Every young person in adolescence is looking for the meaning of life, concentrating their activities around specific goals. Selecting them independently, they are guided by specific values, strive to reach them by orientating themselves to the world in a specific way. An analysis of the ever-changing reality and its interpretation make it easier for them to function in the world and make choices. The decisions they take refer to different areas of life, have different levels of importance, degree of involvement in the action leading to implementation of the intentions. The first part of the article presents selected concepts of purposeful behaviour, depicting human activity in the category of goals set by an individual. These concepts are characterized primarily by individual life goals, their properties and mechanisms governing them. The second part of the article will present results of research on the life goals of pupils of Youth Educational Centres (YEC) in Poland. On the basis of the obtained results it can be noticed that the respondents obtained average results on all the scales--only in the case of the following goals: finances and permanent relationship were the results increased. This shows that it is important for them to start a family and have financial security in the future. Results of the Mann-Whitney U Test indicate that girls significantly higher than boys appreciate in their lives such goals as: permanent relationship, finances and society (statistically significant differences at the level of at least p <0.05). In addition, in the case of the indicated life goal scales, a trend is observed showing that along with the number of resocialization programs in which the respondents participate, the results obtained in the scale of assessing the importance of all life goals increased. It is therefore important to pay more attention to supporting and developing socially accepted life goals of young people at risk of social exclusion as this can significantly increase the effectiveness of rehabilitation interactions.