Personal goals as motivational phenomenon

The study deals with the construct of personal goals from the point of view of research in motivation. The development of this construct especially in last two decades is described. Personal goals are described as a generic construct including also some further similar former terms (personal project, life tasks, personal strivings). The main benefit of this construct is the complex perspective of relations among motivation, personality, and behavior of individual in the social context. While discussing these relations personal goals are presented as multilevel construct, the level of goal content and the level of the process of goals striving are described. The paper pays attention to problems of goal self-concordance, to the role of goals autonomy, conflicts of goals, and to the multi-finality of goal directed activities. Further part of the paper is devoted to methodological questions of personal goals research. In the conclusion, the question of personal goals stability and the possibility to derive personally specific ways of goals selection and striving are discussed.