When it comes to the science of reaching goals, there are two schools of thought. This sentence is informed by both.
As a small business owner, I’ve had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way.
One of those lessons came after I was forced to acknowledge something about myself when it came to my goals, both personal and professional.
Once I set a goal, things would start off great: Meeting a deadline for a project. Making an adjustment to my diet. Hitting a set number of baskets during basketball practice. I’d stick to my routine, and I’d start seeing results.
That is, until I would make a very big mistake…
I’d tell someone about my goal.
Suddenly, those same goals that I was conscientiously working toward would go up in smoke. I started flaking. I was inconsistent. If I did reach the goal, it took me much longer than I originally set out for myself.
I’d had enough. I needed to use my emotional intelligence–my ability to understand and manage emotions–to help me start sticking to what I had set out to do. To help me do this, I started using a simple, research-backed sentence as a “mental prompt,” to help me get better at reaching my goals.
The sentence goes like this:
Keep your goals to yourself–or, share wisely.
Why is this sentence so helpful? Let’s dive into the science that led to this sentence, and how it can help you to stay true to your goals and accomplish more in business and life. (If you find value in this lesson, you might be interested in my free course, which teaches you how to build emotional intelligence in yourself and your team.)
Be careful with sharing your goals
When it comes to science-backed research, there are two very different schools of thought when it comes to sharing your goals.
The first was summed up years ago in a popular TED talk by entrepreneur and author Derek Sivers. Sivers presented research with a surprising revelation: Whenever you tell someone a goal, you actually reduce the chances that you will reach it.
When you have a goal, explains Sivers, you have work to do. Typically, you won’t be satisfied until you’ve actually done the work. But when you tell someone your goal, and they acknowledge it, psychologists have found that you now experience something called “social reality.”
“The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that [the work] is already done,” says Sivers. “And then, because you’ve felt that satisfaction, you’re less motivated to do the actual hard work necessary.”
So, my experience is proof of that, right? As I shared my goals with my wife, or my brother, or a fellow business owner, I experienced this feeling of:
Oh yeah. Look at me. I’m just this amazing specimen of hard work and self-control, aren’t I?
Until, of course, I wasn’t.
I’m not alone. For example, in 2009 psychologist Peter Gollwitzer published a series of studies in which university students needed to write down personal goals and intentions that related to their studies.
Some students shared these goals along explicitly; others did not. Interestingly, the studies showed that students who shared their goals invested less time, on average, in doing the work that supported those goals.
The second school of thought, though, comes from more recent studies. In 2019, for example, researchers found that it can be helpful to share your goals, with one simple caveat:
It matters who you share the goal with.
For example, one long-term study examined close to 300 college students over the course of a semester. Participants set a challenging goal as to what grades they would achieve, and then shared them. Students who told persons they perceived as having higher status then them showed greater goal commitment and were more likely to achieve their target than those who told persons of lower status.
“Results showed that people were motivated by sharing a goal with someone they thought had higher status because they cared about how that higher-status person would evaluate them,” said the study.
So, which school of thought should you subscribe to? I recommend trying both.
Start by keeping your goals to yourself. If you’re intrinsically motivated, you’ll find that by not getting those early “social reality” benefits, you’re more prone to achieve your goals.
On the other hand, if you need an accountability partner, make sure to choose one whom you perceive as having higher status than you. Don’t choose a peer: a spouse, a family member, or a fellow business owner in a similar set of circumstances. Instead, confide in a coach, a mentor, or someone who’s further along than you are, and who will help keep you accountable.
And to help you do all of this, remember that simple, research-backed sentence:
Keep your goals to yourself–or, share wisely.
Because as sweet as it is to share your goal with everyone, reaching that goal is much sweeter.
