32) widely discussed analysis of the extremely external standpoint that human persons can take on their lives. There exists, to use Henry Sidgwick’s influential phrase, the “point of view of the universe,” that is, the standpoint that considers a human being’s life in relation to all times and all places. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one’s puny impact on the world, little of one’s life appears to matter. What one does in a certain society on Earth over 75 years or so just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of temporal years and billions of light-years that make up space-time. Although this reasoning grants limited kinds of meaning to human beings, from a personal, social, or human perspective, Benatar both denies that the greatest sort of meaning––a cosmic one––is available to them and contends that this makes their lives bad, hence the “nihilist” tag. Some have objected that our lives could in fact have a cosmic significance, say, if they played a role in God’s plan (Quinn 2000, 65–66; Swinburne 2016, 154), were the sole ones with a dignity in the universe (Kahane 2014), or engaged in valuable activities that could be appreciated by anyone anywhere anytime (Wolf 2016, 261–62). Others naturally maintain that cosmic significance is irrelevant to appraising a human life, with some denying that it would be a genuine source of meaning (Landau 2017, 93–99), and others accepting that it would be but maintaining that the absence of this good would not count as a bad or merit regret (discussed in Benatar 2017, 56–62; Williams 2020, 108–11).

Finally, a distinguishable source of nihilism concerns the ontological, as distinct from axiological, preconditions for meaning in life. Perhaps most radically, there are those who deny that we have selves. Do we indeed lack selves, and, if we do, is a meaningful life impossible for us (see essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018; Le Bihan 2019)? Somewhat less radically, there are those who grant that we have selves, but deny that they are in charge in the relevant way. That is, some have argued that we lack self-governance or free will of the sort that is essential for meaning in life, at least if determinism is true (Pisciotta 2013; essays in Caruso and Flanagan 2018). Non-quantum events, including human decisions, appear to be necessited by a prior state of the world, such that none could have been otherwise, and many of our decisions are a product of unconscious neurological mechanisms (while quantum events are of course utterly beyond our control). If none of our conscious choices could have been avoided and all were ultimately necessited by something external to them, perhaps they are insufficient to merit pride or admiration or to constitute narrative authorship of a life. In reply, some maintain that a compatibilism between determinism and moral responsibility applies with comparable force to meaning in life (e.g., Arpaly 2006; Fischer 2009, 145–77), while others contend that incompatibilism is true of moral responsibility but not of meaning (Pereboom 2014).

