An "ultimate" goal is the greatest or most difficult thing that you want to achieve. You can think of goals as falling into different time periods:

• An immediate goal is something that you're trying to do right now.
• Your ultimate goal is the thing that you want to do in the end. This can be the end of your life, or in the end of some other period. For example, an ice skater might say that her ultimate goal is to win a gold medal in the Olympics, although she might do that when she's only 18 years old.
• A short-term goal is something to be done in a few weeks or months.
• A long-term goal is something you want to do in months or years.

In the example above, the "ultimate goal" refers to the goal that you want to achieve at the end of the project.