Investing in goals and telling stories are two ways that human beings experience meaning in life. The proposed studies expand on the organizational function of daily goals in life, seeking to track the role of goals in autobiographical memory, the stories we tell about those memories, and ultimately to the experience of life as meaningful. A model of the roles of daily goal investment and story construction in meaning making is proposed in which goals guide attention and encoding of daily life events. From these memorable events arise the stories that lend meaning to daily life. In Study 1, the relations of goals to memory for life events and autobiographical stories are examined over one important year of life, the first year in college. Study 1 allows for a prospective examination of the impact of goal investment and goal change on personality development. It is predicted that those who are deeply invested in their daily goals will be most likely to develop when their goals change. In addition, Study 1 will address the question of how goals influence the content of autobiographical memories. Participants will complete a daily diary study during the first week of college and will be asked, on year later to tell the story of that week. Multilevel modeling will be used to address the question, """"""""What makes a meaningful day?"""""""" with the diary data from Study 1. In Studies 2 and 3, the creation of story is manipulated, to examine how writing the self's story influences goal pursuit, selfregulation, and, ultimately, well-being. Generally, these studies promise to illuminate the process by which meaning is created and discovered in everyday life. In addition, the consequences of the meaning making process for subsequent goal striving will be explored.
