I posted a new podcast episode here, so if you want to listen to that, I encourage you to do so.
I have decided to summarize the podcast episode here for those of you that like to read or that may be hearing impaired.
It’s a long one so settle in
I read an article on Medium where this gentleman was talking about why he thought that you should not share your goals. I agree and disagree. Especially with the energies that I see an astrology telling us that our success assistance with forward movement is going to come through not trying to do things alone.
In his first point, he just provided research and facts that said that if people share their goals with other folks, then what tends to happen is that people will gas you up to the point where you already feel like you've achieved your goal. That in turn can cause about a 90% chance that you would be less likely to achieve your goals. He argued that the Wright Brothers were more successful than Langley because Langley spoke openly about getting airplanes in the air, and in turn was heavily backed and failed. The Wright Brothers were more private about their goal of flight and therefore more successful.
I think that you need to look at all different factors when you are sharing your goals with other people. One of the factors that may have influenced the situation was that this was a business goal. That can mean dealing with something that is proprietary, that you want to have trademarked that you want to get copyrights and all that kind of stuff, of course, you do not want to share your goals publicly with the world. But there is something twofold about this situation that is a blessing and a curse. Langley was more vocal about his desire to put airplanes up in the air, which gave them funding and backing and support. That also means that he may have lost some of his creative genius and freedom. Something that the Wright Brothers may have not had to contend with as heavily. Langley telling others his goal opened doors to a level of abundance he may not have had if he had chosen to keep his mouth shut…. what may have been the kicker is that the investors he chose may have impacted his final product not him opening his mouth.
If you need to share your goals, because you have a business, or you have an idea that requires support, and requires a startup, and it requires funding and backing, you absolutely are going to have to, at some point, involve other people in the conversation. If you want to partner with people, if you want to maybe use their products to help get your product off the ground or gain investment resources, there is no way around this. There's no way that you're going to be able to build your brand in secrecy at some point. If you think that you’re going to accomplish your goals on your own, I'm going to tell you that that could lead to some unnecessary struggles and pain points that you could alleviate had you aligned with people that could support you.
The second point is kind of piggybacking off of the first point. This gentleman mentioned if other people notice your goals and talk to you about your goals and gas you up about your goals, especially if that goal is tied heavily to your identity, then it causes something inside of you, that makes you feel like you already accomplished the goal, or it makes you try less hard to achieve your goal.
My rebuttal is centered on intrinsic versus external motivation. I believe that at the end of the day, the most successful people in life are the people that find their motivation. intrinsically. It doesn't mean that external motivation is not important. But what happens when you are purely driven from what other people say, whether that be good or bad, is that they then have influence over how you choose to show up for yourself, when you are trying to achieve and accomplish a goal. And if you base what you decide to do in life and how you show up in life, based on external validation from other people, whether it be good or bad, you are setting yourself up for, I would say, more strife, disappointment, , flattery, and less authenticity,
At the end of the day, what matters is how you feel and how you validate and value yourself, and how you motivate yourself in the world that you live and breathe in. When you don't have that help via a supportive environment or your spouse doesn't support you or people think you're crazy and you allow that to impact your feelings, I believe that this is where you really need to step back. Because like I said, it's a bonus when you have people in your life and in your world that believe in you. But at the end of the day, where you should be looking for motivation and validation is from yourself. And if you can't learn to be a self directed, self motivated, self validating person, then you are going to run into a lot of troubles as you work toward achieving and accomplishing your goals.
Not only should you find validation and motivation within yourself. But also learn that if your don’t have external support, you can use that as fuel to go even harder.
Or if you have people cheering you on, that doesn't mean that you push off the take your foot off the gas, that means that you have some positive energy to help propel you in the right direction. So you should be using this as fuel for your fire not to back off the gas if you're trying to achieve a goal. Sharing your goals could bring people out of the woodworks that are willing to support you and in that support, you gain what you need to be able to move forward and to accomplish a goal.
