Occasionally, I think of myself as “floating.” When I think about what I want to do or where I want to go, I never had a solid answer. To me, I’m just taking each day one at a time with no real goal.

Setting Goals for Myself

I’m constantly trying to do well at work and grow my blog, but when you ask me where I see myself in 5 or 10 years, my answer is always working – trying to climb up the ladder as quickly as possible.

Other than that vague answer, there wasn’t much to life for me. I never really dreamt of having kids or anything like that. The thought of being responsible for anyone else but myself scares me. Nonetheless, I feel like there’s more to life than settling down and starting a family.

Here are some recent life goals I made.

Visiting All 50 States

Sparked by being a proud American and loving my country, I recently made a goal to travel all 50 states. It’s sad that as much as I love America, I’ve barely visited ten states!

Knowing me, I need to give myself a timeline otherwise I’ll never be able to accomplish it. I plan to visit at least four to five states a year – this way, I’ll be able to complete this goal within 10-13 years!

I’m excited about this new personal goal I’ve made. Just in the past two months, I’ve visited Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Nashville. I can’t wait to continue learning about our rich history.

Owning a Coffee Shop

Another goal I’ve made for myself is to someday open a small coffee shop. Inspired by my dad who wants to someday own an ice cream shop. While my dad could open one, he has his hands tied with raising 3 teenage boys.

Opening a coffee shop will mostly be something I do much later in life. Probably 30+ years from now, but who knows! So much can happen in a year, 5 years, and 10 years. I think I will probably bankrupt my own coffee shop with how much coffee I drink, ha.

The only problem is, I don’t even know how to make coffee! I do know how to make it theoretically, ha. I think when life slows down a bit and when I’m not so caught up in trying to start my career, I’ll pick up a second job working at a coffee shop to learn the ins and outs of one.

When I retire, I’ll live a simple life running a coffee shop and doing the branding and marketing for it.

Having More Meaningful Relationships

One of my insecurities I’ve come to realize is not having friends that last more than a year. I envy people who are still friends with their childhood friends or people who have had the same friends for decades.

Last year, I lost two good friends and didn’t know what else I could have done better to keep the friendship. I thought maybe it was me and I was the common denominator when it came to keeping friends.

I realized a few things.

First, I lacked having meaningful and deep relationships. It occurred to me that if I had gotten to really know someone on a deeper level, their actions wouldn’t have surprised me.

I don’t want to go much into details about what happened. Long story short, I learned that if someone truly knows you and you truly know someone, it wouldn’t be so easy for someone to throw away a friendship like that.

Having a deep connection is what bonds people together, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I’m still learning that for myself, but logically speaking, it makes sense.

Second, I lacked communication. To me, I thought communicating was “I’m doing this today” or “this is what happening in my life”. When people say communication is key to any relationship, they mean communicating as in “I feel like x, y, and z” or “I don’t appreciate you doing x, y, and z”.

As someone who is passive, I’m not one to express how I feel if I think it might make other people upset or sad. Resentment starts building up when small things aren’t discussed.

Being vulnerable is truly one of the worst feelings in my opinion, but based on what I’ve learned so far, it’s a better feeling once you’ve expressed it and can get over it.

These are my personal goals – of course, I have separate goals for my blog and work, but these are goals that I’ll continue working on as I learn more about myself and what I enjoy in life.

What are your personal goals?