Exploring goal change in everyday life

Research on goal pursuit often assumes goals remain stable. Yet goal pursuit is a dynamic process where goals and perceptions of them can change, of which our understanding is limited. Past research has mostly focused on the role of performance and negative feedback in laboratory or experimental studies. We investigate what predicts goal change and how goals change over time in everyday life. Participants ( N = 420 North American undergraduate students; 75% female) reported on two goals biweekly for three months ( n = 1505 follow-up observations). People changed goals on 5.4% of occasions, although 27.38% of participants changed goals at least once over three months. Other (non-academic) goals were changed more frequently than academic goals. Multilevel models revealed commitment, goal progress, time, and stress predicted goal change. People were less likely to change goals later in the study and when they were highly committed, but more likely to change goals when they made very little or a lot of progress (quadratic effect), and when they experienced greater stress. Whether they changed or kept their goals, their perceptions of goal difficulty, commitment, and self-efficacy changed over time. We discuss implications of such changes for theories and research on personal goal pursuit.