The author recommends is something that Tim Ferriss talked about at one time regarding embracing fear setting. You don't share your goals. You come to grips with the fears that you have around your goals and you list out each fear that you have for accomplishing your goal. You then figure out how to overcome them. I am a big fan of this and encourage my clients to do this in our coaching sessions and I even employ this in my life... but what that's called is good old fashioned planning and preparation. So if you embrace fear setting over goal setting, that doesn't make any sense, because then how would you know exactly what goals that you want to achieve? And how would you keep them in the forefront of your mind? They're both equally important. Goal setting and “fear setting” are important. but I wouldn't call it fear setting, I would call a part of goal setting as identifying your goals, but then you also write out some things that could derail you from your goals and solutions to those things.
I, again, don't think that this is a driver for keeping your goals secret. You can set you up for necessarily struggle and strive because if nobody knows what it is that you're trying to do, you miss out on an opportunity for supportive people to come in and to help you and to give you information. You may not believe that as possible but I work with clients everyday that have decided to open up about the goals they want to achieve. They recognized how getting help was what they needed to unlock success faster and in a handpicked supportive environment. You may have been burned in the past when you've told people about your goals, but when you align with the right person, you will find that they will sometimes know who you need to talk to, what you need to read, or what you need to do to continue to push your goal forward.
When you choose to not share your goal with anyone, you find that you will have to look for all this information on your own, you may have to struggle on your own, and you waste a lot of time doing things and trying to figure things out that would otherwise be solved if you were embracing a more collaborative spirit around your goals. Just because there may have been failures in the past doesn't mean that there's not somebody out there that does believe in you that does want you to succeed and that does want to support what it is that you want to do. Don’t get discouraged trying to collaborate or find your support just because of a few naysayers. because when you find the right person, things will click your journey to achieve your goal will get a lot easier.
The last point made in this article was that instead of sharing your goals with other people, you should just surround yourself with your competition, because it can make you want to go hard and make you up to 90% more successful than you would have alone because you'll be pushing harder. Hmmm….. maybe, but maybe not…. we’ve all tried those group coaching sessions that did nothing to help us move the dial towards our success. Yes, I do think that if you want to level up in life, you should be surrounding yourself with people that also want to level up in life or people that have already leveled up in life, there's a lot to learn from people that are striving to do better and be better. And there's is tremendous value in learning from somebody that has already completed their journey successfully and have overcome what you are going thru. That type of help is invaluable and worth opening your mouth and investing in collaboration.
I do agree that you should surround yourself with competition. However, I wouldn't word it like that, I will word it like you need to surround yourself with competitive people that have a goal oriented, solution oriented, nature. They're motivated but they're not necessarily your competition, because I feel like there is enough room out here for all of us to achieve whatever it is that we want. Without competing with anyone, we all have our unique spin on stuff. And so if you tap into those unique characteristics, there's no need to compete. They are competitive but not competing with you.
The author says, when you are with these people, you still don't tell them your goals. I say that if you are around people that are like this, you absolutely share your goals, because these are people that know what it takes to get stuff done. Even if they don't have any expertise in the area that you are working on, at least they know what that success success oriented makeup feels like and looks like and they can motivate you along the way. What do you think mastermind groups are for? Successful people invest heavily in masterminds to be connected with driven people that want to succeed in life. And if you show up to those type of situations, and you don't want to share your goals, what is the point, right? Or if you think that you are above it, I dare you to talk to any successful person and you will find that they did not achieve success ALONE.
This article was very triggering for me because it gives a false sense of independence on your own self which can be severely limiting when you are trying to achieve big goals from only your perspective or experience level. I think that if you are falling victim to this mentality, you may miss out on an opportunity to create success for yourself in an easier way than if you had tried to do it alone.
If you have any questions or comments, make sure you leave them so that I can read them and I do answer everything. You don't have to do things alone nor should you. If you are aligned with somebody that is supportive and that wants you to succeed and wants you to be geared toward motivating yourself and finding value and validation internally, then you can accomplish anything. Even when you feel like the world around you is not supportive. You deserve success. You deserve to move forward. You deserve to accomplish everything that you want.
Until Next Time