Why you shouldn’t share your

goals

Aytekin Tank
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May 16, 2018 · 7 min read
Originally published on JOTFORM.COM

The race to get the world’s first plane in the sky was a hard fought
battle between The Wright Brothers and a lesser-known
gentleman by the name of Samuel Pierpont Langley.

You will discover why you’ve never heard of the latter here
shortly.

As you probably read somewhere inside that history textbook you

were forced to lug around through elementary — The Wright
Brothers were responsible for creating the first successful
airplane. You remember how the story goes…
“… it was a cold windy day on December 17th,
1903 in the Kill Devil Hills of North Carolina…
Orville watched nervously as his brother Wilbur
climbed inside the plane they had spent years
perfecting… miraculously it flew for 59 seconds
for a distance of 852 feet…”

While today “The Wright Brothers” is the first name that comes to
anyone’s mind when they hear the word fly, once upon a time the
pair were major underdogs.

In fact, during the race to the sky, most of America had its money
on the man I mentioned earlier, Langley.
He was an extremely outspoken astronomer, physicist and
aviation pioneer who was on a mission to make history. Langley’s
high stature as the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution gave
him both the credibility and hype he needed to get America on his
side.

Not to mention, he was extremely well-backed by the War

Department who contributed $50,000 to help him be the first to
get a bird in the sky.

Long story short, despite all the hype, Langley’s flying machine
ended up crashing and burning while The Wright Brother’s plane
ended up soaring.

One party had the entire world, vast resources and plenty of
moolah on his side, while the other just had a small bike shop and
a passion to fly.

So, let me ask you this… can you guess why The Wright Brothers
achieved their goal to take flight while Langley failed?

Early praise feels like you’ve already

won.
The Wright Brothers victory over Langley came down to passion,
intrinsic motivation (Langley was very status driven) and
perhaps praise.
While Langley was sharing his ambitions with the world and being
heavily praised for feats he had not yet achieved, The Wright
Brothers were receiving little to no attention whatsoever.

Some experts argue that early praise can leave the individual
receiving the praise feeling like he or she has already
won… in turn causing them to be less likely to follow through
with their goals.

For example, in Peter Gollwitzer’s research article, When

Intentions Go Public, he raises this very question:
Are scientists more likely to write papers if they
tell colleagues about their intentions or if they
keep their intentions to themselves?

Gollwitzer and his team of researchers carried out a handful of

studies, here is a brief excerpt from their findings:

“Other people’s taking notice of one’s identity-relevant intentions

apparently engenders a premature sense of completeness
regarding the identity goal.”

In English, what Gollwitzer found was that when individuals set a

goal that is closely tied to their identity and then share their
intentions with others, they are less likely to achieve the
goal.

For example, if your goal is to start drinking more water and you
tell your friends and family that you’re going to start drinking
more water, this would probably have little to no impact on
whether or not you actually drink more water.

Why? Because drinking more water isn’t something you hold close
to your identity.

On the other hand, if your goal is to lose 40 lbs and drop 2–3
waist sizes, it might not be the best idea to post about it all over
Facebook. Your appearance is something you very much so
identify with. So, if you tell people you plan to lose weight and
everyone tells you how awesome you are and how great you’re
going to look, you might be less likely to lose the weight.

This finding is a bit counterintuitive, considering we were told by

our teachers and coaches growing up to set our goals, share our
goals, hold ourselves accountable.

But, the theory certainly holds some weight (pun very much
intended), and is one that has been adopted by highly successful
serial entrepreneurs like Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby.

Sivers gave a TED Talk on this very topic nearly a decade back. To
prove his point, he asked the audience to imagine how they felt
when they shared their goals with others:
“Imagine their congratulations and their high
image of you. Doesn’t it feel good to say it out
loud? Don’t you feel one step closer already?
Like, it’s already becoming part of your
identity?
Well, bad news. You should have kept your
mouth shut. That good feeling makes you less
likely to do it.”

Sivers goes on to explain that it’s this “warm feeling” that keeps us
from battling on to actually achieve our goals.

When we openly share our goals, we experience a feeling of

success that normally only takes place upon completion of the
goal.

The result? We don’t ever actually pursue the goal.

Alternatives to sharing your goals.

I’ve recently shared 3 real-life business tactics to achieve your “big
hairy goals”. But now, let’s talk about what can actually work when
it comes to successfully reaching your goals.
For two counterintuitive yet effective approaches to this, we look
to a philosophy called “fear-setting” and making an effort to
surround yourself with competition.

Embrace fear-setting over goal-sharing.

Entrepreneur, angel investor and writer, Tim Ferriss, gave an
incredible TED Talk where he discussed how fear-setting is
instrumental in achieving one’s goals.

He recommends that instead of obsessively sharing your goals,

you should come to terms with all the fears that are preventing you
from achieving them.

For example, let’s say your goal is to start your own business.
Ferriss recommends that you write down all of your fears that
are associated with starting a business.

These might include… “Losing all my money”… “Getting fired

from my day job”… “Getting laughed at or judged if I fail”.

Once you write down these fears, you should then write down how
you would go about preventing these fears (or mitigating the
likelihood) of them actually happening.

For example, for the first fear “losing all my money”, your
prevention might be… “I’m only going to invest $2,500 that way I
can’t lose it all.”

Finally, after you have written down your preventions, you should
then write down how you will repair what you fear from
happening… if it actually ends up happening.
So, to repair losing the $2,500, you might write down, “Get a part
time job as a bartender in addition to my day job until I make the
$2,500 back.”

By concentrating on fear-setting over goal-sharing, it allows you to

remove the fear that is keeping you from actually achieving your
goals.

Surround yourself with competition.

In addition to fear-setting, it might also be a good idea to surround
yourself with competition.

A healthy dose of competition can be good for your business, too.

At JotForm, we love to use competition to our advantage with
events like hackweeks to achieve our product release goals.

A study published two years ago in the journal Preventive

Medicine Reports, sheds some light on the impact that
competition has on our goals.

The study put 800 undergraduate and graduate students at the

University of Pennsylvania through an 11-week exercise program
where each person was assigned to work out alone or in a team.

In addition, the teams were designed to be either supportive or

competitive.

By the end of the study, researchers found that students

involved in the competitive team programs were 90% more likely
to attend their scheduled exercise sessions than any other group.
Not only is this number staggering, but it also proves that
competition can create a higher level of commitment among
people chasing down goals.

When you surround yourself with competition, it doesn’t mean

that you have to share your goals with the competition. You don’t
have to tell the other folks in the spin class, cross-fit training or
pick-up basketball leagues that your goal is to lose 50 lbs.

But, by simply showing up and placing yourself in a competitive

environment, you will be more likely to push harder and show up
more often — two factors that can help your reach your goals.

The science behind achieving goals has always been an interesting

topic.

While some entrepreneurs advocate the idea that you should never
have a goal, I’ve recently explained why setting big goals can make
you miserable.

Whether you decide to share your goals or not, what I’ve found
out across 12 years of entrepreneurship is that you should craft
your own path.

What works for others won’t always work for you. And what works
for you today won’t always work tomorrow.