Agar, N., 2013, Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Alexis., A., 2011, The Meaning of Life: A Modern Secular Answer to the Age-Old Fundamental Question , CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Arpaly, N., 2006, Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Audi, R., 2005, “Intrinsic Value and Meaningful Life”, Philosophical Papers , 34: 331–55.
Ayer, A. J., 1947, “The Claims of Philosophy”, repr. in The Meaning of Life, 2 nd Ed. , E. D. Klemke (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2000: 219–32.
Baier, K., 1957, “The Meaning of Life”, repr. in The Meaning of Life, 2 nd Ed. , E. D. Klemke (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2000: 101–32.
Barnes, H., 1967, An Existentialist Ethics , New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Belliotti, R., 2019, Is Human Life Absurd? A Philosophical Inquiry into Finitude, Value, and Meaning . Leiden: Brill.
Belshaw, C., 2021, The Value and Meaning of Life , London: Routledge.
Benatar, D., 2006, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence , New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2017, The Human Predicament , New York: Oxford University Press.
Bennett-Hunter, G., 2014, Ineffability and Religious Experience , Oxford: Routledge.
Blumenfeld, D., 2009, “Living Life over Again”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 79: 357–86.
Bradford, G., 2015, Achievement , New York: Oxford University Press.
Brännmark, J., 2003, “Leading Lives”, Philosophical Papers , 32: 321–43.
Brogaard, B. and Smith, B., 2005, “On Luck, Responsibility, and the Meaning of Life”, Philosophical Papers , 34: 443–58.
Calhoun, C., 2018, Doing Valuable Time: The Present, the Future, and Meaningful Living , New York: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, S., and Nyholm, S., 2015, “Anti-Meaning and Why It Matters”, Journal of the American Philosophical Association , 1: 694–711.
Caruso, G. and Flanagan, O. (eds.), 2018, Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in an Age of Neuroscience , New York: Oxford University Press.
Cooper, D., 2003, Meaning . Durham: Acumen Publishing.
Cottingham, J., 2005, The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy and Human Value , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2016, “Meaningfulness, Eternity, and Theism”, in God and Meaning , J. Seachris and S. Goetz (eds.), New York: Bloomsbury Academic: 123–36.
Craig, W., 1994, “The Absurdity of Life Without God”, repr. in Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide , J. Seachris (ed.), Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013: 153–72.
Danaher, J., 2017, “Will Life Be Worth Living in a World Without Work? Technological Unemployment and the Meaning of Life”, Science and Engineering Ethics , 23: 41–64.
Darwall, S., 1983, Impartial Reason , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Davis, W., 1987, “The Meaning of Life”, Metaphilosophy , 18: 288–305.
de Bres, H., 2018, “Narrative and Meaning in Life”, Journal of Moral Philosophy , 15: 545–71.
Dorsey, D., 2015, “The Significance of a Life’s Shape”, Ethics , 125: 303–30.
Egerstrom, K., 2015, “ Practical Identity and Meaninglessness ”, PhD Dissertation, Syracuse University.
Ellin, J., 1995, Morality and the Meaning of Life , Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.
Evers, D., 2017, “Meaning in Life and the Metaphysics of Value”, De Ethica , 4: 27–44.
Feinberg, J., 1980, “Absurd Self-Fulfillment,” repr. in Freedom and Fulfillment: Philosophical Essays , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992: 297–330.
Ferracioli, L., 2018, “Procreative-parenting, Love’s Reasons, and the Demands of Morality”, The Philosophical Quarterly , 68: 77–97.
Fischer, J. M., 2009, Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will , New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2019, Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life , New York: Oxford University Press.
Frankfurt, H., 1988, The Importance of What We Care About , New York: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2004, The Reasons of Love , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gewirth, A., 1998, Self-Fulfillment , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Goetz, S., 2012, The Purpose of Life: A Theistic Perspective , New York: Continuum.
Goldman, A., 2018, Life’s Values: Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, and Meaning , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Greene, P., 2021, “It Doesn’t Matter Because One Day It Will End”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 24: 165–82.
Hanfling, O., 1987, The Quest for Meaning , New York: Basil Blackwell Inc.
Hare, R. M., 1957, “Nothing Matters”, repr. in Applications of Moral Philosophy , London: Macmillan, 1972: 32–47.
Hauskeller, M. and Hallich, O. (eds.), 2022, “Would It Be Better if We Had Never Existed? David Benatar's Anti-Natalism”, special issue of The Journal of Value Inquiry , 56: 1–151.
Hooker, B., 2008, “The Meaning of Life: Subjectivism, Objectivism, and Divine Support”, in The Moral Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingham , N. Athanassoulis and S. Vice (eds.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 184–200.
Hosseini, R., 2015, Wittgenstein and Meaning in Life: In Search of the Human Voice , New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kahane, G., 2011, “Should We Want God to Exist?”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 82: 674–96.
–––, 2014, “Our Cosmic Insignificance”, Noûs , 48: 745–72.
Kamm, F. M., 2013, Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives , New York: Oxford University Press.
Kass, L., 2002, Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics , San Francisco: Encounter Books.
Kauppinen, A., 2012, “Meaningfulness and Time”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 82: 345–77.
Kekes, J., 1986, “The Informed Will and the Meaning of Life”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 47: 75–90.
–––, 2000, “The Meaning of Life”, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume 24; Life and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics , P. French and H. Wettstein (eds.), Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers: 17–34.
Kraay, K. (ed.), 2018, Does God Matter? Essays on the Axiological Consequences of Theism , New York: Routledge.
Landau, I., 1997, “Why Has the Question of the Meaning of Life Arisen in the Last Two and a Half Centuries?”, Philosophy Today , 41: 263–70.
–––, 2017, Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World , New York: Oxford University Press.
Le Bihan, B., 2019, “The No-Self View and the Meaning of Life”, Philosophy East and West , 69: 419–38.
Levinson, J., 2004, “Intrinsic Value and the Notion of a Life”, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 62: 319–29.
Levy, N., 2005, “Downshifting and Meaning in Life”, Ratio , 18: 176–89.
Lougheed, K., 2020, The Axiological Status of Theism and Other Worldviews , New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mackie, J. L., 1977, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong , repr. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
Markus, A., 2003, “Assessing Views of Life, A Subjective Affair?”, Religious Studies , 39: 125–43.
Martela, F., 2017, “Meaningfulness as Contribution”, Southern Journal of Philosophy , 55: 232–56.
Matheson, D., 2017, “The Worthwhileness of Meaningful Lives”, Philosophia , 48: 313–24.
–––, 2018, “Creativity and Meaning in Life”, Ratio , 31: 73–87.
Mawson, T., 2016, God and the Meanings of Life , London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
–––, 2019, Monotheism and the Meaning of Life , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
May, T., 2009, Death , Stocksfield: Acumen.
–––, 2015, A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McPherson, D., 2020, Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Metz, T., 2002, “Recent Work on the Meaning of Life”, Ethics , 112: 781–814.
–––, 2013, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2019, God, Soul and the Meaning of Life , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mintoff, J., 2008, “Transcending Absurdity”, Ratio , 21: 64–84.
Moreland, J. P., 1987, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity , Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Morris, T., 1992, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life , Grand Rapids, MI: Willliam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Mulgan, T., 2015, Purpose in the Universe: The Moral and Metaphysical Case for Ananthropocentric Purposivism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murphy, J., 1982, Evolution, Morality, and the Meaning of Life , Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
Nagel, T., 1970, “The Absurd”, Journal of Philosophy , 68: 716–27.
–––, 1986, The View from Nowhere , New York: Oxford University Press.
Nozick, R., 1974, Anarchy, State and Utopia , New York: Basic Books.
–––, 1981, Philosophical Explanations , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
–––, 1989, The Examined Life , New York: Simon and Schuster.
Nussbaum, M., 1989, “Mortal Immortals: Lucretius on Death and the Voice of Nature”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 50: 303–51.
Olson, N., 2016, “Medical Researchers’ Ancillary Care Obligations”, Bioethics , 30: 317–24.
Pereboom, D., 2014, Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pisciotta, T., 2013, “ Determinism and Meaningfulness in Lives ”, PhD Dissertation, University of Melbourne.
Purves, D. and Delon, N., 2018, “Meaning in the Lives of Humans and Other Animals”, Philosophical Studies , 175: 317–38.
Quinn, P., 2000, “How Christianity Secures Life’s Meanings”, in The Meaning of Life in the World Religions , J. Runzo and N. Martin (eds.), Oxford: Oneworld Publications: 53–68.
Raz, J., 2001, Value, Respect, and Attachment , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Repp, C., 2018, “Life Meaning and Sign Meaning”, Philosophical Papers , 47: 403–27.
Ruse, M. and Wilson, E., 1986, “Moral Philosophy as Applied Science”, Philosophy , 61: 173–92.
Scarre, G., 2007, Death . Stocksfield: Acumen.
Schinkel, A., De Ruyter, D., and Aviram, A., 2015, “Education and Life’s Meaning”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 50: 398–418.
Seachris, J., 2011, “Death, Futility, and the Proleptic Power of Narrative Ending”, Religious Studies , 47: 141–63.
–––, 2013, “General Introduction”, in Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide , J. Seachris (ed.), Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell: 1–20.
–––, 2016, “From the Meaning Triad to Meaning Holism: Unifying Life’s Meaning”, Human Affairs , 29: 363–78.
Singer, I., 1996, Meaning in Life, Volume 1: The Creation of Value , Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Singer, P., 1995, How Are We to Live? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Smith, Q., 1997, Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language , New Haven: Yale University Press.
–––, 2003, “Moral Realism and Infinite Spacetime Imply Moral Nihilism”, in Time and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection , H. Dyke (ed.), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers: 43–54.
Smuts, A., 2011, “Immortality and Significance”, Philosophy and Literature , 35: 134–49.
–––, 2018, Welfare, Meaning, and Worth , New York: Routledge
Solomon, R., 1993, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life , Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Street, S., 2015, “Does Anything Really Matter or Did We Just Evolve to Think So?”, in The Norton Introduction to Philosophy , G. Rosen et al. (eds.), New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.: 685–95.
Svensson, F., 2017, “A Subjectivist Account of Meaning in Life”, De Ethica , 4: 45–66.
Swenson, D., 1949, “The Dignity of Human Life”, repr. in The Meaning of Life, 2 nd Ed. , E. D. Klemke (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2000: 21–30.
Swinburne, R., 2016, “How God Makes Life a Lot More Meaningful”, in God and Meaning , J. Seachris and S. Goetz (eds.), New York: Bloomsbury Academic: 151–63.
Tabensky, P., 2003, “Parallels Between Living and Painting”, The Journal of Value Inquiry , 37: 59–68.
Tartaglia, J., 2015, Philosophy in a Meaningless Life , London: Bloomsbury.
Taylor, C., 1989, Sources of the Self , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
–––, 1992, The Ethics of Authenticity , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Taylor, R., 1970, “The Meaning of Life”, in Good and Evil , repr. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Boooks, 2000: 319–34.
–––, 1987, “Time and Life’s Meaning”, The Review of Metaphysics , 40: 675–86.
Thomas, J., 2018, “Can Only Human Lives Be Meaningful?”, Philosophical Papers , 47: 265–97.
–––, 2019, “Meaningfulness as Sensefulness”, Philosophia , 47: 1555–77.
Thomson, G., 2003, On the Meaning of Life , South Melbourne: Wadsworth.
Tooley, M., 2018, “Axiology: Theism Versus Widely Accepted Monotheisms”, in Does God Matter? Essays on the Axiological Consequences of Theism , K. Kraay, (ed.), New York: Routledge: 46–69.
Trisel, B. A., 2002, “Futility and the Meaning of Life Debate”, Sorites , 14: 70–84.
–––, 2004, “Human Extinction and the Value of Our Efforts”, The Philosophical Forum , 35: 371–91.
–––, 2016, “Human Extinction, Narrative Ending, and Meaning of Life”, Journal of Philosophy of Life , 6: 1–22.
Velleman, J. D., 2015, Beyond Price: Essays on Birth and Death , Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Visak, T., 2017, “Understanding ‘Meaning of Life’ in Terms of Reasons for Action”, The Journal of Value Inquiry , 51: 507–30.
Waghorn, N., 2014, Nothingness and the Meaning of Life: Philosophical Approaches to Ultimate Meaning through Nothing and Reflexivity , London: Bloomsbury.
Wielenberg, E., 2005, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wiggins, D., 1988, “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life”, rev. edn. in Essays on Moral Realism , G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Ithaca: Cornell University Press: 127–65.
Williams, B., 1973, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality”, in Problems of the Self , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 82–100.
–––, 1976, “Persons, Character and Morality”, in The Identities of Persons , A. O. Rorty (ed.), Berkeley: University of California Press: 197–216.
Williams, C., 2020, Religion and the Meaning of Life: An Existential Approach , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolf, S., 2010, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
–––, 2015, The Variety of Values: Essays on Morality, Meaning, and Love , New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2016, “Meaningfulness: A Third Dimension of the Good Life”, Foundations of Science , 21: 253–69.
Wong, W., 2008, “Meaningfulness and Identities”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 11: 123–48.
Buber, M., 1923, I and Thou , W. Kaufmann (tr.), New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1970.
Camus, A., 1942, The Myth of Sisyphus , J. O’Brian (tr.), London: H. Hamilton, 1955.
James, W., 1899, “What Makes a Life Significant?”, in On Some of Life’s Ideals , New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1900.
Jaspers, K., 1931, Man in the Modern Age , E. Paul and C. Paul (tr.), New York: Routledge, 2010.
Kant, I., 1791, Critique of the Power of Judgment , P. Guyer and E. Mathews (tr.), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Kierkegaard, S., 1849, The Sickness unto Death , H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong (tr.), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Marx, K., 1844, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts , in Karl Marx Selected Writings, 2 nd Ed. , D. McLellan (ed., tr.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Nietzsche, F., 1885, Thus Spoke Zarathustra , in The Portable Nietzsche , W. Kaufmann (ed., tr.), New York: Viking Press, 1954.
Sartre, J.-P., 1946, Existentialism Is a Humanism , P. Mairet (tr.), London: Methuen & Co, 1948.
Schlick, M., 1927, “ On the Meaning of Life ”, P. Heath (tr.).
Schopenhauer, A., 1851, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Volume 2 , E. F. J. Payne (tr.), New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Tolstoy, L., 1884, A Confession , L. Maude and A. Maude (tr.).
Wittgenstein, L., 1929, Lecture on Ethics , E. Zamuner et al. (eds.), Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014.
Benatar, D. (ed.), 2016, Life, Death & Meaning, 3 rd Ed. , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Cottingham, J. (ed.), 2007, Western Philosophy: An Anthology, 2 nd Ed. , Oxford: Blackwell: pt. 12.
Garcia, R. and King, N. (eds.), 2009, Is Goodness Without God Good Enough? Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Klemke, E. D. and Cahn, S. M. (eds.), 2018, The Meaning of Life: A Reader, 4 th Ed. , New York: Oxford University Press.
Kolodny, N. (ed.), 2013, Death and the Afterlife , New York: Oxford University Press.
Leach, S. and Tartaglia, J. (eds.), 2018, The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers , London: Routledge.
Morioka, M. (ed.), 2015, Reconsidering Meaning in Life , Saitama: Waseda University.
––– (ed.), 2017, Nihilism and the Meaning of Life , Saitama: Waseda University.
Seachris, J. (ed.), 2013, Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Seachris, J. and Goetz, S. (eds.), 2016, God and Meaning: New Essays , New York: Bloombsury Academic.
Baggini, J., 2004, What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life , London: Granta Books.
Belliotti, R., 2001, What Is the Meaning of Life? , Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Belshaw, C., 2005, 10 Good Questions About Life and Death , Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Cottingham, J., 2003, On the Meaning of Life , London: Routledge.
Eagleton, T., 2007, The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, J. M., 2019, Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life , New York: Oxford University Press.
Ford, D., 2007, The Search for Meaning: A Short History , Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hauskeller, M., 2020, The Meaning of Life and Death: Ten Classic Thinkers on the Ultimate Question , London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Martin, M., 2002, Atheism, Morality, and Meaning , Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Messerly, J., 2012, The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Transhumanist, and Scientific Approaches , Seattle: Darwin and Hume Publishers.
Ruse, M., 2019, A Meaning to Life , New York: Oxford University Press.
Young, J., 2003, The Death of God and the Meaning of Life , New York: Routledge.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Delon, N., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life ”, a bibliography on PhilPapers.
Metz, T., 2021, “ Life, Meaning of ”, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , E. Mason (ed.).
O’Brien, W., 2021, “ The Meaning of Life: Early Continental and Analytic Perspectives ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).
Seachris, J., 2021, “ Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective ”, in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.).

Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

Info about mirror sites

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Life Goals

Essay Titles About Life Goals

If you're looking to craft a life goals essay that truly stands out, you've come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide, we'll delve into the art of creating an impactful life goals essay that captivates your readers and effectively communicates your aspirations. So, let's get started with the essentials!

1. Life Goals Essay Prompt

Before you embark on your essay-writing journey, it's crucial to grasp the nuances of the essay prompt. Let's take a look at some sample prompts to help you get a better understanding:

Prompt Sample 1: "Discuss the most significant life goals you hope to achieve and explain why they are important to you."

Prompt Sample 2: "Reflect on your long-term ambitions and how they relate to your personal growth and development."

These prompts encourage you to explore your life goals, their significance, and how they align with your personal journey. Understanding the prompt is the first step toward crafting a compelling essay.

2. Brainstorming and Selecting a Winning Essay Topic

Selecting the right essay topic is pivotal to your essay's success. Here are some points to consider when brainstorming and choosing your topic:

Passion and Personal Connection: Opt for a topic that genuinely resonates with you. Your enthusiasm will shine through in your writing.
Specificity: Focus on a particular life goal rather than attempting to cover all aspects. Specific goals make for more engaging essays.
Relevance: Ensure your chosen topic is relevant to your life stage and experiences. It should reflect who you are.
Uniqueness: Avoid common or clichéd topics. Aim for a unique angle or perspective on your chosen goal.

3. Examples of Unique Essay Topics

To spark your creativity, here's a list of distinctive life goals essay topics that stand out from the ordinary:

"Becoming a Published Author: My Journey Towards Sharing My Stories."
"From Broken Dreams to Thriving Reality: My Quest to Open a Sustainable Animal Sanctuary."
"Overcoming Adversity: How My Goal to Climb Mount Everest Rewired My Mindset."
"The Art of Giving Back: Nurturing My Vision for a Non-Profit Organization."
"A Symphony of Dreams: Pursuing My Aspiration to Become a World-Class Pianist."

These topics are not only unique but also offer ample opportunities for in-depth exploration and personal connection.

4. Sample Paragraphs and Phrases for Inspiration

Now, let's dive into some sample paragraphs and phrases to ignite your creativity:

Opening Paragraph: "In the quiet corners of my mind, amidst the chaos of daily life, there exists a profound yearning – a vision of a future where I stand triumphant atop my personal Everest."

Body Paragraph (Discussing Obstacles): "As I embarked on this journey, I encountered a formidable adversary – fear. The sheer magnitude of the goal I'd set for myself was overwhelming, and self-doubt became a constant companion."

Body Paragraph (Discussing Personal Growth): "Through this pursuit, I discovered that my journey was not just about conquering physical peaks but also about scaling the internal mountains of resilience, determination, and self-belief."

Closing Paragraph: "In conclusion, my life goals are not mere aspirations but the guiding stars that illuminate my path. As I continue to chase my dreams, I realize that they are not the destination but rather the catalyst for my personal growth and transformation."

Remember, the essence of a compelling life goals essay lies in your ability to convey your passion, determination, and unique perspective. By following these steps and staying true to your authentic self, you'll craft an essay that leaves a lasting impression.

So, go ahead, set your goals, pick up your pen, and let your aspirations shine through your words. Your life goals essay awaits its moment to inspire and captivate your readers!

Life Goal: Avid 10 Life Goals

Literary analysis of "my papa's waltz", made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

College Essay on My Goals in Life

My goals and ways to achieve them, immediate, intermediate, and long-term goals in my life, my personal goals and success plan, let us write you an essay from scratch.

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

The Difficult Path: My Dreams and Goals in Life

How to manage your life and reach your goals, my bucket list: a narrative of my goals, what does it mean to live life with purpose, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Analysis of The Three Types of Goals in My Life

The experiences and influences in my life that shaped myself, the real meaning of "lessons in life", graduation speech: ahead of us stands life, the way to overcome fear of failure, my future: my expectations in life, my further career goals: nurse and science tutor, my goal to get a degree in international business, why i want to be a teacher, why i want to become a physician assistant, achieving academic goals for college students, why i want to be a teacher: benefits and rewards, my passion for medicine as a physician assistant, paving the way to my future career trajectory, a major in molecular bioscience – my educational goal, what to do after graduation from university, my motivation to be a physician assistant, a comparison between the life goals and missions of saint augustine and socrates, career research and career goal: college admission paper, a view on the importance of freedom as a factor in the pursuit of long-term goals, relevant topics.

Personal Goals
Professionalism
Law of Life
Personal Experience

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Power of Imagination in Achieving Your Goals

Clear, detailed, vivid and positive mental simulations are linked to well-being..

Updated June 1, 2024 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

What Is Motivation?
Find counselling near me
Goal setting and pursuit are linked to well-being.
Goal-directed simulations may also relate to well-being
Goals that are more attainable and under control predict greater well-being and fewer depressive symptoms.
Positive, clear, goal-directed simulations strongly predicted well-being at a two-month follow-up.

Goal setting and pursuit, both of which are linked to mental health and future success , involve the capacity for future-oriented thinking. Another way to use this capacity is by engaging in mental simulations, by imagining a future event or state, and the way to get there. The two are not mutually exclusive and can work in concert. We may be more able to achieve a goal if we mentally simulate (imagine) how to get there and how great it would be to achieve it.

