4 Scientific Reasons Why Telling People About Your Goals Might Be a Bad Idea
How you can avoid these psychological traps when it comes to pursuing your goals
Every year we wrote ourselves some resolutions, for me, the first thing that I would do is to tell my closest friends about my desire that I want to achieve in the current year. I don’t know about you, but all those plans that I wrote on the first of January will suddenly be forgotten before even I met the half of the year.
One year ago, I told my friends “I think I’m going to pursue a career in writing” they were giving me some insights and good appreciation about my planning, but that desire to become a writer only last for a month. This year, I had the same goal, and I never shared it with anyone else — Even my closest friends — and I was amazed that I still keep doing it — Writing article after article, and be present with you until today. I was amazed whether telling your goals and not telling your goals could actually make a huge difference.
Here’s why you shouldn’t tell anyone about your goals.
The psychological trap when
1. Premature rewards for yourself.
A study conducted by New York University had shown that telling people about your goals could make you fall into the psychological trap and make you less likely to pursue that desire. As James Clear wrote in his book Atomic Habits:
Your mind is continuously analyzing your internal and external environment for hints of where rewards are located. Because the cue is the first indication that we’re close to a reward, it naturally leads to a craving.
Basically, you’re going to chase something because you see there’s a reward in that, and recognition from others could be a psychological trap that made us think that we had achieved that goal already.
When I said to my closest friends that I wanted to be a writer, they praised my writing — Since I have been writing for years and only shared it with them — but I was trapped into this psychological trap that made me think that I had achieved my goals already, rather than learning and keep improving my writings, I was satisfied with the results already. This is a problem for me because once I thought that I had achieved my desire, I have stopped pursuing it.
The study suggests whenever you have some goals that you want to achieve, it would be better to keep them to yourself, to keep you working on that goals until you really achieve them.
2. Process praise versus result praise.
Another study conducted by Reed University stated that receiving process praise — When people congratulating you for the hard works that you’ve put into — will increase your chance of achieving your goals, rather than when you receive result praise — When people congratulating you for your achievements only.
A great story comes from Josh Waitzkin who had won multiple national chess championships in his life, he then said:
“My best experience was losing my first national chess championships because it helped me avoid many psychological traps”
The problems when you’re receiving result praise, you’ll be more likely to believe that you’re special than any other person — And that’s the last thing that you wanted to believe. This result praise not only comes from other people’s opinions but sometimes also comes from yourself.
A study conducted by Stanford University stated that there are two types of mindset, the first one is a fixed mindset, and the second one is a growth mindset, study suggests that having a growth mindset — A mindset that where you need to invest a lot within yourself to achieve something — is critical to your success compared to a fixed mindset — A mindset where you thought that you’re special and better than anyone else. The good news is that you can train yourself to have a growth mindset to avoid the psychological traps along the way.
How to develop a growth mindset.
- Believe that a growth mindset could benefit you. The Neuroscience study had stated that having this kind is crucial for your success, and the first thing how you can develop this mindset is to believe within the mindset itself first.
- Learn how you can develop your abilities. Unfortunately, failures are inevitable, and to see obstacle along the way, it means you’re growing, but lots of fixed mindset people had bailed from their journey when they were faced with obstacles, with a growth mindset rather than to think that you’re not good enough when you experienced your failures, you rather learn from the past mistakes and fix what didn’t work for you in the last attempt.
- Be aware of fixed mindset opinions. It could come from other people and it also could come from yourself, whenever someone praised you for your achievement by saying “You’re so lucky and talented” you need to be aware and reverse it to the growth mindset, for instance by replying “Thanks, I’ve worked hard on it”.
3. Negative feedbacks could stop you.
When I was 20 years old, I had finished my first book draft and sent it to the publisher to be reviewed, after a few weeks of waiting, I received an email from one of the editors, I thought it was good news, but it turns out to be something that had stopped me to pursue a career in writing in the earlier years of my life — As she gave me harsh words on my draft.
When you’re new to the field, getting negative feedbacks could stop you, it is the opposite when you had experienced in that field as you could see and turn negative feedbacks into something that can actually improve you. A study conducted by Chicago University suggests that it would be better for you to believe within your abilities and choose not to share them with anyone else, as when you’re asking for people’s opinions, there will always possibilities that you’ll receive negative feedback.
Until you’re wise and experienced enough on something that you’re doing, it would be better to keep it to yourself to avoid negative feedbacks to keep your morale steady and make you more likely to be consistent in it.
4. Being monitored by others makes you feel anxious.
Another research conducted by Michael Enzel and Sharon Anderson concluded that the feeling of being monitored — As you felt that people were observing your actions — could decrease your motivation to stick with your goals. When you told your friends about your goals, you will be more likely to worry about the judgments, asking yourself “What if I’m failed?”, “What if I’m not going to succeed”, and these kinds of insecure thoughts could stall your progress.
By keeping your planning to yourself only, you’ll worry less about what others might say about you, avoiding any unnecessary judgments and thoughts from others will help you focus on the progress itself rather than the outcomes.
The Bottom Lines
Having goals in your life is very important, and it could take a while until we turn those visions to be true, we also had known for fact that consistency is the key to success, and other people’s success stories had also told us the same — It just won’t happen overnight. But there are just many reasons why we can’t keep being persistent in pursuing those desires, research had shown that not telling anyone other than yourself in terms of your planning could benefit you avoid the psychological traps.
In the end, there’s no shortcut to hard work. By focusing on the progress, not on the outcomes will benefit you to stick with it. The next time you have some goals in mind, maybe it’s best to not tell anyone about them. I’d like to end this article with a well-known quote from anonymous.
“Don’t tell anyone about your plans, show them your results”
Hi I’m Kenny and I had promised myself to write for you frequently, and hopefully give you some insights through my writings. Join me in becoming the best version of ourselves.