
Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009) - diggan
https://sivers.org/zipit
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JabavuAdams
I've seen this in my own behaviour, so it rings true despite the popularity of
the opposite approach.

Perhaps this explains some of the startup wannabe-isms. The most successful
startup founders I've worked with didn't have time to blog, tweet, etc. They
didn't derive much comfort from being Founders. They were just trying to fight
the next fire to keep things going.

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elliottcarlson
I attended a 'leadership training' session recently, where the instructor said
to do just the opposite. By telling everyone your goals, you will have more
eyes on you if you fail, so you will have more incentive to follow through
with those plans/goals.

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johnchristopher
Maybe both are correct but for different kind of personalities.

Personally I don't like to state my plans, I do better work in stealth mode
(or do I just enjoy it more ?) ; but my SO hates backing out of her own words
and I noticed it's a good incentive for her to push things through.

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jmzbond
I agree with you! I think you can always find a study supporting one side or
the other.

In this case, the author explains that the rationale is that telling your
plans satisfies your self identity enough. I think the degree of "enough" is
likely what's driven by personality differences (which are in turn driven by
socio- cultural- etc.)

For me, I know that when I tell people stuff (and this also depends on what
the "stuff" is, telling people I'm going to eat Chipotle doesn't mean I'll do
it) I become very motivated to do it to avoid "losing face."

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Mz
Since this is not some across the board sweepingly true generalization, I
suspect there are a number of factors at play as to when this helps and when
it hurts. Some possibilities as to when and why it might hurt:

1) Social pressure to fail. Let's say you announce your plans to lose weight
-- to your best friend who is also overweight and who bonds with you over
burgers and beer on a regular basis. Or to your thin sibling who likes being
"the attractive, thin sibling." Or someone else who has some reason to want
you to not succeed, whether to preserve the current relationship or to
preserve the pecking order (oh, god, how I loathe pecking order). You have
just opened the door to letting them subtly sabotage you.

2) You don't really, truly want a promotion/weight loss/whatever, you just
want other people to think highly of you. Announcing it can achieve the social
recognition piece of it (in the short term -- until people decide you are a
loser and failure for not doing it). In a case like this, it may have nothing
to do with undermining your own actual goals. The whole point may be to get
others off your back because you don't really want to do those things but you
want to be liked, esteemed, whatever.

3) Announcing a goal to potential competitors who, again, have reason to want
to undermine you or best you. So announcing a goal to get promoted _at work to
coworkers_ who are potential competitors can also result in opening yourself
to sabotage or notifying someone else they need to work harder than you to
beat you to it. If you want to get promoted, tell friends and family and maybe
your boss but don't tell "the competition." Same with business goals or other
goals where your success depends in part on outdoing someone else and where
stating your goals may provide valuable intelligence to the enemy.

4) Situations where it looks like some kind of bragging because you are
announcing something that seems like a really huge goal. People may undermine
you out of spite or jealousy or just because they think you are talking BS.

