How should I answer a question about my "personal goals" when being considered for a graduate position? I'm applying for a graduate position. One professor answered my email and asked me some questions. Two of them are listed below:

What are your short- and long-term academic/professional goals?
What are your short- and long-term personal goals?

I can talk about my professional goals in the first question, but I don't know how to answer the second question. To what extent should my goals be personal?
I agree that the question could be interpreted as inappropriate. But, while it's impossible to know the professor's intention (were they trying to screen out applicants who want to start families, etc.?), I think it's safe to answer the question ASSUMING that they are interested in your academic goals that may not be directly career related.

For example you might answer the first question with a straightforward goal for your career path (I want to be a tenured faculty, I want to work in research, I want to get a sales job with a technical company, I want to start my own company, etc. etc.).

The second question then would be more open ended discussion of what you personally want to get out of your graduate degree (I want to learn to become more independent, I want to learn how to teach myself anything, I want to satisfy my curiosity about how ants communicate [or whatever]). These are personal goals that are related to your graduate training, but aren't necessarily about your future career per se.

It's personal preference, but I would probably steer clear of goals or ambitions clearly unrelated to your relationship to the professor (I want to earn a blackbelt, I want to be an Olympic ping-pong player, etc.). I suggest this because it's unlikely that the professor cares about these goals, and the wrong answer has a possibility to seriously hurt your chances of being selected. 

For example, it's hard to imagine a professor thinking to themselves: 'well their theoretical biophysics training is a bit weak, but we need a good ping pong player for the departmental retreats...'; it's easy to imagine a professor - EVEN INADVERTENTLY - thinking 'wow that olympic training is really going to cut into their hours in the lab...'