Shhh!
While conventional wisdom says you should announce your goals to your friends so they can hold you to them, research has found that doing so makes you less likely to work towards achieving those goals. That is because when your friends acknowledge your goals, your mind is tricked into feeling a sense of satisfaction as if the goals have already been reached. So then you are less motivated to do the actual hard work that needs to be done, since you’ve already experienced the satisfaction.
And from personal experience, I can tell you this seems to be a very real phenomenon. I have sabotaged myself so many times by sharing specific goals with people and then letting my enthusiasm for completing them dry up. But now that I know this, I’m not going to do that anymore. My goals will be my best kept secret. And you’ll do the same if you want to get things done.
Check out a TED talk on the topic below.
