In this blog post, I will explore the significance of aligning your life goals with where you decide to live. 

When we think about life stages and making important decisions, we often prioritize factors like our career prospects and relationships. Rarely do we consider how the physical location, where we decide to live can significantly impact our ability to achieve our life goals.

It’s why I started choosewheretolive.com. I wanted to challenge the conventional notion that achieving your life goals has nothing to do with where you live and emphasize the importance of incorporating your living environment into the equation. But first, you have to know what those life goals are. 

Types of Life Goals for Different Life Stages 

Each life stage presents unique circumstances and challenges, and finding the right location can play a pivotal role in reaching your life goals at the right time. 

1. Students

a. High School Students 

• Are you trying to decide where to do a gap year? 
• Is this next city or town where you will go to college?

b. College Students 

• Are you looking for the best place to go to grad school? 
• Will this be the place you begin your career? 
• Looking to find the one?

c. PdD. Students

• Is this next location going to be the place where you put your life’s work into practice?
• Are you finally going to get out of a book and on to a dating app? Maybe this next place is where you will meet the love of your life.  

2. Twenty-Somethings

In your twenties, finding a significant other or building a network of friends for fun adventures can be key life goals. 

3. Recently Married 

If you’re recently married, the place you live might be where you start a family or forge new friendships. Maybe you and your hubs are looking to do more things together. What does being recently married look like for you now and what would you like that to look like in the future?

4. Mid-career executives 

Where would you like to be career wise in the next few years? Hoping to retire early? What does that life look like?

5. Empty-nesters 

Discovering a new place to establish yourself without the kids can be an exciting prospect. Maybe you’re still working but now you have so much free time after work. What do you want to do with it?

6. Retired 

You looking to do some philanthropy or have a golf course in your backyard? Finally going to pick up that hobby you’ve been putting off for years?

7. Single Moms 

What are your goals for your kids? Do you want them to go to a certain school? Do you want to find love again? What kind of partner do you want? Are you looking to reinvent yourself?

Disclaimer about Life Goals

It’s important to note that life goals are not mutually exclusive. Life is fluid, and circumstances change. Each person’s journey is unique, and I cannot account for every individual scenario. Being recently married at 50 will look very different than being recently married at 24. I can’t possibly concoct scenarios for every single person on the earth. That is why I’m not doing this assignment for you. 

You clearly know you best. 

So what do you want out of your life now and in the future? I personally don’t think it makes very much sense to move somewhere just for a job or just for a partner. Unless of course your job or your partner is your life. 

But I have a feeling you wouldn’t be reading this if that were true. What do you want?

If you’re married, I highly suggest doing this assignment separately and then coming together with your significant other to talk about how to align your life goals to meet both of your needs. This is also a great assignment for engaged couples. 

Life Goals and Love

I’m not suggesting that just because you plan to meet your life partner in the next place you live means you absolutely will. Although, this lady would disagree with me.

But what I am suggesting is that we typically get the things we want when we are intentional. 

We’ve all heard the phrase that love comes in the most mysterious places and mostly when you’re not looking for it. I’m a hopeless romantic myself and absolutely believe in the power of serendipity. 

However, most of the time when people aren’t “looking for it,” they find it because they are busy living out their life goals and being the best version of themselves. This is obviously attractive to suitable partners. 

But also, there are numerous dating app success stories that prove you can be looking for love and find it. I mean, it worked for me! 🙂 

But I digress…

Life Goals and Timeframes 

The beautiful thing about life goals is that they are completely up to you. Turns out there is no right or wrong way to do life. There’s just your way, and I think that’s pretty amazing. You can decide where to live for any length of time. Some people like the nomad life and want to know where to move for the next few months. While others are ready to plant roots and establish themselves in a new city. 

