10 Inspiring Life Goals and the Awesome Bloggers Behind Them

Jeff Clark, CFP®

We scoured the Internet and found inspirational bloggers who have undertaken audacious life goals. Let their goals inspire you to create and pursue your own goals!

1. Travel to Every Country in the World

Johnny Ward of One Step 4 Ward wants to help you dream big, travel far, and live full. 

I grew up pretty poor, in a single parent family, on welfare for half my life. Now I work 10-15 hour weeks from my laptop anywhere on the planet, whilst on a full-time journey to travel to every country in the world – and I've made over $1m USD doing it. I'm awful with tech, I don't know how to code, design or program. But I'm a dreamer, and I wanted a life to be proud of, so I made it happen, now I want to help you do the same thing.” 

Johnny is our kind of dreamer, and he’s designed a life that has gotten national attention, funding his mission to travel the world.

2. Retire by 30

Peter Adeney, AKA Mr. Money Moustache is among the best known (and certainly most entertaining) financial bloggers. He and his wife worked hard and lived frugally for 5 years as software engineers, saving and investing their income in order to accomplish an early retirement at age 30. Mr. Money Moustache is more than a popular financial blog. It is an entire philosophy of frugal living complete with a compelling manifesto that critiques societal norms and may even challenge your own beloved habits. 

For instance, he’ll invite you to skip the fancy clothes, cars, and coffees to get rich in your 20s. In fact, why not trade your car for a sweet bike? He challenges everyone to save and invest over half of their income and attain financial freedom as quickly as possible. Even after retiring he believes in working hard, not for money but instead to build character and benefit others. Love him or loathe him, Mr. Money Mustache is living a compelling life plan, questioning the status quo, and leading a tribe of loyal “Mustachians” toward their own financial freedom.

3. Accomplish 100 Big Goals in 10 years

Tal Gur of Fully Lived sat down one day just after turning 30, wrote out 100 life goals and set out to achieve them. Create a 6 figure business? Check. Iron man? No problem. Interview 100 inspirational people? Done. World travel with parents? Mission accomplished. 

Not only did he achieve financial, relational/spiritual, and business goals, he blogged about it along the way and published a successful ebook to help others set their own audacious goals. Read through his 100 goals list for inspiration for your own life plan!

4. Give $10 per day to a stranger for 365 days straight   

After losing his job, Reed Sandridge decided to reorient his life around charity  in honor of his late mother. 3 years after she had passed away he set the goal of giving $10 per day to a stranger for a year and documented his journey at Year of Giving. 

His inspirational blog started in 2009, and even though he no longer actively posts here, the archived posts of his year of giving have much to teach us about the adventures that unfold when you intentionally live and give generously.

5. Earn 10x more while working 4 hours per week

Tim Ferriss is a best-selling author and human guinea pig. He is the creator of the four hour work week blog and the Tim Ferriss Show podcast. Like Tal from Fully lived and Joel from Impossible HQ (spoiler alert, Joel is coming up) it is difficult to nail down just one inspirational life goal for Tim. His whole life inspires. While he does advocate setting goals, his bigger theme is using lifestyle design to become the very best version of himself. 

Through lifestyle design he has accomplished a number of incredibly impressive goals. He has learned to read, write, and speak four languages, he’s a world record tango dancer (what?!), a best-selling author, and the host of the #1 business podcast on iTunes, the Tim Ferriss show. If you want to learn strategies to reach your goals, to hear from world-class performers, or to be inspired to take a big step forward in your life - check him out at Four Hour Workweek or give his podcast a listen.

6. Save $77,565.30 to quit a corporate job and explore the world

Trent Fleskens of Wander.Seek.Find. decided to quit his successful $175K corporate gig for  a life focussed on travel and experiences. To make this possible he built tools to budget and save to create the financial freedom he would need for his new life. After some number crunching he learned that to reach his goal of traveling for 18 months without needing to pick up a job along the way he would need to save precisely $77,565.30. 

In his most shared blog post he reveals the small sacrifices, various life hacks, and strokes of luck he used to reach his goal, quit his job, and travel the world. Learn more about his travels and best practices for saving and budgeting for your own adventures at www.wanderseekfind.com

7. Lose 168 Pounds

Gina Canakis of Springfield, Penn transformed her life and her health when she set an audacious health goal and lost 168 lbs. in the process. Her wildly popular blog Weight Clique documents her journey and offers tips on weight loss, fitness, and healthy living. 

“Ever since I can remember, I have had a weight issue. My life revolved around food. I was focusing all of my attention on my career, family and friends which contributed to my weight gain over the years. I was uncomfortable in my own body and felt judged by everyone around me. My clothes never fit right, and I avoided looking in the mirror to see the person I had become. In the span of 5 years, I gained around 150 lbs... Losing 168 lbs. and counting in 25 months has transformed my life. Now I am here to encourage you to begin your journey to weight loss.” 

We were inspired by Gina’s story and trust you will be too.

8. Change the world by inspiring people to do work they love

TEDx speaker Scott Dinsmore asks the question, “Does your work make you happy?” Scott hated his job at a Fortune 500 company and quit in order to search for work he loved. Along the way he learned that roughly 70% of employees are disengaged at work. His passion became helping others find their passions. 

At his blog Live Your Legend Dinsmore works to transform how people approach their own careers.  He advocates for the idea of “changing the world by doing work that you love.” Learn more about his mission by becoming one of 7 million people to watch his TEDx talk “How to Find and Do Work You Love.”

9. Fundraise to Build 7 schools by Running 7 Ultra-Marathons on 7 Continents

Joel Runyon was tired of living a safe, predictable life, focusing on the limits of what he believed to be possible for his future. He created the Impossible HQ blog to document his own efforts to accomplish stretch goals he believed to be “impossible.” His journey inspires us because while learning about his journey we can see our own limits expand. 

Since creating his Impossible List™ he has raised $25,000 to build a school in Guatemala, run races from 5ks to marathons, published a book, traveled to 4 continents and… well, just look at his Impossible List™ if you need further inspiration.

10. Ride a Bicycle Across the United States for Charity

Donald Miller is a famous author who experienced a season of deep discontent after reaching his goal of becoming a best-selling author. After being told his life was “boring” he became fascinated by a simple question, “what makes a life worth living?” He came to the conclusion that what makes for an interesting story also makes for an interesting life. He studied under one of the greatest storytellers and learned that a great story involves a character who wants something, and overcomes conflict to get it. 

Miller found what he wanted, and started pursuing his goal in spite of major internal and external conflicts. Among other exploits, he decided to ride a bicycle coast to coast with friends, raising money to build wells and raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in Africa. After transforming his own life, Don has gone on to help thousands of individuals and now hundreds of businesses through his Storyline blog and Storybrand business. You can read his inspiring (and hilarious) book on living a great story, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years or check out his Storyline blog.

BrightPlan celebrates those who set audacious goals and persevere to accomplish them.  We love celebrating goal getters, and built our platform to help you create a clear plan to reach your financial goals, automatically invest to reach them, and monitor your progress all the way to the finish line.