Age-old Question: Should You Tell Others Your Goals?

And 4 Tips for Achieving Them

When I sat down to write 30 potential topics for my September writing challenge, I asked my husband for a few ideas. I wanted to tell him what I was working on, but I didn’t want to jinx it. He told me not to tell him because of the psychology behind sharing your goals with others. Well, thanks for the idea!

Like many, you may have heard once or twice that psychology studies say you shouldn’t tell people your goals because it makes you less likely to achieve them, but does it?

In 2010, Derek Sivers gave a captivating TedTalk about why you shouldn’t tell people your goals.

“When you tell someone your goal and they acknowledge it, psychologists have found that it’s called a “social reality.” The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that it’s already done. And then because you’ve felt that satisfaction, you’re less motivated to do the actual hard work necessary. “ — Derek Sivers

Sivers goes on to reference key events in the history of psychology that support this theory.

A brief history of goal-setting psychology:

• 1962: Kurt Lewin, the founder of social psychology, calls this phenomenon “substitution”
• 1933: Wera Mahler, discovers when goals are acknowledged by others, it feels real in your mind
• 1982: Robert Wicklund and Peter Gollwitzer, of the University of Texas at Austin, write a book titled “Symbolic Self-Completion,” which dives into the role society plays in the goals we pursue
• 2009: Peter Gollwitzer, Paschal Sheeran, Verena Michalski, and Andrea Seifert publish an article based on four experiments, and they conclude that your execution for completing your desired goal is compromised when other people take notice. In other words, you are less likely to achieve your goal when you tell others about it.

The experiment did note that being less likely to achieve your goal was only applicable to people who were committed to the goal from the start, which for this experiment, commitment to the goal was based on self-appraisal.

Alexander Sergeev elaborates on the ’09 Gollwitzer study in “Psychology of setting goals: should others know about them?” Every time you make progress towards your goal, big or small, your brain rewards you with a “treat” of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in how we feel pleasure. When you tell someone about your goals and they support you and cheer you on, your brain takes that approval and gives you that dopamine treat. Sometimes that approval can be enough to satisfy you and give you the feeling of accomplishment, wrecking your plans to actually achieve your dreams.

I don't know when I first learned about the connection between sharing goals with others and the chemical reaction created by approval, but I have believed this to be true for some time. My husband and I are both aware of this concept, which is why he encouraged me to keep my goal to myself (I caved, obviously).

So with all of this research, it would stand to reason that you shouldn’t tell people your goals, I was right to not want to tell my husband, and I should not have posted “My September Medium Challenge”, yesterday, right? Maybe not.

New research shows that the negative psychological effect of telling your goals to someone might depend more on who you tell rather than if.

In 2019, Howard Klein, a professor of management and human resources at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, authored a new study, “When goals are known: The effects of audience relative status on goal commitment and performance.”

Alongside co-authors Robert Lount Jr., Hee Park, and Bryce Linford, he conducted four experiments of different samples and methods to assess how the status of the person you tell your goals to effects your performance of that goal. You can read more about those specific experiments here.

From these studies they determined:

1. Yes, it matters to whom you tell your goals.
2. Goal commitment is greater when you share your goal with someone you perceive to have a higher status than you, i.e. a boss, manager, subject matter expert, etc.
3. The perceived relative status of your audience is positively related to your commitment and performance.

The reason the status of your audience is related to your performance most likely stems from evaluation apprehension, or how much you care about what this person thinks of you. The American Psychological Association defines evaluation apprehension as:

uneasiness or worry about being judged by others, especially worry experienced by participants in an experiment as a result of their desire to be evaluated favorably by the experimenter or by others observing their behavior.

Because we want to be seen positively in the eyes of our superiors, we are driven not only to commit to our goals but to also perform well. However, keep in mind you can take this desire for approval too far. While not evident in Klein’s study, it is possible to create so much anxiety around approval that it hinders your performance, so work hard but don’t stress yourself out for one person’s opinion.

Should you tell others about your goals?

Klein says popular recommendations that you should stay quiet about your goals until you achieve them are based on an oversimplification of Gollwitzer’s article. He argues you should share your aspirations with others.

“The important thing is that you need to care about the opinion of who you are telling.” — Klein

From experience, I know that the support and encouragement I received about my September challenge did give me a boost of dopamine, but it also made me want to keep going and achieve my goal. I attribute that to all of you — the well-respected readers and writers of Medium — because I value your opinions, care about your perception of me, and need your followership to keep my Medium Partner Program status.

Conclusion

When I sat down to write this article, I thought I would tell you why you shouldn’t share your goals and how I made completing mine more difficult by doing so, but you learn something new each day. Here are my four key points for achieving your goals.

How to achieve your goals:

1. Most importantly: be committed. It doesn’t matter who you tell or what support you receive if you are not fully committed to achieving your goal.
2. Tell the people whose opinions matter to you; their status will encourage you to persist and perform well.
3. Make note of the potential dopamine rush you will get via the support of others; don’t let this derail your intentions and progress.
4. Make a plan, set small targets along the way, and keep working until you reach your objective.

I wish you all the best in your current and future goals!