I find it helps to talk to people about my goals in situations where such
discussions help me move forward -- help me problem solve in some way. I find
that ANNOUNCING -- LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME -- doesn't help. I mostly don't look
for "emotional support" for my goals. If you need "emotional support" for your
goals, yes, just announcing it may get you the warm fuzzies you were looking
for without doing anything further. I look for practical support, not a
cheerleading squad. I think that's probably the difference.

~~~
taigeair
Your explanation is better than the article for my understanding. Thanks.

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untestedcode
I am not sure I agree with this approach. New projects excite me because
they're new and exciting. However, when it comes to finishing projects, I get
my motivation from social components that involve me telling other people
about my plans.

It's very rare that I solve a problem for myself only and then never share the
solution with nobody else. When I tell other people my plans, I read their
faces and sort of try to mentally calculate what they would look like if they
were pleased by the solution I am trying to craft. Without that end goal of
trying to improve something for someone else like a friend or a customer,
projects tend to have less meaning and are harder to finish.

I guess it depends on what drives you.

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darushimo
Reminds me of the lyrics of LCD Soundsystem's great song "On Repeat":

"Don't tell nobody what you really want because they could / tell everybody
else what you really want then you're f####d / so act like it's for yourself
or it's all yours and they go and / tell everybody else that you're really
great. we are just people"

Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but it's a great song and i think the
lyric's focus on the social results expands upon the article's thesis a bit.

song link:
[http://youtu.be/Lh3Kqh_EW2A?t=3m18s](http://youtu.be/Lh3Kqh_EW2A?t=3m18s)

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samstave
THis has been a long time (ancient) lesson of groups such as the Masons and
the Mayans (fraternal orders)....

One important lesson is to physically write down your intentions, but never to
speak of them to another. Speaking them spends your will and releases your
actual intent from being held internally and motivating you to create that
goal into reality.

But you need to read these goals again daily. Build your will power to
manifesting them.

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cromwellian
At least internal to companies, setting a plan and launch date and announcing
it, is often the way to put pressure on completion. Not having any firm
commitment that other people will hold you to, is often a recipe for endless
bikeshedding and creeping featuritis.

Left to their own devices, many people will often try to boil oceans.

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pyduan
My understanding is that although interesting because of its
counterintuitiveness, this effect is much more situational than Sivers lets
on. To those who say they've usually observed the opposite at work, I believe
the main criterion is whether you're accountable to yourself for this task,
which means this mostly works when we're talking about _personal_ goals and
not workplace productivity.

The mechanism Gollwitzer proposes is that presenting your plans to others make
them a "social reality", which tricks your brain into feeling like you've
already completed some steps towards that goal even though you haven''t.

This means this is mostly relevant to tasks whose main goal is to define
yourself both in your eyes and in those of others, ie. goals of the form "I
want to lose weight", "I want to start a company", "I want to write a book".
In these cases, the simple fact of announcing these goals will portray you in
as someone who's interested in being fit, an entrepreneur, or a writer -- if
you've already convinced yourself and your friends that you're an artist _in
spirit_ , why bother going through the pain of actually writing that book?
Because in these types of goals you are the one who decides whether you've
been successful or not, the fact this social reality already makes you feel
like you've accomplished something means you're less likely to judge yourself
harshly for not actually following through.

However for goals like "I'm going to deliver XYZ this quarter" the cost of
failing to deliver on your promises is potentially much greater than the
social benefit you get from looking like the ambitious worker that makes big
promises, because the condition of success doesn't depend solely on what _you_
feel, but on the judgement of others. So it's likely that in the workplace the
traditional recommendation of making goals explicit is still the way to go in
most cases. Note though it's all a matter of incentives: if you derive
enjoyment from being the one who underpromises and overdelivers, then the
benefit you get from positively surprising your colleagues/superiors/customers
might prove a stronger motivation than this last mechanism.

On another note, you shouldn't solely base your decision to announce your
goals on this effect: one must also take into account the other benefits of
making their goals public, opportunities for emulation, counsel/support,
connecting with individuals with similar goals, etc. Often these benefits will
far outweigh any potential negative impact on commitment (which can be fairly
minor).

PS: While reading up on Gollwitzer's research I found this other tidbit some
might find interesting: goals formulated in the form of an "if-then" plan (ie.
with an implementation intention) tend to have a higher attainment rate than
those that are more abstract [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention)

~~~
norswap
Personally I never related to the "state your goal" advices. I guess that most
of the times, other people simply don't care about your stated goal if it
doesn't impact them personally. Also consider that most people who state goals
fail to meet them (in my experience), so most people will not think about it
twice and won't give you grief about it.

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iancarroll
In my own experience, I've noticed when I tell others my plans I feel
pressured to deliver to them. If I don't tell anyone, nobody knows and nobody
can copy it.

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chmullig
Research[0] in politics has exposed the exact opposite - identifying and
sharing concrete plans for voting has a significant impact in increasing voter
turnout.

[0] eg Nickerson and Rogers,
[http://scholar.harvard.edu/todd_rogers/publications/do-
you-h...](http://scholar.harvard.edu/todd_rogers/publications/do-you-have-
voting-plan-implementation-intentions-voter-turnout-and-organic)

~~~
johnchristopher
The article doesn't deal with political commitments to others (citizens) but
with personal motivation to accomplish one's own goals.

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taigeair
How do you get people to join you then?

