Don’t share your goals…yet

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​A few more words on sharing your goals - an article I posted on LinkedIn.
​There is very interesting research into the effect of others taking notice of someone’s behavioural intention (e.g. goal). Where this intention is identity-relevant (e.g. becoming a better engineer, parent, dancer), and strongly felt, what happens to the person’s motivation when the intention is made known to others? Are they more motivated to achieve the intention?

Counter-intuitively, motivation actually decreases. The recognition by others creates a level of fulfilment in the subconscious, reducing the drive to perform. Those that kept the intention to themselves performed better.
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Goals in the early stages are fragile and if not properly incubated, they can perish before they are born. Allow time to define the goal and make some progress towards it. Once the goal is firm and defendable, then tell others; some of them may want to join you on the journey.

The key to incubation is to have a small group of people you know, like and trust, that are not threatened by your success, to seek cold, hard advice and feedback, (not praise! The subconscious needs to know that there is work to be done). I recommend you build a network of trusted people that provide the incubation, and a bigger group to help progress of goal.

Photo by Rawpixel on Unsplash

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