Photo by Ephraim Mayrena from Unsplash

Big-time influencers and hustlers in social media have created and molded a pretentious culture wherein sharing your goals publicly is applauded even without actual execution yet. The mere act of telling the whole world about your dreams is considered prudent and brave because it takes courage to disclose something so personal in a world of jealous strangers. People often forget that when you proclaim your goals besides yourself, you’re taking the unnecessary challenge of holding accountability to achieve it through the lens of other people.

Without considering the disparity of each other’s resources, lifestyle, personalities, and more factors on the line, those who want the shortcut way to success imitate this risky strategy but to no avail. They carefully follow what those who “succeeded” have done but end up feeling discouraged and overwhelmed because their mind was way too ahead of their actions.

However, many people use this “strategy” to be more attached and dedicated to their ambitions through binding themselves to others. They think they would be more relentless in pursuing their goals simply because they don’t want to let them down. Although this can be a valid motivator, their intentions and priorities for achieving a goal would drastically change. Their purpose would go from accomplishing a personal goal to pleasing others. Even if you do put in the work to achieve that goal, the means of doing so is compromised due to the fact that external validation is a poor motivator. 

 

SHOULD YOU TELL ANYONE YOUR GOALS? 

 

Keeping your goals strictly confidential to yourself or within the bounds of your most trusted few is a smart move everybody should follow. Given the fact that your goals are closely tied with your identity, it’s best to keep it to yourself until the right time comes. A lot of people overshare their goals with strangers or to those whom they want to impress for whatever reasons and it puts them to more harm.

What happens is they prioritize their hunger for self-recognition more than the act of making that goal more than just a dream. This means that  by proclaiming your ambitions, the mind would think you’ve already accomplished your goal because it prefers the good hormones that come out of it than having to work extremely hard (even when that’s what you’re supposed to do). 

WHEN YOU TELL THE WORLD ABOUT YOUR GOALS, YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO: 

 

1.  Lose interest
   
   
2. Have your confidence destroyed
   
   
3. Be more susceptible to the opinions of others
   
   
4. Think execution is no longer necessary
   
   
5. Create a false reality in your mind
   
   
6. Put yourself at risk
   
   
7. Have your energy misplaced
   
   
8. Burden yourself
   
   
9. Be motivated for the wrong and poor reasons
   
   
10. Be lost with your goals
    
    
11. Not push through
    
    
12.  Be left unprotected with criticism and pressure
    
    
13. Make a fool out of yourself
    
    
14. Be scared to dream again
    
    
15. Have trust issues 
    
    
    

9 COMPELLING REASONS HOW TELLING YOUR GOALS TO OTHERS CAN BE A GRAVE MISTAKE:

 

NOT EVERYONE IS HAPPY FOR YOU

 

Once you tell someone about your goals, you’re not just sharing a personal vision of your plans but also a piece of your identity that is too precious to share with anyone. There’s going to be a wide range of possible reactions from different people according to your relationship with every single one of them. You’re giving them your personal and selfish reasons for doing what you’re doing and expanding your vulnerability to someone else.

The truth is, everyone is capable of being jealous because that’s human nature to yearn for something you don’t have. You never know what their intentions are until the damage has been done. When push comes to shove, those same kind of people will care enough to express sadness and pity that you’re having problems but not enough to help you fix the problem while the some are going to insist that’s exactly what you deserve for dreaming too high. 

 

THEY HAVE THE POWER TO CRUMBLE YOU 

 

One of the compelling reasons you should be confident about your plans is the defense mechanism to predators who not only destroy your dreams but will do anything in their power to make sure you wouldn’t have another one. Sharing your dreams will not only rob you of personal motivation but will also put yourself in a hypothetical race that you will never win. The people whom we tell our goals to have the power to crumble it simply because we care about what they have to say.

Be careful whom you trust when we’re talking about shaping our future because what everybody wants is the future they want. If you get to your dream future way faster than them, they will do what they can to delay that process. They will sabotage your plans so they would look better and less likely a fool for dreaming the impossible. You can’t afford that much distraction and negative energy if you want to last long in the journey. 

