This article is contributed by spelhouseLove, who regularly writes on spelhouseLove.com. She is the mother of two boys (ages 1 and 3), and works outside of the home as a Marketing Manager. spelhouseLove and her hubby currently reside in Connecticut.

I just completed one of the best things I have done for myself this year. I took the time to think about, and then wrote down 100 life goals. What are life goals? Challenges and dreams, desires and hopes that I have for me and my family. I borrowed the idea from my friend Shaun King, and his 100 Life Goals. Hubby and I listened to the podcasts of Shaun and created our lists (200 goals total, but many overlap) of goals.

Every year in December I have made a list of the things I want to accomplish for the year, but they are short term goals. These 100 goals are stretch goals (if you notice a few numbers are missing it is because they were goals for my eyes only). Some goals are short term, and several are long term and may take a lifetime to complete. Setting these goals requires me to really check my motivation in a lot of areas.

Why am I doing this? Well, since faith is the evidence of things hoped for, I need to write down the things that I hope for. If I don’t have a God-ordained plan for myself, I will follow the plan my job has laid for me, or my spouse or my children have for me, and it won’t be my own plan.

Here is the criteria for my goals:

No over-spiritualized goals. I want my goals to reflect spirituality, but not spell it out. The goals should also demonstrate my discipline and stewardship, be specific, include others, bring me joy and honor God.

Here are the categories:
1) family goals
2) travel goals
3) physical goals
4) experience goals
5) influence goals

I challenge you to write your 100 life goals. If you do, I will publish them on my blog, spelhouseLove. And here are my (work in progress) 100 life goals:

Family Goals

1. Renew our vows at 25th anniversary and have an awesome reception
2. Organize a Richardson family reunion
3. Watch my husband graduate with his PhD
4. Design a family coat of arms
5. Publish a family tree that can be passed down
6. Coach a team for one of my kids
7. Create trust funds for my children & grandchildren
10. Build a treehouse for my kids
11. Write letters to my family
12. Give a speech with hubby
13. Decorate our home together
14. Have a healthy daughter
15. Host our children’s college classmates for Thanksgiving
16. Reunite with estranged relatives
17. Teach our children how to golf
18. Generate enough passive income to retire at 50
19. Teach our children to be chaste but not ignorant about sexuality
20. Have children fluent in another language
21. Dialogue consistently again
22. Raise children excited about reading
23. Publish a family annual report (with balance sheets and all!)
24. Let the children manage the family budget
25. Support the Dual-Degree Engineering Program with an annual Victor scholarship
26. Create a charitable Victor Foundation
27. Buy our kids a house
28. Build a family lodge on mom’s land in GA
29. Volunteer with my children annually
30. Witness my grandchildren’s births
31. Pay for grandchildren’s college education
32. Watch hubby escort my daughter in a debutante ball
33. Invest $10k in my children’s passions
34. Complete a project adventure course as a family
35. Raise children who love Christ

Travel Goals

36. Do business in Singapore
37. Visit a slave fort in West Africa
38. Go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
39. Pray in Israel
40. Speak French in Montreal
41. Visit the Galapagos islands
42. Vacation in Turks & Caicos
43. Listen to an acoustic guitar in Spain with hubby
44. Visit the Mediterranean
45. Visit Fiji/Tahiti
46. Visit Monaco
47. Visit South Africa
48. Attend a marriage retreat in Colorado
49. Take family to MN state fair
50. Take family to Oktoberfest in Helen, Georgia
51. Dogsled in the arctic
52. Play the didgeridoo in Australia

Physical Goals

53. Compete on the amazing race with hubby
54. Take Pilates every year
55. Take jazz and African dance classes every year
56. Learn to surf
57. Do the splits
59. Have the ability to do 20 pull-ups every year
60. Have six pack abs
61. Go natural (my hair, that is)
63. Complete a high ropes course
63. Go whitewater rafting
64. Go skiing as a family in Aspen
65. Play in a USTA tourney
66. Teach Amari martial arts
67. Learn how to double Dutch
68. Learn roller-skating dance

Experience Goals

69. Send in the last payment on my student loans
70. Be disciplined to save $175K
71. See the earth from space
72. Have a professional photo shoot
73. Take portraits of my children in my own studio
75. Learn Adobe flash
76. Meet Michelle Obama
77. Live in Geneva
78. Go to a ballet
79. Fly a jet
80. Get manis with my daughter
81. Own a home in Tobago
82. Learn how to fire a gun
83. Chaperone my children’s prom
84. Attend the Olympics
85. Attend the world cup

Influence Goals

86. Support mothers globally – not sure how
87. Support breastfeeding legislation by developing lactivism.com
88. Write a business plan
89. Mentor high school females & their parents
90. Speak at a college commencement
91. Have a household name website
92. Sit on as a trustee or board of directors on a national org
93. Teach children how to make websites
94. Be a professional public speaker
95. Read 500 HBS case reports
96. Teach public speaking
97. Market a $1B product
98. Teach a high school Physics class
99. Have monthly blog pageviews of +100K
100. Obtain an honorary degree