Don’t Talk About Your Goals

Imagine you are having coffee with your friends talking about your life and work. Everybody talks passionately about their accomplishments in life. When it is your turn, you unconsciously decide to open up and talk about your dreams, goals and your plans to achieve them.

As you continue talking you hear yourself saying “I believe it is the time to start up my own business, gonna lock myself in my office, work hard to achieve it ! Man, I’m gonna make it!”

“Oh, wow! You’re gonna be a damn successful man. Go for it. You definitely can do it.”, Your friends say. Their acknowledgement brings the gratification and you get a jolt of satisfaction and you feel extremely happy inside.

Bad news! Believe it or not, you’ve just made a grave mistake!

Many psychology studies have carried on since 1933 stating that people who talk about their intentions in their personal or professional lives are less likely to succeed. Studies show that we have identity symbols in our brains that build our self-identity image. The identity symbols in the human’s brain can be generated by both talking and action. Therefore, talking before acting might results in building a premature identity symbol in the brain.  Therefore, when we talk about our goals they will be negatively affected by the social reality.

Results of a new study* published by Peter Golwitzer, NYC psychology professor and his team, clearly demonstrate that blabbing about the goals builds our identity symbols and from that point on we will be less motivated to the hard work to achieve the goals.

From now on, please zip your lips and keep your goals private until you have achieved them in reality! In case you’re dying to tell others about your goals, talk about them in a way that generates less satisfaction in your mind.