Want to achieve your most important goals? Don’t share them!

How many times have you seen the advice that you should share your goals? Yep, tell everyone about your goals and you are more likely to achieve them. Obvious, isn’t it? It increases your accountability, and success comes with accountability.

But research suggests that this is not correct. In fact, research suggests that you are likely to be less successful, if you share your goals. Research says keep your goals to yourself.

A study by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer  and colleagues of New York University looked at study goals for students. In the results of this study and subsequent studies performed on other students, the experimenters found that the students whose intentions were known tended to act less on their intentions than those whose intentions were unknown. When the students kept their study goals to themselves, they were more likely to achieve them.

The researchers concluded that telling people what you want to achieve creates a premature sense of completeness. While you feel a sense of pride in letting people know what you intend to do, that pride doesn’t motivate you and can in fact hurt you later.

When I was researching my book “190 Weight Loss Hacks: How To Lose Weight Naturally And Permanently Without Stress”, I came across more research that confirmed this. In this study the researchers were looking at goal setting in relation to weight loss.

The study was published in the International Journal of Applied Behavioural Economics. The researchers analysed data from 364 clients signed up to an online weight management service. In the trial clients voluntarily completed a baseline survey and then were randomly assigned to one of three different groups.

The first group had to nominate a friend or family member to keep track of whether they had met their weight loss commitment.

The second group were offered a refund on their subscription, regardless of whether they met their target weight in coming weeks.

The third group – the comparison group – comprised of clients who continued to pay the monthly fee, so maintained a financial commitment to achieve their weight loss target.  

The study measured weight loss outcomes at 12 weeks and found that all participants lost weight on average. The refund group lost 2.4% on average and the comparison group lost on average 2.2% of initial body weight.

The group that was asked to share their goals with friends or family reported the slowest rate of weight loss with an average of 1.1%. They lost approximately half of what the other two groups lost.  This is the opposite of what you would expect from all that advice about sharing goals to increase accountability.

Researcher Dr Manu Savani said:

“The study shows that increased commitment can have a negative outcome and this may be for a number of different reasons. One reason could be that the involvement of friends or family may act as a substitute for the individuals’ own accountability and self-monitoring practice away from the digital tools, undermining weight loss efforts.  

“Another reason could be that the take up of additional, reputational commitment to achieve already challenging health goals may have created a sense of ‘overload’ with participants feeling less motivated and less willing to absorb the short-term trade-offs involved in achieving significant weight loss.” 

So, studies in two different areas strongly indicate that we shouldn’t share goals in order to increase our chances of success. We don’t entirely know why that is at this stage.

Both researchers suggest a likely reason is that when people reveal their goals to others, it somehow feels like the goal is achieved, that the work is done. Maybe it puts the onus on the other person – the person who was told about the goal.

The second researcher suggested another possibility too. Sharing goals can be very public. You are opening yourself up to public judgement, even if it is from people who love you. The stress of this may add to the stress of achieving the goal and make it seem overwhelming. So, by all means set your goals. Just don’t share them.