Mental simulations--a uniquely human capacity to move forward (and backward) in time--have also been shown experimentally to relate to people's mood, sense of meaning in life, and even exercise behavior. Yet many simulation studies require participants to imagine non-personal future events, rather than having them focus on personally relevant goals. As a result, we know little about how mental simulations of personally important goals may relate to well-being.

A recent (2021) study by Australian psychologist Beau Gamble and colleagues sought to address this gap. The authors recruited 153 Australian adults (98 females) for a set of interview sessions and collected data on participants' demographics, well-being, mood, and cognitive abilities. In addition, they asked participants to think of goals they wanted to achieve in their life over three time periods (short-, medium-, long-term), after which the participants were asked to choose the two most important of those goals. (The process was repeated for medium- and then long-term goals).

Participants were then presented with questions about each of their six chosen goals, and the goals were later scored on additional six variables (goal specificity, life domain, whether the goals were intrinsically or extrinsically focused, whether goals and motives were approach or avoidance, and whether motives were autonomous or controlled) by a trained research assistant, blind to study hypotheses and the identity of participants.

In the simulation phase, “participants were presented with each of their six important goals in random order and given three minutes to imagine and verbally describe a specific future scene or scenes in their life, related to that goal.” After each simulation, participants answered questions about the simulation, related to valance (positivity/negativity), vividness, detail, clarity, fragmentation, and perspective (first vs. third person). Transcriptions were later assessed for the degree to which the simulation was focused on the process or outcome of the goal.

Two months after the initial interviews, participants completed a brief follow-up survey examining their levels of well-being and mood and any progress they had made on each of the six chosen goals. This allowed the researchers to assess changes in participants' well-being between the time of the study (T1) and the follow up (T2).

The central findings revealed strong positive correlations between goal attainability and sense of control and well-being. as well as between the degree to which goals were central to participants’ identity and well-being. Goal attainability and sense of control correlated negatively with depressive symptoms. (Depressive symptoms positively correlated with perceived goal difficulty.) Self-reported goal clarity, detail, vividness, and positivity correlated positively with well-being and negatively with depressive symptoms. Those who scored higher on goal clarity “tended to report making greater progress in their goals over time.”

Further analysis found that “In general, higher attainability and importance of goals, and higher clarity and lower negativity of simulations at T1, were strongly associated with higher well-being, lower depressive symptoms, and greater goal progress at T2.”

Specifically, “lower negativity (and higher positivity) of goal simulations was predictive of well-being at T2, even after controlling for well-being at T1, and together these variables accounted for 73% of the variance in T2 well-being.”

The results overall suggest, as expected, strong links between some aspects of goal setting and pursuit and well-being. “Some of the strongest links with mental health were higher perceived attainability, sense of control, and lower expected difficulty in achieving one’s goals.” Perceived goal attainability was the strongest predictor of goal progress.

Regarding goal-directed simulations, “emotional valence of simulations also appears to be particularly important in the context of predicting mental health over time. As predicted, higher well-being and lower depressive symptoms were correlated with greater clarity, vividness, and detail.”

In sum, the study linked more attainable, under control, emotionally positive goals to higher well-being and lower depressive symptoms. In addition, clearer, more detailed, more positive, and less negative goal-directed simulations also predicted higher well-being and less depression . Finally, positive goal-directed simulations strongly predicted well-being at a two-month follow-up. The authors conclude: “These findings underscore the relevance of goal-directed imagination to well-being and depressive symptoms, and highlight potential targets for goal- and imagery-based interventions to improve mental health.”

More data from larger, more diverse samples are needed, and the study's correlational design precludes us from reaching conclusions about causality. Yet the study provides suggestive evidence to the possibility that our mental health may benefit from a practice of periodically taking time to imagine pursuing and achieving important, attainable, and positive future goals in clear and vivid detail.

Noam Shpancer, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a practicing clinical psychologist in Columbus, Ohio.

Find a Therapist
Find a Treatment Center
Find a Psychiatrist
Find a Support Group
Find Online Therapy
International
New Zealand
South Africa
Switzerland
Asperger's
Bipolar Disorder
Chronic Pain
Eating Disorders
Passive Aggression
Personality
Goal Setting
Positive Psychology
Stopping Smoking
Low Sexual Desire
Relationships
Child Development
Self Tests NEW
Therapy Center
Diagnosis Dictionary
Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

Emotional Intelligence
Gaslighting
Affective Forecasting
Neuroscience

Open access
Published: 21 May 2024

Goal setting in later life: an international comparison of older adults’ defined goals

Elissa Burton ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6470-8305 1 , 2 ,
Jill Chonody 3 ,
Barbra Teater 4 &
Sabretta Alford 5

BMC Geriatrics volume 24 , Article number: 443 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

603 Accesses

2 Altmetric

Metrics details

Studies of goal setting in later life tend to focus on health-related goal setting, are pre-determined by the researcher (i.e., tick box), and/or are focused on a specific geographical area (i.e., one country). This study sought to understand broader, long-term goals from the perspective of older adults (65 + years) from Australia, New Zealand (NZ), United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Canada, and the United States of America (USA).

Through a cross-sectional, online survey ( N = 1,551), this exploratory study examined the qualitative goal content of older adults. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data, and bivariate analyses were used to compare thematic differences between regions and by participants’ sex.

Over 60% of the participants reported setting goals, and participants from the Australia-NZ and Canada-USA regions were more likely to set goals than the UK-Ireland region. The following six overarching themes were identified from the 946 goals reported: health and well-being; social connections and engagement; activities and experiences; finance and employment; home and lifestyle; and attitude to life.

Conclusions

This study supports previous research that demonstrates that older adults can and do set personal goals that are wide ranging. These findings support the need for health professionals to consider different methods for elucidating this important information from older adults that builds rapport and focuses on aspects viewed as more important by the older adult and therefore potentially produces improved health outcomes.

Peer Review reports

Ageist assumptions likely influence gerontological health care workers’ perceptions of personal goal setting in older people in that they may falsely believe that they are not intent on pursuing goals beyond those related to functional abilities (e.g., improved mobility) [ 1 ]. However, “new paradigms are needed to provide guidance and support as adults move into the later decades of life, strive to maintain their independence, intent upon aging in place” [ 2 , p.205]. This change in perspective is consistent with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Active Aging Policy, which was developed to address the global growth in older adults and to facilitate and grow social and community connection [ 3 ]. “Active,” from the WHO’s position, is related to ongoing participation and was not meant to singularly describe health maintenance [ 4 ]. The aging process is influenced by six determinants—social, biological, behavioral, personal, health and social services, and economic—that act in concert to create individual experiences of growing older. Gender and culture are “cross-cutting determinants” given that each contributes to greater barriers and privileges. Moreover, aging is reframed as a life-long process, not something that happens at a predetermined age [ 4 ]. This framework directly informs a new paradigm of personal goal setting with its emphasis on self-determination that empowers individual decision making and inclusivity across the active aging spectrum.

Self-Determination Theory is “an empirically derived theory of human motivation and personality in social contexts that differentiates motivation in terms of being autonomous and controlled” [ 5 , p.416]. This theory emphasizes not just the need for goals, but also the content of one’s goals [ 6 , 7 ]. That is, goals may have an intrinsic motivation, such as personal growth, or health. On the other hand, goals may represent extrinsic content, such as social recognition, or financial success, which focuses on the positive evaluation of others [ 7 , 8 ]. Goal content is important given its association with subjective well-being. Those who are intrinsically motivated have greater well-being than those that are extrinsically motivated, which is associated with ill-being in at least some studies (e.g [ 6 , 7 ]).

Many contemporary studies address goal setting in later adult life stages; however, these studies tend to focus on health-related goal setting, such as care goals for serious illness (e.g., Ouchi, George [ 9 ]), health care preferences (e.g., Tinetti, Costello [ 10 ]) or diabetes (e.g., Kalyani, Golden [ 11 ]). Studies on personal goal setting are often dated (10 + years), and as the Baby Boomers enter older adulthood, shifts in personal goal setting is likely. The “me generation” may expect that choices are always readily available [ 12 ] and set their goals accordingly.

Personal goals have an important influence on life satisfaction and are often studied within this context. In a Canadian study of older adults, participants who had many future goals had less regret, which in turn supported a better quality of life [ 11 ]. Future goals also predicted greater life satisfaction for older people [ 13 ] as well as health and quality of life for frail older adults [ 14 ]. When examining goal content, older adults placed greater importance on intrinsic goals which were positively associated with well-being, whereas extrinsic goals were not [ 15 ].

