Will Keeping Quiet About Your Goals Better Help You Achieve Them??? YES!!

 

FTA:  Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen.

In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a "social reality", even if the solution hadn't actually been achieved.

NYU psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer has been studying this since his 1982 book "Symbolic Self-Completion" - and recently published results of new tests in a research article, "When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap?"

Four different tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve them than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others.

Once you've told people of your intentions, it gives you a "premature sense of completeness."

I've certainly seen it in my own life.  I've told people what my goal is and they congratulate me for an ambitious goal.  The more I get congratulated on it the better I feel about choosing such a worthy goal.  I end up feeling so good that sometimes I make no effort.

That's how I've come to know what a good goal for me is.  I like it so much that I don't want to tell anyone about it.  I just want to work towards it.

The secret, they say, is to tell no one.  Then achieve it and speak about it later.

Reminds me a bit about how Louis CK feels good for just thinking about doing a good deed.  He never did it, but boy did it feel good to think about it.

Source: Lifehacker