When I was little, every time I had a goal I wanted to achieve, my mom would always say, “Keep it to yourself because you never know who’s listening.”
I thought she was paranoid and making a fuss over nothing until I got older and realized the truth of her words.
It turns out that hiding things from potentially toxic people isn’t the only reason to keep your goals to yourself.
In this post, you’ll learn the other reasons why it’s best to keep hush on your dreams.
Table of Contents
7 Reasons Why You Should Keep Your Goals to Yourself
1. You Think You’ve Already Achieved the Goal
The bigger your mouth, the smaller your resolve to take action.
Research has proven that when you share your goals with others, your brain thinks you’ve already achieved them. It gives you a false sense of accomplishment.
And because you feel like you’re taking action, you do nothing or make very little progress in reality. It basically feeds your procrastination and paralyzes you from moving further.
Instead, keep your goals to yourself and take quiet action.
Remember, every “overnight success,” like Albert Einstein, JK Rowling, Vincent van Gogh, etc, was actually a person who worked hard in solitude.
Related Post: 10 Simple Life Goals to Help You Make Giant Leaps
2. You Could be Sabotaged
As pessimistic and jaded as this sounds, not everyone wishes the best for you. You might have friends, family members, and co-workers who are secretly envious of you or devious by nature.
I read a story once about a woman who wanted to quit alcohol. Like most trusting women, she told her friends about this resolution. But, of her five friends, there was one who also struggled with alcoholism and didn’t want to be miserable alone.
This friend proceeded to bring the woman to events where it was harder to resist drinks, undoing all the progress she had made.
This is just one example of how somebody close to you can betray you. And most of the time, it’s not because they’re bad people, but because they don’t want to be left alone while you succeed.
Remember, people can’t hurt what they don’t know.
3. You’re Opening Your Goals to Negativity
Besides the possibility of being sabotaged, you might attract negativity from the people you care about. This can come in the form of unsupportiveness, criticism, and mockery.
When I told a family member about my plans to pursue writing rather than finance, I received a lot of skepticism. And while I understand that it’s normal to be worried about your family, I received an unhealthy amount of doubt from this person.
They made me question my choice, heart, and gut instinct, and I felt low for months.
Remember, not everyone will see your vision, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s also your responsibility to protect your dream from others trampling on it, and the best way to do that is to keep your goals to yourself!
4. You’ll be More Committed Towards Your Goals
Commitment is what separates dreamers from achievers. Anyone can spin a tale about how badly they want something, make elaborate plans, and shout out their goals to the world. But very few of these people can commit to their path in the long run.
When you keep your goals to yourself, you make a commitment to yourself. You let go of the need for other’s approval and to be externally validated.
You realize that everything you need to make your dream come true comes from within — hard work, consistency, and self-belief.
Related Post: The 6 Areas of Life to Set Goals to Create Your Dream Life
5. You’ll Build Intrinsic Motivation
When you’re intrinsically motivated, you work on something because it feels personally rewarding regardless of whether you get external acceptance or approval.
Telling others about your goals means you’re putting your motivation and happiness into their hands. Instead of working for the joy of it, you’ll be working to gain recognition from them, which makes your goals meaningless.
However, when you keep your goals to yourself, you’ll be more driven and committed. Most importantly, you’ll enjoy the process of achieving your goals.
6. You Won’t Need to Explain Yourself to Others
When you tell people your goals, you’ll feel a sense of responsibility to keep them updated on your progress.
My cousin (bless her heart) always has good intentions and gives the best advice. However, she can be extremely pushy when it comes to learning about my life. Sometimes, I feel like she’s holding me at gunpoint to know more about my career choices.
I’ve started staring at her blankly and changing the topic whenever she wants to learn more about my goals. I feel lighter and more confident in my decisions, and I still love her all the same.
Remember, keeping your goals to yourself isn’t selfish; it’s protecting something that matters to you.
7. You’ll Have Greater Self-Belief
We think we have everything we need to achieve our goals, from self-discipline, insane productivity, time, and all the necessary resources. But we often lack something more important than any of these things — self-belief.
Without faith in your abilities, your goals will remain unfulfilled, no matter how much time, money, and energy you have.
When you tell people your goals, you unintentionally put their beliefs above your own. You’ll believe their criticism and judgments and will seek their approval.
However, when you start working in solitude, you build incredible self-belief because you’re all you have to rely on.
Final Thoughts
Only you have to know how hard you work. It doesn’t matter if others see your hard work and accomplishments. Surprise everyone with your results instead.
Keeping your goals to yourself doesn’t mean you should isolate yourself from everybody. Once you’ve built momentum, are consistent, and have enough self-belief to power you on, telling somebody you trust is okay.
Also, make this person your accountability partner. Hopefully, they’ll let you in on their goals, too, so you both can support and motivate each other.
I hope you enjoyed this post on why you should keep your goals to yourself. Let me know in the comments if you agree or not.