Based on the 21st century's framework from the Singapore's Ministry of Education, students should possess lifelong learning goals in order to be self-regulated and engaged in continuous learning. It is thereby important to understand the profile of a potential lifelong learner. An educational institution or a school should provide learning environments in which students can be more involved in developing their competencies and skills that are related to lifelong learning. However, research in identifying the profile of a potential lifelong learner is still in its infancy. The present study aimed to uncover an in-depth and meaningful understanding of different learners' behaviours, ranging from adaptive to maladaptive patterns of goal orientations. It drew on four different clusters to identify the self-regulation and self-determined behaviours of a lifelong learner. These learner profiles differed significantly in their basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence and relatedness) and goal orientations (i.e., mastery versus performance).