By Sam Lewis

Why do we tell people what we are planning to do in the future? Immediately you might be asking, why wouldn’t I tell someone what I plan on doing in the future? Okay, if you’re actually planning on seeing the Hunger Games Catching Fire Part 2 at 7:30 tonight, of course you’re going to tell a friend your plans. However, these aren’t the kind of plans I’m talking about. I’m talking about goals— goals that directly relate to your future success, both short and long-term.

To a current QUEST student, a common set of goals may include interning for a top-tier consulting firm, putting more time into a difficult class, or perhaps working out five days a week. Whether a QUEST student or not, instead of telling someone our goals, we better keep them to ourselves. We are all victims of proudly stating what our next undertaking in life is going to be. However, I need to stop doing this, and so do you.

In short, when we verbally speak our goals to our peers, our brain can sometimes feel prematurely rewarded. I like to compare it to the concept of getting a paycheck before even working. Just a few weeks ago I was talking to some friends about my grand plans to go to the gym. It was a Sunday, and I began talking about how I was planning to go to the gym each and every morning that week. What I was saying sounded great. My brain loved what it was hearing. But by the end of the week, can you guess how many times I went to the gym? Null, zip, zero. Although it may have been in part due to a busy schedule, a lot can be attributed to a trick I played on my brain.

In a recent study conducted in 2009, researchers had about 160 college students write down a personal goal they had for their future (Gollwitzer). Half of the students vocalized the goal to their peers while the other half kept their goal to themselves. The students were then given 45 minutes to work toward that personal goal. The ones who kept quiet worked diligently for the entire 45 minutes. Yet those who spoke their goal gave up after about 30 minutes on average. Weeks later, the researchers contacted both groups of students and found that the majority of students who vocalized their goal either made little-to-no progress or forgot what their goal was. Now why is that? Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer suggests that the brain experiences a form of “social reality.” Essentially, the brain becomes tricked into thinking that the goal has been already achieved.

Okay, so I don’t want my argument to persuade you not to talk to anyone about your goals. In fact, I think an important part of reaching goals is by talking about them with a close friend or mentor. However, the way we talk about them is important. First and foremost, we shouldn’t talk about our goals as if we have already achieved them. As great as the words may sound to our brain, we can’t reward ourselves just yet. Instead, we can mention our drive and desire to achieve those goals while working towards them— but only when we achieve them. We must focus on the next steps to achieve our goals, rather than what we may have already done. And lastly, if a personal goal means that much to us, we better keep it to ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I want to shock the naysayers.

Think about what aspects of your life you want to improve in the next week, two weeks, month, year, or even 10 years of your life. Do you think you’ll look back and smile about what you said you were going to do, or what you actually did?

http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Seifert_Michalski_When_Intentions_.pdf