Life goals change often and if you’ve lived long enough you know that they can change fast. Even still, it’s good to be intentional when thinking about your next move instead of flying by the seat of your pants. Check out my email newsletter if you want to know why I know a thing or two about that… 

I don’t think we should create inflexible life goals, but I do think putting some thought into how long you want to be in your next place to live is important. Moving to a new city can be overwhelming so its a good idea to have some sort of plan as a reminder when things get tough out there. 

There will inevitably come a time in your new city when you are flustered because you don’t know where the nearest nail salon is or because you’re not sure when garbage pickup is scheduled. There will be days when you question your decision altogether. 

On those days, it will be nice to have a written out reminder that you can point to as to why you decided this was the best place for you at this specific time in your life. 

Story Time

I guess it might be helpful if I tell you a little about my own story. If you’ve been around choosewheretolive.com long enough, you know the story about my nomadic year when my boss told me I could live wherever I wanted.

Up until that year, where I lived had been chosen for me rather than me choosing it. At the time, I was 29 years old, and I knew that I wanted to conclude my twenties with a bang. I had done all of the things that twenty-somethings are supposed to do according to all of the old people who had given me life advice. 

Random fact about Me: I LOVE old people. I always have. Call me an old soul or just someone who is desperately afraid of living with regrets but old people are filled with such great wisdom. I have at least three people who I would genuinely call my friends that are at least 15 years older than me. 

Any time I’m considering my own life goals, I talk with people who have lived long enough to know a thing or two about life and ask them what they would have done differently if they had to do it all over again.  

Without fail, almost every person has said that they wish they would have taken more risks and traveled more. Most people regret being so serious so early on in life and wish that they would have had more fun. Then there are others who wished they wouldn’t have pissed everything away or focused less on their career and more on the things that really matter. 

I love asking about the experiences and circumstances that lead to the decisions they made. When getting advice from anyone, you must consider that their solutions are based on their own lives. It’s important to take it with a grain of salt but still listen and glean what you can. 

Twenty-Something Brit

So twenty something Brit did all of the things my old friends wished that they would have. I took risks, traveled, lived 3000 miles away from my hometown. I went on solo soul-searching trips and made friends all over the world. It was a lot of fun and impulsive. And honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

So when it came to year 29, I knew I had to do something big to conclude that glorious decade. 

But I didn’t want to just focus on what felt like my youth coming to an end, I also wanted to plan for what was to come. I mean I still had my whole life ahead of me.

There was something about turning thirty that made me want to be a little more established. I have basically been the quintessential new girl my entire life. We moved around a lot when I was younger and I kind of kept the trend going in my young adult years. 

I always knew that ultimately what I wanted was to establish myself in a place where I could be actively involved in my local community. As much as I love to travel and explore new things, I have always known deep down that my life goals would be tied to a specific location. I love community development work. You can’t really do that if you’re moving around every couple of years.

Who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll even be a mayor. 

This meant that I wanted to find a place where I could really plant roots, a place where I could establish myself for the next twenty years or so. Personally, I wanted to start a business, meet my future husband, and buy a house. I wanted this place to be where I raised my children and a place that valued community. 

I knew that wherever I landed after year 29 that these were the life goals I wanted to accomplish and that the next place I moved would be permanent. 

No Longer the New Girl

So I told myself that I would spend year 29, traveling to places that could hopefully help me achieve these life goals. I would spend a few months at a time in theses places as if I lived there. I would go on a shit ton of dates to figure out what I wanted in a partner, and I would talk with the locals to see how they like where they live and if they felt tied to their community. 

And that is exactly what I did. It was one of the most fun and exhausting years of my life because it was purposeful and intentional. Knowing my life goals before I even started researching or visiting potential places to live really helped me stay on task during the exploration phase. 

So think deeply, what life goals are you trying to accomplish and what is the timeframe in which you want to accomplish them? I know it can be super tempting to dismiss this part of the assignment and skip over to part 3 but I can promise you it wont be nearly as fruitful if you do. 

If you want to dive deeper into how to define your life goals, I have resources for you at the choosewheretolive.com community. Let me know if you want to set up a free consultation!