The Psychology of Sharing Personal Goals

Jun 13, 2024

The Psychology of Sharing Personal Goals

Introduction

  • Presenter's Prompt: Think of your biggest personal goal.
    • Imagine deciding to achieve it and telling someone about it.
    • Feel the satisfaction from their acknowledgment.

Main Idea

  • Counterintuitive Insight: Sharing your goal can make you less likely to achieve it.
  • Psychological Explanation: When you tell someone your goal and they acknowledge it, your mind feels a premature sense of accomplishment.
  • This phenomenon is supported by repeated psychology tests.

Key Concepts

  • Social Reality: The acknowledgment from others creates a "social reality" which provides a false sense of achievement.
  • Substitution Effect: The mind substitutes the satisfaction of talking about the goal for the satisfaction of achieving it.
  • Decreased Motivation: Feeling this satisfaction reduces the motivation to perform the hard work needed.

Historical Perspective

  • 1926: Kurt Lewin, founder of social psychology, called this "substitution."
  • 1933: Wera Mahler’s finding – acknowledgment by others made it feel real.
  • 1982: Peter Gollwitzer wrote about this phenomenon.
  • 2009: New tests by Peter Gollwitzer confirmed these findings.

Research Study

  • Participants: 163 individuals across four tests.
  • Procedure:
    • Everyone wrote down their personal goal.
    • Half announced their commitment; half did not.
    • Task: 45 minutes of goal-directed work, they could stop at any time.
  • Results:
    • Those who didn’t share:
      • Worked the full 45 minutes.
      • Felt they had a long way to go after the task.
    • Those who shared:
      • Quit after 33 minutes on average.
      • Felt much closer to achieving their goal after the task.

Practical Takeaways

  • Avoid Announcing Goals: Resist the temptation to share goals for social acknowledgment.
  • Delay Gratification: Postpone the satisfaction that comes from social acknowledgment.
  • Mindset Adjustment: Recognize that talking about goals can be mistaken for progress.
  • Alternative Sharing: If you must talk about your goal, frame it in a way that doesn’t give premature satisfaction.
    • Example: "I really want to run this marathon, so I need to train five times a week and kick my ass if I don't."

Conclusion

  • Next time you're tempted to tell someone your goal, resist and focus on the doing.
  • The audience responses in silence, illustrating the takeaway.

Closing Note: (Laughter and Applause)