Furthermore, studies exploring goal setting by older adults tend to be researcher driven in that pre-determined goals are provided and then rated for degree of importance, which creates a lacuna of research from the perspective of older people. For example, A study of older people in Hong Kong sought to understand differences for the young-old (i.e., 54–73 years old) and old-old (i.e., 74 years and up; Au, Ng [ 16 ]) with the six-domains of the “Goals Questionnaire Success Subscale” (as cited in Au et al. [ 16 ]). Thus, limiting respondents’ goals to these areas.

In addition, personal goal setting studies are typically conducted in a single country [ 13 – 18 ]. However, multi-country studies shed light on how culture may play a role and thus inform intervention development. Thus, there is much still to learn about personal goal setting by older adults. This study sought to address these gaps by elevating the voices of older people residing in Australia, New Zealand (NZ), the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Canada and the United States of America (USA) by initially identifying if they set goals, and for those that did, qualitatively examining their personal goals.

This was a cross-sectional, exploratory study, distributed by online survey (using Qualtrics). This study on older adults’ goals was part of a larger survey that included questions about successful aging, living a long life, where older adults would like to live as they age, and what they need to do to stay living in their home for the rest of their life. The current analyses focuses on older adults’ goals. This study received ethical approval from [Curtin] University (HRE-2021-0587). The first question of the survey required participants to provide consent to being involved. Those who said no to giving consent were not permitted to continue completing the survey.

Setting and sample

Prior to the distribution of the survey, a pilot test was conducted with four older adults. Two were Australians living in a regional area, one was Australian living in the suburbs surrounding a capital city and one was Scottish. Changes suggested by the pilot participants were made, such as asking age rather than birth year. At the conclusion of the pilot study, the survey was sent out to older adults through multiple channels including: (1) to older adults who previously agreed to be included in a research participant database; (2) a link in the Council of the Ageing Western Australia newsletter and the Strength for Life newsletter; (3) an advert on the Injury Matters website; (4) multiple Facebook adverts that included Australia, NZ, the UK, Ireland, Canada and the USA; and (5) multiple X (formerly twitter) posts, posted from Australia and the USA accounts. These countries were included because they were all English speaking, included at least two countries within a region of the world, and had large Facebook memberships, which allowed a large sample of people to be surveyed. The survey was distributed, and data were collected between September 2021 until April 2022.

Participants were eligible to participate in the study if they were 65 years or older, able to understand and communicate in English, and had access to the internet and/or social media. If a person did not meet these criteria, they were unable to complete the survey. Sample size calculations were based on older populations (i.e., 65 years and over) of the three regions participating in the study: (1) Australia and NZ, (2) the UK (i.e., England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) and Ireland, and (3) Canada and the USA. Considering a confidence interval of 95% and a 5% margin of error, a sample size of at least 385 survey completions was required for each region.

Instrumentation

Participants were asked to complete demographic questions that included age, sex, where they lived (i.e. capital city and surrounding suburbs; regional city; regional area (i.e. small town, farming, etc.) or remote), who they lived with, education level, employment status, number of children, number of prescribed medications and ability to complete activities of daily living such as going to the toilet, completing own shower or bath and dressing (i.e., no difficulty, some difficulty, moderate difficulty, need help). They were also asked to complete the following questions: “Have you set goals for yourself that you would like to achieve?” (yes/no). Those who answered yes, were then asked, “If you are happy to share, can you please describe what goals you are trying to achieve currently?” (open-ended). This reduced the opportunity for the researchers to influence their answers.

Additionally, a back button was also not included on the survey. As the pilot study participants moved through the survey and were asked different questions, they explained how they thought of additional answers to previous questions due to these new questions. The researchers did not want the participants’ previous answers to be led by these new questions and therefore did not allow the back button to be included in this final, distributed survey. No incentive was offered for completing the survey.

Data analysis

Participant demographic data were checked for normality of distribution and summarized using means and standard deviations for continuous data and frequency distribution for categorical data or non-parametric tests where required. T -tests, ANOVAs and chi-square tests were used for continuous and categorical group comparisons, respectively. SPSS v27 was used for data analysis, and significance levels were set at alpha = 0.05.

Qualitative data (i.e., open ended questions) were initially analyzed using thematic analysis [ 19 , 20 ]. Familiarization of the data was essential, and the data set was read multiple times prior to commencing analysis. Codes were then generated initially by one researcher (EB) across the entire data set, with many codes interconnected between each other. Codes were then developed into potential sub-themes and were reviewed and discussed amongst the four authors (EB, BT, JC, SA), these sub-themes were then reviewed multiple times, and themes were generated that encapsulated a number of sub-themes within each. These themes were then reviewed and discussed by the research team (EB, BT, JC, SA) and final names of themes were agreed. A thematic map was then developed illustrating how the sub-themes were placed within themes. Given the large number of survey participants involved, after completing the thematic analysis, (multiple) themes and sub-themes were then aligned to each participant in SPSS based on their answers, to allow for further analysis between sexes and regions. For example, ID1471 reported their goals were “ Stay active Travel Be open minded Listen to grandchildren Express gratitude.” In SPSS, ID1471’s answers were added to over-arching theme columns: Health and wellbeing; Social connection and engagement; Activities and experiences; and Attitude to life. These answers were then added to the sub-themes columns in SPSS, and for this participant included Exercise/physical activity/get fitter; Travel; Being positive and open; Spending time with family (or help them); Be kind-happy-respectful. This process was completed for each participant by the lead researcher and then checked by two authors (BT, JC).

Study participants

Fifteen hundred and fifty-one participants completed the online survey. The mean age was 72.6 (± 5.7) years, and three-quarters were female. A third (32.5%, n = 530) of participants were born in the UK, 20.1% ( n = 327) in Australia, 17.1% ( n = 279) in Canada, 8.9% ( n = 145) in the USA, 6.6% ( n = 108) in NZ, and 6.7% ( n = 110) in Ireland. Country they were living in when they completed the survey included Australia, 29.2% ( n = 479), UK, 21.3% ( n = 350), Canada, 20.9% ( n = 342), USA, 7.6% ( n = 124), Ireland, 7.9% ( n = 129), New Zealand, 7.4% ( n = 122). The full demographics data for the participants including a breakdown for each of the three regions: Australia/NZ; UK, Ireland and Europe; and Canada and the USA are in Table 1 . The number of participants from Europe was very small ( n = 5, Italy = 4, Portugal = 1) and were therefore combined into the UK and Ireland region.

Statistically significant differences were found between the UK-Ireland region and Canada-USA region for age, with the Canada-USA region being older. Significantly more participants from the Australia-NZ region lived in a capital city or the surrounding suburbs compared to the other two regions. Significantly more from Australia-NZ, Canada-USA lived in regional cities compared to the UK-Ireland and significantly more participants from the UK-Ireland lived in a regional area compared to the other two regions. The UK-Ireland and Canada-USA regions both had significantly more participants who had completed an undergraduate degree than the Australia-NZ region. Whereas post-graduate degree completion was reported significantly more often by Australia-NZ participants compared to the other two regions. The Australia-NZ region reported significantly more children than the Canada-USA region. Australia-NZ also had significantly more participants who had help in the home compared to the UK-Ireland region. No significant differences for sex, employment status, medications prescribed and ability to complete activities of daily living were found.

Do older people set goals they would like to achieve?

Almost two-thirds (63.0%, n = 977) of the survey participants stated they set goals they wanted to achieve. The Australia-NZ (67.1%; n = 403) and Canada-USA (65.5%; n = 305) regions were significantly more likely to set goals than the UK-Ireland region (55.6%; n = 269), χ 2 (2, n = 1,551) = 16.875, p < 0.0001. Of the 63.0% who reported they set goals, 67.4% ( n = 659) described their goals in an open-ended response. Many participants reported multiple goals within their response. In total, there were 1,773 goals themed, Australia-NZ averaged 1.66 per participant ( n = 683 total number of goals), Canada-USA 1.42 per participant ( n = 538), and UK-Ireland 1.12 per participant ( n = 552) (see Table 1 ). UK-Ireland averaged significantly fewer goals per person than Australia-NZ and Canada-USA.

