To understand the association between goal orientation and psychological capital (PsyCap) growth over time, we conduct a longitudinal, event-based study with 250 executive MBA students who participated in a Gobi Desert trek. We tracked their PsyCap at four time points (i.e., one month before, one day before, one day after, and one month after the trek event). Leveraging a sensemaking perspective, we propose an event-based model aimed at elucidating the discontinuous growth of PsyCap, contingent on different types of goal orientation. Specifically, we predict that performance-prove goal orientation enhances the strength of emotional experiences that need to be made sense of, thus contributing to a short-term enhancement of PsyCap during the event. In addition, learning goal orientation initiates long-term sensemaking, thereby facilitating after-event PsyCap growth. The results for a discontinuous growth modeling support our hypotheses and further indicate that individuals high in both performance-prove and learning goal orientations achieve the most significant event-based PsyCap growth.