 

UNINVITED CHAOS AND DRAMA 

 

Letting people know your weaknesses invites more judgmental mouths into the equation. People will tell you their version of the truth from their side of the story and act as if what they know is universal and cannot be disputed. If you want to achieve your goals in your desired timeframe, it’s essential to start throwing garbage out of your mind to not attract more negative thoughts that will further impede your progress. If you want to succeed, it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let well-grounded success do all the talking. 

 

PRONE TO EXPECTATIONS 

 

When you tell someone about your goals, you’re giving them a reason to come and go as they please. You’re going to let them believe their support and opinion mean so much to you to the point that you have to value and do everything they say. They would constantly be asking about an update of your progress for some reason, and that would cause you an unnecessary burden.

Escaping yourself from expectations is close to impossible because you’ll never get to change the way someone thinks about you when they decide that’s all you’ll ever be. It’s difficult to persuade someone to change the labels they use to associate with you because you can’t alter someone’s point of view that easily. 

 

YOU DON’T HAVE TO 

 

If you think telling your plans publicly is necessary to succeed, then you’re wrong. There’s no universal law telling you that would happen simply because it’s not a guarantee your actions are going to follow the speed of your mouth bragging and claiming success from people (as if you can get it from them). Your daily actions must meet the overly ambitious mind that you have.

Without any actual work, you’re not fooling anybody but losers like yourself. You shouldn’t have to share your plans simply because it’s not necessary. If you don’t want to be jeopardized or burdened, don’t put yourself in a position where you are. Get to where you want to be through doing instead of talking because we all know how cheap words can be when they’re not backed up by actions. 

 

MORE INCLINED TO FAIL 

 

Once you tell anyone about your goals, you’re putting your priorities, objectives, and safety nets at risk. What happens is you want to impress them by making them think you’re going to do the impossible, the one thing people would bend over backward to witness you go from dream to reality. And by making that life-changing declaration, the social recognition and external validation you will inevitably receive will overwhelm and trick you into thinking you wouldn’t have to do anything else because, by the look on their faces, you’ve already made them proud (which is exactly what you wanted).

As a result, you’ve made them like the sound of you trying and making a name for yourself but not through the manner you intended. What you’re doing is spreading half promises and lying to yourself the whole time. You will less likely to put in the effort and commitment to work on your goals and more likely to fail and find another top-notch speech to tell the same people. 

 

PEOPLE WILL TAKE CREDIT 

 

People will act like you’ve been there through your journey and dare to take a sliver of credit for your success. They will congratulate you and give you advice as if they were the ones who got you where you are in the first place. Sooner or later, they will adamantly insist that you “owe them one” and they will come claiming money or service in exchange for what they’ve done for you (even when there’s none). This is what opportunistic people do and ironically, these same people are your closest friends. 

 

SILENT PAYBACK IS BETTER 

 

Having someone to think adamantly that you’ll never be greater than him is an advantage, and, sadly, people aren’t capable to see that as leverage. When you tell them your plans, you’re removing that leverage by letting them see what’s coming. Those whom you look down on you would be blown away by your execution and persistence to push through despite their bad remarks. You will prove to them your worth by putting in all the work instead of making a snappy (but useless) comeback because your ego requires it. It’s better to see that look on their face shocked and ashamed for seeing you as lesser than them because that’s not the case right now. 

 

SAVE YOURSELF FROM THE INEVITABLE 

 

If under any circumstance, your goal to reach a level of success fails, not telling anyone about it saves you judgment, embarrassment, or even an explanation why you couldn’t do what you said you would do. You wouldn’t want anyone to know all your efforts were to no avail. Allow yourself to walk the talk without having to embarrass yourself. Furthermore, don’t put yourself in a position where your mistakes are rubbed in your face to make you feel like trash.

Care enough for your dignity as a human who makes mistakes and who dreams valiantly to the end. Although it’s important not to be ashamed of your mistakes and failures, that doesn’t mean you get to be robbed of the opportunity to say it yourself (after you’ve healed and learned your lesson). 

 

“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”

Jeff Bezos