Types of goals – overarching themes

Six overarching themes were identified from 946 goals reported, these are presented in Table 2 . ‘Activities and experiences’ was the most frequently mentioned theme, followed by ‘health and wellbeing’ and ‘social connections and engagement.’ There was a statistically significant difference for ‘social connections and engagement’ with the UK-Ireland reporting these fewer times than participants from Australia-NZ and Canada-USA. Australia-NZ participants were significantly more likely to report ‘activities and experiences’ as a goal compared to Canada-USA and ‘home and lifestyle’ significantly more than both of the other regions. Canada-USA were significantly more likely to report goals around ‘finances and employment’ compared to the UK-Ireland.

Due to the small number of participants identifying as non-binary ( n = 3), transgender ( n = 1) and intersex ( n = 1) the analysis only included those identifying as male or female for the differences between sexes questions. Females provided on average 2.06 responses and males 1.86. ‘Activities and experiences’, followed by ‘health and wellbeing’ and ‘social connections and engagements’ were the three highest reported goals respectively for females (see Table 2 ). Males reported ‘activities and experiences’, ‘social connections and engagements’ and then ‘health and wellbeing’ as their top three reported goals. There were significant differences between the sexes for ‘health and wellbeing’ and ‘home and lifestyle’ where it was more likely to be reported by females, whereas males were significantly more likely to report ‘finance and employment’ as part of their goals.

Types of goals – sub-themes

The overarching themes were derived from 38 sub-themes, which are illustrated in Fig. 1 Conceptual map. ‘Activities and experiences’ included the largest number of sub-themes with 10 identified. Examples included hobbies, learning new skills, gardening, writing books, breaking records, being useful, travel and doing things that are fun. ‘Social connection and engagement’ included eight sub-themes, such as spending time with family and friends, volunteering, engaging with the community or outdoors and having a pet. ‘Health and wellbeing’ and ‘attitude to life’ both had six sub-themes, whereas ‘finance and employment’ and ‘home and lifestyle’ included four sub-themes respectively.

Conceptual map of the goals

Table 3 presents the 38 sub-themes by region. The most prevalent sub-themes were exercise/physical activity/get fitter (35.6%), travel (28.6%), general health and wellbeing (22.6%) and spending time with family (or helping them) (20.6%). The Australia-NZ region was significantly more likely to report general health and wellbeing and gardening as important goals compared to both the UK-Ireland and Canada-USA. Australia-NZ and Canada-USA regions were also significantly more likely to state helping others and volunteering, and spending time with friends as goals compared to the UK-Ireland region. Healthy eating and maintaining weight was reported significantly more often by participants from Canada-USA than Australia-NZ. The Australia-NZ region was also significantly more likely to report spending time with family (or helping them) and stay living independently than participants living in the UK-Ireland region. Faith and spiritual connection, including going to church and meditating was reported significantly more often for Canada-US compared to both Australia-NZ and the UK-Ireland. However, the UK-Ireland were significantly more likely to state starting or completing educational courses and learning new skills as goals compared to those in the Canada-USA region. Finally, Canada-USA were more likely to report staying alive as a goal compared to the UK-Ireland.

Table 4 presents the sub-theme goals by sex, with 963 goals identified. Females identified exercise/physical activity/getting fitter (38.8%), travel (30.3%) and general health and wellbeing (22.3%) as their three most reported sub-theme goals. This was the same as the males, however only 23.8% of males reported exercise/physical activity/getting fitter as the most important sub-theme goal and 22.3% general health and wellbeing and travel, at equal second. Travel, healthy eating and maintaining weight, exercise/physical activity/getting fitter, losing weight, and learning new skills were all reported significantly more by females than males. Whereas males reported competing/breaking world records/challenging oneself, financial security/independence/getting out of debt, living to 100/growing old gracefully and in good health, remarrying/marry/relationships/sex life and staying alive significantly more often than females.

This study found that the majority of older adults, living in different regions of the world, are setting personal goals. Six over-arching themes were identified from the data and not only included “health and well-being,” like much of the previous research in this area, but also an array of other factors that were identified as important in an older person’s life. Additionally, some of the themes aligned with the six determinants of active aging identified in the WHO’s Active Aging Policy [ 4 ], such as health, social, personal, and economic factors.

“Health and well-being” were identified by more than half of the participants in this study, which is similar to other studies exploring older adults’ personal goals. However, many of the sub-themes, such as physical activity, exercise, improving nutrition, controlling pain, or maintaining function, were also identified as higher, overarching themes within previous research [ 2 , 17 , 21 ]. This may be because fewer goals were described by participants in previous research or closed questions (tick boxes) were used in data collection. Also, unlike previous research, this current study included multi-country perspectives using the same open-answer questionnaire during the same time period, which may have increased the breadth of goals that were provided when compared to single country studies.

Working with older people to create future goals has been found to increase life satisfaction and quality of life [ 13 ]; thus, this may be a key way to intervene after a health issue arises. However, health interventions geared toward older people tend to give them “what is considered to be needed, but not what they want or hope for” [ 22 , p. 299]. New ways to achieve goals that promote active aging continue to increase [ 2 ], and health care providers, social workers, and others may facilitate continued growth in this area by assisting older people in their goal setting and planning. For example, soliciting and focusing on self-defined goals when working with older adults can provide a sense of agency in creating a future that best supports and enhances their quality of life and overall well-being. Additionally, public health policies that aim to promote healthy aging could integrate elements of goal setting for older adults that focus on specific aspects of “activities and experiences” and “social connections and engagement” alongside health promotion and engagement. Those who work with older adults will need to shift their attitudes toward goal setting [ 2 ] by focusing their energy on self-determination and elevating the voices of older adults as well as moving beyond care goals. Arguably, health goals are essential to much of this work, but a holistic approach is needed to improve subjective well-being and overall life satisfaction and to build trust and rapport.

“Activities and experiences” was the most prevalent theme across the six regions, which have been described in previous research under the guise of leisure [ 22 ], cultural activities, volunteering, skill development [ 23 ], travel [ 21 ], and intellectual pursuits [ 2 ]. Yet none of this previous research covered the range of activities older people enjoy and how it differs depending on the country or sex of the participants. Nor have they illustrated that “activities and experiences” are perceived as more important as personal goals than “health and well-being” or “social connections and engagement” by older adults. This research illustrates the importance of “activities and experiences” for older adults and that they want to continue participating, and in some cases, achieving in activities they enjoy (e.g., breaking world records). Health professionals could consider discussing whether these are of importance to their older patients, and if so, linking their health and rehabilitative goals to the “activities and experiences” of their choice. This approach is often described in the reablement literature. Reablement being defined broadly as a person-centered approach aimed at enhancing a person’s physical and/or other functioning to increase or maintain independence in meaningful activities of daily living [ 24 ]. However, goals are often focused around health, function, or social connections rather than “activities or experiences” [ 24 , 25 ].

“Social connections and engagement” were also identified in the top three themes for both sex and region. Females in this current study placed greater emphasis on “health and well-being” (second highest) as a goal, whereas males identified “social connections and engagement” as more important than their “health and wellbeing” goals. This may be due to women already prioritizing “social connections and engagement” [ 26 ] and therefore not feeling a need to include it as a goal. Similarly, fewer males noted exercise or physical fitness as a priority, yet research shows older age males are often more physically active than females [ 27 ]. Thus, they may not include this as a personal goal if it is already being achieved. However, this is outside the scope of this study, and it is not possible to be certain on the reasons why these goals were prioritized by the different sexes. Focus groups or interviews could facilitate greater understanding of how gender influences goal-setting.

“Finance and employment” were perceived as important to participants in the Australia/New Zealand and Canada/USA regions, but not as much in the UK/Ireland. It is difficult to determine why this may be the case, but potentially the different pension systems and health and social care systems may play a role. Males were also significantly more likely to include financial security, independence, and getting out of debt as goals compared to females. This study did not explore reasons why, and we are therefore unable to speculate as to why this was the case. Perhaps traditional gender role socialization plays a role in personal goal setting. “Finances and employment” were not commonly described in previous research looking at personal goals of older adults, but it has been described within zero-sum, extrinsic frameworks [ 28 , 29 ]. Future research is needed to examine these connections, generationally and by gender identity.

