Keep Your Goals to Yourself
Studies dating back to 1926 show that telling people about your goals makes them less likely to happen.
The emotional pleasure of telling other people about your goal is so intoxicating that it demotivates you. So stop talking about what you are going to do. Some of the research underlining this…
1926 Kurt Lewn — Goal Effects on Action and Cognition
This distinction between goal setting and goal striving was originally emphasized by Kurt Lewin (1926; Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, & Sears, 1944), who highlighted that goal attainment is not yet secured solely by forming strong commitments to highly desirable and feasible goals and framing these goals in an appropriate manner.
So commitment is not enough.
1933 Dr. Wera Mahler
From the book, Truly Leading: Lessons in Leadership
Back in 1933, Dr. Wera Mahler found that announcing the solution to a problem and having it acknowledged by others turned the idea into a social reality in the brain, even if it hadn’t been accomplished.
So you don’t want your goals and dreams to be “social reality” you want them to be realized in actual reality.
2009 When Intentions Go Public by Professor Peter M. Gollwitzer
This paper further explores the concept of “social reality”…
Identity-related behavioral intentions that had been noticed by other people were translated into action less intensively than those that had been ignored… when other people take notice of an individual’s identity-related behavioral intention, this gives the individual a premature sense of possessing the aspired-to identity.
So resist the temptation to talk about the new project you’re taking on…
- Don’t tell people about the new book that you’ve just finished the first chapter of.
- Don’t post on social media about going to the gym.
- Don’t share the new website you’re working on until it’s actually built.
- And (please!) don’t announce on Facebook that you’re quitting booze on the first of January.
Get to work quietly laboring your goals. Brag about them when you’ve actually got something to show and be proud of.
Making goals happen is hard
This is why the vast majority of well-intentioned, motivated, and hopeful people don’t lose weight, start a business, write a book, quit their vices, or date the kinds of people they should or would really like to be dating. If you need any further proof of this just go scroll through your Facebook newsfeed and take a gander at how the people you’ve known for years or decades are doing — you’ll observe that most people are not like wine, they do not improve with time.
If you’ve got some ambitious goals to improve your life and the lives of those around you, stack an array of motivational tools and technologies, I break down how in this deep-dive guide…