The Australia/NZ region were significantly more likely to include “home and lifestyle” goals than both the UK/Ireland and Canada/USA regions. Also, the Australia/NZ region had almost twice the proportion of participants living in a capital city or regional city compared to the other two regions and far fewer in regional and remote areas. Study participants were not asked whether they owned their own home or rented, and this may have provided one reason as to why it was more of a goal for some than others. Other studies exploring personal goals of older adults rarely included “home and lifestyle” factors within their work. This is an area ripe for further examination as it relates to aging in place and what meaning the home has for older people as they age.

Enjoying life and having a positive attitude to life has been included in previous goals research for older adults [ 2 , 23 ], and like this current study, it was not of the highest priority when setting their goals. However, having a positive attitude, enjoying life, and being kind and respectful is viewed as important enough by older people to be included in their personal goals. Educating health care providers, social workers, and others who primarily work with older people through continuing education programs run by their disciplines (e.g., Australian Physiotherapy Association), online courses or webinars (national societies e.g., Gerontological Society of America) would allow them to think about goal setting beyond specific health care needs and promote greater generativity and well-being.

There are a number of strengths of this study, including open questions with no examples provided for types of goals to include, therefore reducing the opportunity for bias and only capturing the thoughts of the participants. Collecting data across multiple countries simultaneously using the same questionnaire has, to our knowledge, not been conducted previously in personal goal setting and provides an opportunity to directly compare perspectives of older people across three regions of the world. Multi-country studies have been undertaken previously, but they linked data between countries after data collection was completed, and often the questions being asked were not worded exactly the same across the different countries. Limitations included only involving English speaking countries in the questionnaire and predominantly including people with access to the internet and who were Facebook users. There was also an over-representation of females and ethnicity and income were not collected. There is also a chance that how we described where someone was living may have been misinterpreted between capital city and surrounding suburbs and how this is described across the different countries included in the study. We also combined countries to explore the three regions and there may have been differences between the countries, for example with USA and Canada having different healthcare systems.

This study supports the notion that older adults can and do set personal goals and that they are wide ranging. Goal setting is prevalent in health care, but research often states from the health professionals’ perspective that it is difficult to identify goals or that older adults either do not like or find it difficult to set goals [ 30 ]. Perhaps other factors, such as the approach to identifying these goals, the way the question about goal setting is phrased, or lack of time given to the older person to think about their goals are greater issues than their ability to identify them. Health professionals may like to consider different methods for elucidating this important information from their patients that solicits self-defined goals and includes programming that factor in elements of activities and experiences and social connections and engagement.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

New Zealand

Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences

United Kingdom

United States of America

World Health Organization

Giosa JL, Byrne K, Stolee P. Person- and family-centred goal-setting for older adults in Canadian home care: a solution-focused approach. Health Soc Care Community. 2022;30:e2445–56.

Article PubMed Google Scholar

Howard EP, Louvar KE. Examining life goals of community-dwelling, low-income older adults. Res Gerontol Nurs. 2017;10(5):205–14.

Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Walker A. Active aging in employment: its meaning and potential. Asia-Pacific Rev. 2006;13(1):78–93.

Article Google Scholar

World Health Organization. Active ageing: a policy framework. World Health Organization; 2002.

Deci EL, Ryan RM. Self-determination theory. Handbook of theories of social psychology. 1. 2012;20:416–36.

Google Scholar

Kasser T, Ryan RM. A dark side of the American dream: correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1993;65(2):410–22.

Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar

Kasser T, Ryan RM. Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 1996;22(3):280–7.

Ryan RM, Deci EL. Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. Am Psychol. 2000;55(1):68–78.

Ouchi K, George N, Schuur JD, Aaronson EL, Lindvall C, Bernstein E, et al. Goals-of-care conversations for older adults with serious illness in the emergency department: challenges and opportunities. Ann Emerg Med. 2019;74(2):276–84.

Tinetti ME, Costello DM, Naik AD, Davenport C, Hernandez-Bigos K, Van Liew JR, et al. Outcome goals and health care preferences of older adults with multiple chronic conditions. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(3):e211271–e.

Kalyani RR, Golden SH, Cefalu WT. Diabetes and aging: unique considerations and goals of care. Diabetes Care. 2017;40(4):440–3.

Teater B, Chonody J. Reconsidering how successful aging is defined: perspectives from community-dwelling aging adults. Adv Social Work, 2020;20(3), 694–708. https://doi.org/10.18060/24218 .

Wrosch C, Bauer I, Scheier MF. Regret and quality of life across the adult life span: the influence of disengagement and available future goals. Psychol Aging. 2005;20(4):657–70.

Yuri Y, Takabatake S, Nishikawa T, Oka M, Fujiwara T. The effects of a life goal-setting technique in a preventive care program for frail community-dwelling older people: a cluster nonrandomized controlled trial. BMC Geriatr. 2016;16(1):1–11.

Gomez V, Allemand M, Grob A. Neuroticism, extraversion, goals, and subjective well-being: exploring the relations in young, middle-aged, and older adults. J Res Pers. 2012;46(3):317–25.

Au A, Ng E, Lai S, Tsien T, Busch H, Hofer J, et al. Goals and life satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese older adults. Clin Gerontol. 2015;38(3):224–34.

Saajanaho M, Rantakokko M, Portegijs E, Törmäkangas T, Eronen J, Tsai LT, et al. Life resources and personal goals in old age. Eur J Ageing. 2016;13(3):195–208.

Saajanaho M, Viljanen A, Read S, Eronen J, Kaprio J, Jylhä M, et al. Mobility limitation and changes in personal goals among older women. Journals Gerontol Ser B: Psychol Sci Social Sci. 2016;71(1):1–10.

Braun V, Clarke V. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Res Psychol. 2006;3(2):77–101.

Braun V, Clarke V, Gray D. Collecting qualitative data: a practical guide to Textual, Media and virtual techniques. Cambridge: UK: Cambridge University Press; 2017.

Book Google Scholar

Terrell CA, Martins SL, Delkoski SL, Torkelson CJ. What do women want? Identifying life goals in a community-based sample of women aged ≥ 60 years. J Gerontol Nurs. 2022;48(12).

Lapierre S, Bouffard L, Bastin E. Personal goals and subjective well-being in later life. Int J Aging Hum Dev. 1997;45(4):287–303.

Joly-Burra E, Gallerne E, Van der Linden M, Ghisletta P. Goals do not buy well-being, but they help. Swiss J Psychol. 2020;79(3–4):137–48.

Metzelthin SF, Rostgaard T, Parsons M, Burton E. Development of an internationally accepted definition of reablement: a Delphi study. Ageing Soc. 2022;42(3):703–18.

Sims-Gould J, Tong CE, Wallis-Mayer L, Ashe MC. Reablement, reactivation, rehabilitation and restorative interventions with older adults in receipt of home care: a systematic review. JAMDA. 2017;18:653–63.

PubMed Google Scholar

Naud D, Généreux M, Bruneau J-F, Alauzet A, Levasseur M. Social participation in older women and men: differences in community activities and barriers according to region and population size in Canada. BMC Public Health. 2019;19(1124):1–14.

Lounassalo I, Salin K, Kankaanpää A, Hirvensalo M, Palomäki S, Tolvanen A, et al. Distinct trajectories of physical activity and related factors during the life course in the general population: a systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2019;19(271):1–12.

Headey B. Life goals matter to happiness: a revision of set-point theory. Soc Indic Res. 2008;86:213–31.

Headey B, Muffels R, Wagner GG. Long-running German panel survey shows that personal and economic choices, not just genes, matter for happiness. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2010;107(42):17922–6.

Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Zingmark M, Kylén M. Feasibility of a reablement-program in a Swedish municipality. Scand J Occup Ther. 2023;30(1):53–64.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the thousands of older adults who participated in the research study and completed the survey.

This work was support by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant for Associate Professor Burton [Grant Number: APP1174739]. The funders had no role in this research outside of funding.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

enAble Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA, Australia

Elissa Burton

Curtin School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

College of Health Sciences, School of Social Work, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

Jill Chonody

College of Staten Island, Department of Social Work, City University of New York, Staten Island, NY, USA

Barbra Teater

The Graduate Center, PhD in Social Welfare, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

Sabretta Alford

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

EB, JC, BT conceptualized the study, EB collected the data, EB analyzed the data, all authors interpreted the findings after initial analysis. EB, JC wrote the first draft, all authors read, edited and approve the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elissa Burton .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

Ethics approval was received from Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee University (HRE-2021-0587). The first question of the survey required participants to provide consent to being involved. Those who said no to giving consent were not permitted to continue completing the survey. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that we have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Burton, E., Chonody, J., Teater, B. et al. Goal setting in later life: an international comparison of older adults’ defined goals. BMC Geriatr 24 , 443 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-05017-x

Download citation

Received : 29 January 2024

Accepted : 26 April 2024

Published : 21 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-05017-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Comparative research
Multi-country

BMC Geriatrics

ISSN: 1471-2318

Submission enquiries: [email protected]
General enquiries: [email protected]

IMAGES

🌈 What is your goal in life essay. My Goal in Life Essay. 2022-11-15
My Goals In Life
My Personal Life Goals And Achievements Free Essay Example
005 Life Goals Essay Narrative On Achieving Goal My Purpose In Exampls
Essay About Your Life Goals
Short Essay Samples About My Goals

VIDEO

My Birthday
Life Goals || Mehnat Karte rahiye halaat jarrur badlenge #shorts #motivation #struggle
How to Create Your Personal Mission Statement For Life
Essay on my Goal/Ambition in English
Writing Goals: Tips to Motivate and Celebrate
Essay: Economic Development is about transforming lives not just Economic Statistics

COMMENTS

Essay on Goals in Life
250 Words Essay on Goals in Life Introduction. Life is a journey filled with opportunities and challenges. Goals, acting as navigational tools, direct our path through this journey, providing focus, motivation, and a sense of purpose. They are the stepping stones to achieving our ambitions, and they shape our personal, academic, and ...
My Goal In Life Essay
200 Words Essay On My Goal In Life. A goal is a vision for the future or a desired outcome that an individual or group of individuals commits to envisioning, planning, and achieving. By setting deadlines, people try to accomplish their goals by setting deadlines. My Goal. My current goal is related to my education.
Goals of the Life: Personal Experience
People need to have goals in their life. According to Aristotle, "Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals". Achieving our goals makes us happy. As the result, our happiness depends on us. Nobody is guilty if we fail to do something in our life.
Essays About Goals: Top 5 Examples Plus 10 Prompts
10 Prompts on Essays About Goals. 1. My Goals in Life. In this essay, delve into your short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. Before anything else, elaborate on what drew you to set these goals. Then, share your action plans to make them a reality. Discuss the obstacles you've faced and how you've conquered them.
How to Write an Essay About My Goal: A Comprehensive Guide
How To Write An Essay About My Life Goals. Introduction: Initiate with an engaging hook—be it a quote, question, or anecdote—that aligns with your goal. State your main goal: Elucidate on what your primary life objective is. Be it professional success, personal achievement, or societal contribution, clarify your aim.
College Essay on My Goals in Life
Get original essay. The first aspect of my life that I would like to address is my academic and professional goals. As a student, I have always been driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to make a meaningful contribution to my field of study. I have set my sights on pursuing a degree in environmental science, as I am deeply passionate ...
How to Set and Achieve Life Goals The Right Way
This feedback helps us adjust our behavior accordingly (and when it's rewarding feedback, our brains release dopamine, e.g. Treadway et al., 2012). By allowing for feedback, goals let us align or re-align our behaviors, keeping us on track with our eyes on the prize. 3. Goal-setting Can Promote Happiness.
My Goals and Ways to Achieve Them
Goals can help you physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Goals can help you stay on the right path and not let you fall downhill. But if you don't set a goal you won't know where you'll end up. Setting up a goal can help you set a really good mindset for the future and present. Setting up a goal also gives your life direction ...
How To Write A Powerful Essay On Achieving Goals (+ Example)
Example Of An Essay About Achieving Your Goals. So, let's put all this information together and check an example essay on achieving goals: Effective Methods to Increase the Likelihood of Goal Achievement Achieving goals can be extremely rewarding and result in a more satisfying and successful life. Many people set goals yet cannot achieve them.
Importance of Goals in Life Essay
In conclusion, setting goals is essential for personal growth, development, and success. Goals provide a clear sense of direction and purpose, help individuals to prioritize their time and energy, lead to a sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment, serve as a source of motivation and inspiration, and ultimately, lead to personal growth and development.
My goal in life essay 18 Models
My goal in life essay for class 6. My goal in life is to be a teacher, thanks to my teacher because she is my role model. She is an excellent teacher who can explain our lessons to us in a simplified manner, in addition to that she treats us well, she listens to our problems and helps us solve them.
Free Essays on Life Goals, Examples, Topics, Outlines
Essays on Life Goals. Your life goals essay may reflect on the idea of how extremely easy it is to drift through life's currents without paying much attention to where you're going. This way of living often makes people "wake up" and realize that they are unsatisfied with their life - they feel unfulfilled, unaccomplished, and regretful.
15 Ways to Find Your Purpose of Life & Realize Your Meaning
Share feelings, desires, hopes, goals, successes, and failures with a close friend or significant other to increase intimacy. Focus outside yourself on causes, pursuits, and responsibilities to self-transcend. Pursue goals and strive for achievement in areas aligned with your values. Become comfortable in who you are.
9 Life Goal Examples to Help You Live More Meaningfully
9 examples of meaningful life goals. Here are nine life goal examples you can adapt to suit your interests and personal values. 1. Challenge yourself every day. Getting out of your comfort zone is a great way to develop new skills, conquer your fear of failure, and stay humble.
My Goals In Life Essay Examples
Stuck on your essay? Browse essays about My Goals In Life and find inspiration. Learn by example and become a better writer with Kibin's suite of essay help services. > My Goals In Life Essay Examples. 32 total results. staff pick. graded. words. page « 1; 2 » Company. About Us; Contact/FAQ ...
Personal Goals Essay Examples
2 pages / 946 words. I will not accept to stay in my place, but aspire to progress both in career, social or even health, setting goals for my life are the priority which will help me to do better during the future. These goals are varying from one person... Believe in Myself Career Goals Personal Goals. 15.
How to Find Your Purpose in Life
Here are six ways to overcome isolation and discover your purpose in life. 1. Read. Reading connects us to people we'll never know, across time and space—an experience that research says is linked to a sense of meaning and purpose. (Note: "Meaning" and "purpose" are related but separate social-scientific constructs.
Essay on My Goals in Life
Setting goals can transform your life in ways you never thought possible. Goals are not mere abstract desires but the foundation upon which personal and professional development is built. Without clear goals, individuals may wander aimlessly, lacking direction and motivation. Goals act as guiding stars, shaping our actions, decisions, and ...
The Meaning of Life
3. Naturalism. Recall that naturalism is the view that a physical life is central to life's meaning, that even if there is no spiritual realm, a substantially meaningful life is possible. Like supernaturalism, contemporary naturalism admits of two distinguishable variants, moderate and extreme (Metz 2019).
How To Write a Great Career Goals Essay
1. Understand the concept of career goals. Before you write your career goals essay, you must first identify your career ambitions. Career goals are a form of personal development. Focus on the professional or educational goals you would like to achieve aside from a high salary. The qualities of your goals are a more accurate measure of success ...
Free Life Goals Essay Examples & Topic Ideas
1. Life Goals Essay Prompt. Before you embark on your essay-writing journey, it's crucial to grasp the nuances of the essay prompt. Let's take a look at some sample prompts to help you get a better understanding: Prompt Sample 1: "Discuss the most significant life goals you hope to achieve and explain why they are important to you."
The Power of Imagination in Achieving Your Goals
Key points. Goal setting and pursuit are linked to well-being. Goal-directed simulations may also relate to well-being. Goals that are more attainable and under control predict greater well-being ...
Goal setting in later life: an international comparison of older adults
Studies of goal setting in later life tend to focus on health-related goal setting, are pre-determined by the researcher (i.e., tick box), and/or are focused on a specific geographical area (i.e., one country). This study sought to understand broader, long-term goals from the perspective of older adults (65 + years) from Australia, New Zealand (NZ), United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Canada, and ...
Figures at a glance
How many refugees are there around the world? At least 108.4 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 35.3 million refugees, around 41 per cent of whom are under the age of 18.. There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and lack access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom ...