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Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

507 points by mhb 7y ago

lerie 7y ago
poppycock
SubiculumCode 7y ago
My experience confirms the decrease in motivation after anouncement of a new exercise routine, diet, or life plan. Keep it private unless you already have a 100% committment within yourself to follow through. I pre-announced that I was quitting smoking, but I was really ready, and haven't smoked in 12+ years.
deleted 7y ago
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dschuetz 7y ago
It definitely sets back the initial excitement or motivation behind a new idea, especially if it's half-backed. Can confirm from experience.
RichardHeart 7y ago
Depends on how you do it. Announce a launch date for your project and tell me you're not 100% busting your ass to try and meet it.
jniedrauer 7y ago
I sometimes wonder if a similar mechanism might be at play when you imagine accomplishing your goal in a Walter Mitty sort of way. There are many projects which I can envision completing, and which I know I have the technical skills for. But I gain a certain amount of satisfaction just from picturing the completed work, and in the end I don't actually put in the effort to make it reality.
- realbarack 7y ago
  This mechanism (but applied to good deeds) is described hilariously by Louis C.K.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiCyT5pY_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiCyT5pY_E
- agota 7y ago
  I vaguely remember something about research showing that visualisation works well if you visualize both the positive outcome of achieving a goal and the negative outcome of not achieving it. Can't be bothered to look it up, though :D
- jmatthews 7y ago
  I suffer from the same affliction. Daydreaming forward often reveals additional functionalities and synergies and implications, so it even "feels" like progress, but I've learned the hard way that skipping to the last page of the book is counter-productive.
mzkply 7y ago
That has the exact opposite effect on me. I actually use that method to shame myself into accomplishing what I've announced...
- jhoechtl 7y ago
  That's gernerally true for polster-types who brag around with what they have done wjile others see their contribution rather miniscule. I know this could be understood insulting, still my observation though.
  - mzkply 7y ago
    That's only if you're talking about major accomplishments, like "I'm gonna make Director by 2021". Ya that's bullshit and bragging. I'm referring to things like saying "Guys i'm gonna not drink for a month" or "I'm gonna finish that damn car repair this summer".
- darrenf 7y ago
  Likewise. I achieve very little unless I feel like I'm letting down other people if I don't succeed. I can cope with the self-loathing of letting myself down, so if my plans are private I struggle with motivation. In fact, I add extra sticks (which I react to far better than carrots): two years ago I announced my weight loss goal – which had a strict deadline – in public and the extra stipulation that were I to fail, I would not touch alcohol for the entire following year. I firmly believe that without either of those, I would have found it ludicrously easy to cheat and fail.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  Agree. It seems plausible that this just varies by personality: some people are motivated by announcing, some are demotivated (and probably some are indifferent).
Maximus9000 7y ago
I'd word it differently: "Share your 'go up' goals selectively... share your 'go up' goals with everyone you possibly can" So, if you want to give up smoking, share that with everyone including your mailman. They will help you on your path. However, beware of sharing your 'go up' goals - like starting a business - with others... they might drag you down.
droobles 7y ago
I generally find this is true. I work better on side projects and such if no one knows I'm doing it.
angel_j 7y ago
I always had some uncanny notion of this, and would keep my plans to myself. For some things, it's the way to go (like quitting your job and traveling). Probably b/c you don't need the external input; it only adds noise. Yet I wouldn't be so quick to discourage sharing and doing what it takes to stay motivated. External motivation is great, I wish I had more of it! I reckon there is greater glory in stating what you will do and following through ftw... and yummy humble pie for you if you give up or fail.
- agota 7y ago
  I think you have a good point on external input noise. When you announce your plans to people close to you, such as family and friends and coworkers, you start getting input which is not necessarily useful even if their intentions are good. Moreover, your announcement might make some people uncomfortable to the point where they try to sabotage you, either intentionally or subconsciously.
SkyTreasure 7y ago
So true it happens to me many times. When I tell about the new idea or half done projects I feel less motivated to complete it. So right now my lips are sealed on the current project that I am working and it's coming in good shape as of now
- malux85 7y ago
  Did you just jinkx the “coming in good shape as of now” part because you announced it?
  - SkyTreasure 7y ago
    Nope unless i tell what i am building its jinkx protected :D
- zikani_03 7y ago
  This happens to me too, and it's doubly worse when I've made a little progress on a project in addition to telling/showing someone. For example, a couple of days ago, I implemented a 'MVP' for a sweet (my opinion ;) IntelliJ plugin[1], but since telling/showing co-workers I lost the motivation that got me started on it. [1]: https://github.com/nndi-oss/intellij-gensett https://github.com/nndi-oss/intellij-gensett
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I had never seen these ideas put down on paper but it is true for me. My mind can be pretty satisfied with just thinking it knows how it would be if I accomplished something instead of actually doing it.
- jhoechtl 7y ago
  While I share your sentiment I think the article means sthg. Different. What I think it says is: If you have a plan and tell others about it's realization, you are less motivated to actually implement your plan. Thinking about me it is bexause others start to monitor my doings, causing pressure and somewhat forcing me to work according to others schedules instead of my own. That's what workflife is about, no?
growlist 7y ago
53 days sober. Announced it at the start.
- topkai22 7y ago
  I think the difference here is it is announcing an accomplishment, not an intention. Since its already happened, you can build pride around it. I believe the article is saying is that announcing "I'm going to quit drinking." Is not a good way to get and stay sober.
  - mhb 7y ago
    Right but growlist is providing a counterexample since Announced it at the start.
    - taeric 7y ago
      It is a probabilistic claim, not a causal one. Whether you announce it can clearly have no bearing on doing it, at the physical level. However, the studies showed that you're more likely to succeed it you kept it private. Not guaranteed to succeed. Not doomed to fail if you announce. Just like getting dealt an ace as the first card doesn't determine if you win. Has better chances than getting a two, though.
drakonka 7y ago
I watched a TED talk about this years ago and recognized myself and my habits. I've since stopped announcing plans until I have a certain amount of concrete progress. Sometimes I still misjudge, and lose motivation. For me this applies for both small and big things. Eg say I make plans to go to the gym tomorrow. If I tell someone I'm going to go to the gym, I am less likely to actually do it. If I keep my mouth shut I'll probably follow through. I currently have an idea of something I'd like to do. It will take a lot of physical and emotional work. I've tried to make plans before and discussed them with some friends, and always after the discussions it never ends up happening. This time I'm not telling anyone until the plan is actually in motion.
- taeric 7y ago
  I'm interested in seeing that talk, if you can remember who it was. Or have a link. I had thought the opposite was true. Announcing was supposed to be like committing. Curious if it just became a form of virtue signaling.
  - agota 7y ago
    I'm not the person you replied to, but... Could it be Derek Sivers' TED Talk "Keep your goals to yourself"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4
    - milohax 7y ago
      I haven't watched this (I'm on a bus, bandwidth concerns) but the title just made me think: "yes, keep your goals to myself. In a diary. That way I won't be demotivated by premature announcement, yet I'll be bursting to have something to show when I make progress" Promissing to ones self, for me at least, is a motivator because I trust myself more, and the trust is reinforced as I complete goals. But announcing "I'm doing this thing" either causes anxiety, or demotivates nectar is already our there, as the article describes.
- deleted 7y ago
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JohnFen 7y ago
I'm exactly opposite of that. If I announce plans, that adds an additional cost (embarrassment) to failing to accomplish them, which makes it less likely that I'll procrastinate or abandon the effort.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  A lot of people don't seem to be bothered by that.
  - all2 7y ago
    I am. But the cost of embarrassing myself isn't something I consider up front. I'm working on taking the long view, but it is hard.
- xwdv 7y ago
  This only works if people are excited for what you are making. I once worked on an ambitious game for months, and then decided to make an announcement about what I was building. The reaction from most people was meh. I stopped working on it about a month later and all remaining copies of it have since been deleted by now. Never released.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > This only works if people are excited for what you are making. I suppose I should have been more specific. I'm not talking about a public announcement, I'm talking about announcing it to my personal friends and colleagues. Whether or not they are excited by the project itself isn't really a factor -- they'll still want to know how the project is going. I tend not to make any public announcements until at least beta.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  That's how I thought the fear of embarrassment turns into motivation too, but that is not real motivation as it doesn't come from within but from the outside, fearing of disappointing others or fearing personal embarrassment. That may work to keep one going but the reality is that things change, priorities change, motivation fades for good reasons. It is probably better to not announce anything until you've started off and made some progress and realized that you're on a good path.
Porthos9K 7y ago
The concept of "vaporware" seems relevant to this discussion. It's easy to talk big and hype a product that doesn't actually exist yet, but following through and getting the product shipped is a hell of a lot harder.
GCA10 7y ago
This article treats all types of announcements as being equal. Not so! A hazy announcement like "I'll be doing more to fight climate change" may indeed be empty virtue signaling that leads to nothing. But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got intermediate deadlines, and deliverables, and at least the first stirrings of a coherent plan. Announcements can work quite well, as long as you're willing to commit with enough clarity that your friends and rivals will keep you honest.
- feanaro 7y ago
  > But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got intermediate deadlines, and deliverables, and at least the first stirrings of a coherent plan. As a data point, if I did this, it would probably make me much less likely to work on it and very anxious about the whole thing.
- munificent 7y ago
  > "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? I did something similar when I began my first book. It accomplished nothing. I ended up stalling for several years. What helped was a private commitment to myself to work on the book every day. It's definitely important to have a plan, but that's orthogonal to sharing a plan. > your friends and rivals will keep you honest. This depends on your friends, but I think at least in the US, most friendships are based on uncritical support. They aren't likely to cause friction by calling you on things you previously committed to doing unless that commitment actually affects them personally. Maybe that's the way to use your social network to keep you honest. Make a commitment like: "If I finish this project by date X, I will contribute $YYYY to your favorite charity." Now your friend has some skin in the game.
  - LanceH 7y ago
    Not the least reason is that you've constrained yourself to Topic X due to your own announcement.
burtonator 7y ago
There's another counter to this. If you announce your plans but put a penalty on it for non-accomplishment it acts as a commitment device. You should read about commitment devices in general but the idea is they FORCE you to do something you know you're probably not going to do. A good example is to tell your friend you're going to run a marathon and if you don't you'll give her $1000.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  The way you phrased that kind of makes it sound like just another commitment to be avoided. Wouldn't you need to do something more like "give your friend $1000 in escrow and tell her she should only give it back to you if you run the marathon"?
  - yebyen 7y ago
    This depends how trustworthy you are in general, and is definitely an interesting question. Would Gandhi take a pill which made him 1% less likely to not commit any murders, if it meant receiving a million dollars with no other strings attached? The answer seems to be, "he would use a Schelling Fence" if that was an option. https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdkAesHBt4tsivEKe/gandhi-murder-pills-and-mental-illness https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdkAesHBt4tsivEKe/gandhi-mur...
- gadders 7y ago
  You can go to a website like https://www.stickk.com/ https://www.stickk.com/ and set up your commitment contract there.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    Or Beeminder: https://www.beeminder.com https://www.beeminder.com
    - yebyen 7y ago
      Here's the Beeminder twitter account, earlier this month giving a link to their response to this exact question: https://twitter.com/bmndr/status/1169303739657682944 https://twitter.com/bmndr/status/1169303739657682944 (tl;dr: they don't agree that announcing your goals makes you less likely to accomplish them. Which should not be surprising, to anyone who has already heard of Beeminder.)
mbarronj 7y ago
I call them "Secret Plans". You gotta save up the emotional energy and reward. On so many projects, you get the same neuro-chemical reward by talking about your project plans and how cool the result will be, as you do by making progress. By holding out, and only allowing progress itself to be a reward, and not just the talking, I usually get much further. The project may still die, but then I have something in my hands usually, and that's more rewarding than a bunch of people who think I only talk about things and never start/do any of them. . .
- Folcon 7y ago
  This is certainly a position I've found myself in, there's a temptation to talk about ideas you intend to do, but the ones I get progress on are ones where I actually execute on the concept, telling people later once I have something solid to show, or I already have someone engaged asking me about progress. The current commentary might be a personality specific thing however, I've certainly seen people discuss ideas as a forcing mechanism to get them to work on them, and also people discussing ideas as a way to evaluate whether they're worth working on. I doubt it's very clear cut.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results. -- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 36, Stephen Mitchell translation (http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=36&a=Stephen+Mitchell http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=36&a=Stephen+Mitchell)
  - forgotpwd16 7y ago
    Compared with the others translation on the same chapter, Mitchell's translation supposedly conveys the meaning rather than being exact?
- t34543 7y ago
  This is why I refuse to do stand ups
sebringj 7y ago
What about announcing deadlines and completion times that others will depend on? Won't you feel more shameful if you can't meet that and will work harder to meet that rather than secretly working to accomplish something with no repercussions?
echelon 7y ago
I do not find this to be the case at all. My friends and coworkers are aware of my work on a particular ML task and are cheering me on. Every major hurdle and obstacle I've encountered is met with support and an unending eagerness to try my product. I am so ready to get this out the door and I'm spending all of my free time on it. It's going to be huge. This has been a year long project that is the offshoot of another project that led me down this more exciting path. My investment is only getting more and more intense now that I've found the correct problem domain gradient to explore.
rootusrootus 7y ago
I remember reading about this years ago (maybe this very article). Announcing your plans seems to give you some of the satisfaction of having accomplished them, without actually doing anything. So ... I don't tell anyone if I'm planning a workout change, diet change, side project, etc, unless I figure I'll need the peer pressure more than my internal motivation.
friendlybus 7y ago
I think the keyword in this article is intentions. Those should remain private, but anything else about your work can be discussed and managed and is frequently better to do so. The modern concept of a self is a difficult thing. I don't fully understand it. It seems to include a willingness to isolate and exile part of yourself. The boundary between what's internal and external is the basis of a whole category of research, but the modern pop-psychology idea is just to run with it as if we could know.
peterxpark 7y ago
While in general, I agree with not announcing plans until they're finished, I do have two counterpoints 1) A year ago, I announced to in-person friends and on FB eliminating certain foods from my diet. Afterwards, it was easy because I could always remember I publicly announced it. Last year, it was chicken. This year, I added pork, soda, and processed meats. Haven't touched them since. 2) If it's very tangible and concrete then I find it works well. I announced writing daily for 30 days on my blog and successfully did it. But yeah, general plans like I'm going to start a business or workout more usually fizzle out after the initial excitement.
mrslave 7y ago
I don't share ideas with many people anymore. Even ideas, and especially not goals. Any negative people are out, which unfortunately is too many. The few that are trusted and have an analytical mindset are helpful for sound boarding, even if you don't exactly get them to immediately quit their jobs and join you at exciting-new-startup-here.tld. Finally, I try to spend more time in general with those directly contributing to achieve my goals, usually in the activity itself (e.g. work, training, study). Work can be harder to navigate because, well, I'm not responsible for firing ;-) but it is possible to at least move the needle.
KangLi 7y ago
[Premature sense of completeness] Sums it all. I'd also add that such negative behavior is encouraged in our society to the point where praise is given for anything said, which is not even done yet. Premature achievers as well indeed take the idea of making the first step further down the perdition road and assume it's indeed even better to announce it publicly. I've always felt that speaking of what I plan to achieve is worthless because I knew I was seeking some gratification behind it, which sucked because why would you seek praise for what you haven't done yet?
shanemhansen 7y ago
I don't disagree with the study results. I guess talking about a thing can be a substitute for doing it. But as others have mentioned, publicly committing to a specific measurable goal can help others hold you accountable.
deleted 7y ago
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enobrev 7y ago
Does reserving a domain name fall under the category of "Announcing your plans"? If so, my experience absolutely correlates with this. I might as well save my ideas to pocket. At least that's a free way to keep really interesting things I'll never see again.
- empressplay 7y ago
  Ah, yes... domain name addiction. Been there, done that =)
tempsy 7y ago
Hm. I've heard the exact opposite e.g. if you want to keep yourself accountable about doing something then you should tell everyone you know that you're doing it.
- dx87 7y ago
  I think that only works if you tell people that will hold you accountable, like if you tell your spouse that you'll mow the lawn, they'll hold you to it. If you're posting "I'm going to lose weight this year!" on social media, people probably won't hold you accountable and you'll still be glad that you collected a bunch of likes and thumbsups without having to accomplish anything.
hi41 7y ago
How would this work in the context of work in a team? Say you have an idea for fixing a bug. Without telling the manager about your intent how could you actually work on it? The manager comes quickly to find where all your hours went doing what pursuit.
- dpedu 7y ago
  Managers aren't hour bean counters or people you need permission from to do work. Of course, I'm not speaking of toxic environments.
btbuildem 7y ago
I call this "letting all the steam go to the whistle instead of the wheels"
RocketSyntax 7y ago
How else can you get validation?
viburnum 7y ago
Announcing plans is good because then you can actually get some satisfaction from it. You’re never going to accomplish anything anyway so you might as well take the happiness where you can get it.
- zarro 7y ago
  I don't think that they understood your next level satire.
nomilk 7y ago
Reminds me of a quote from Sara Blakely: “I was very careful right away, it was a gut instinct that I had, to keep it to myself because I believe ideas are most vulnerable in their infancy, and it’s instinct to turn to your right or left in that moment and tell a friend, or tell your husband, and the moment you do that ego is invited into the mix, and then you end up spending all your time defending it, explaining it, and not pursuing it” How I Built This podcast (9m20s)
- wccrawford 7y ago
  I have definitely had my battles with people who want to poke holes in my plans, rather than support me. They think they're helping me, but they aren't. They're just killing my enthusiasm. If I'd been left to try, I'd have worked hard at it, had an experienced, learned some things, and maybe even accomplished it. Instead, they did their best to stop me. I now snap at people who do this to me. I no longer let them throw problem after problem at me, and instead shut them down before they can destroy my dream. I accomplish a great many of the things I try, and I get exercise and knowledge from the failures.
  - svantana 7y ago
    That's too bad. I invite criticism of my projects, because I want to make sure I'm not fooling myself. Other people's perspective can shine new light on a problem and force you to reconsider the idea, hopefully leading to improved design.
    - nefitty 7y ago
      This makes sense to keep in mind. It seems like there's a danger that some personalities will pursue a goal single-mindedly if there are absolutely no critical obstacles in their way. Not to beat a dead horse, but the Fyre Fest incident comes to mind. If the leads on that project had encountered more "No" would they have stopped, or at least scaled back, to something more achievable? This presumes positive intent in that case, though, which I'm not too sure of there.
    - 7y ago
dimitar 7y ago
Caveat for team and organizations: often leadership announces grand initiatives with great fanfare and the lack of follow-up, perceived or real makes people cynical. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid announcing your plans if you expect others to follow you - its possible people don't understand what you want to achieve and end up just as frustrated. This is part of a leaders job. I like what TA said about "make sure not to say it as a satisfaction but as dissatisfaction"- definitely keeping the focus on what you want to fix is better than the specific solution you've devised - you might end up finding a better solution anyway and people will help you do it. Make announcements on small sub-plans often and follow-up even more often, so that people know feel that whatever you want to implement in your team/organization is happening. Definitely tell them a long-term goal, but keep the focus on the next task that needs to be done. And make the "small" announcements at the moment you feel you are ready to answer all questions the team might ask you, but not earlier. So, to be effective in an organization you need to do "continuous announcing" of small plans.
- LanceH 7y ago
  The rule for big corporations is that you must announce your plans and make them as grand as possible to build your budget/empire. This is necessary to prevent a takeover from one of the other many groups doing the exact same thing within the company.
mrcoder111 7y ago
I really hate this article. Pretty much everything I've ever accomplished in my life is because I speak it into existence and hold myself accountable. But then again, if you're the type of person who makes things happen, you don't rely on crappy psychology studies to tell you how to live your life.
- wccrawford 7y ago
  I've seen a lot of these "successful people do this thing!" stories, but after years of reading them and watching how people act, I've come to the conclusion that those people are successful by nature first, and all these things they do are helpers, not enablers. Doing that thing won't turn people into successes. These things are crutches that successful people use to improve themselves, not something that they learned in order to be successful. They'd be successful either way, this is just easier.
- agota 7y ago
  I think most people struggle with holding themselves accountable. You are fortunate if you are an outlier in that regard.
- erobbins 7y ago
  I'm not the type of person who makes things happen. Especially if I can now fail in a public and embarrassing way having told people my plans. If I keep things to myself I end up generally doing better.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
I find this has cut both ways in my life. In piano, it was always my goal to play Chopin Ballade No 1. After ~5 years of playing, I heard it and KNEW I wanted to learn it. It was only around ~15 years in, when I got the gumption and a teacher who didn't put the idea down, I signed up for a concert to play it, and I was FORCED to learn it. At that point, announcing to friends/family enhanced my practice, because I knew it'd occur on X date and I knew the beastly passages would require dozens of hours of repetition each. On the other hand, the number of pieces I have stated my intention to learn, and never done so, is far greater than the number of pieces I actually know. I think it's just so easy to say "I love this piece, I'm going to learn it." Well, that took 5 seconds to say, but it will take 100 hours to learn the piece. So, for me, it comes down to how truly/deeply motivated I am to begin with. If it's something I truly want, announcing makes no difference. If it's something I'm lukewarm on, I'm probably likely to announce something impulsively and commit myself to something I didn't think through.
smacktoward 7y ago
Or as Al Swearengen put it on the best TV show ever, HBO's Deadwood: "Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh."
CM30 7y ago
Wonder if the feeling of being overwhelmed by the work involved in carrying out said plans feeds into this somehow. I mean, it's very easy to get carried away when planning things, and end up creating an absolutely enormous list of requirements you 'need' to meet to finish the project, many of which may require knowing more about the field to proceed. That's certainly been an issue with my own projects, where the 'plan' ends up being more in line with the current HTML 5 specification in terms of length. Meanwhile whenever I don't announce my plans/write them down in any way, it works better because I just get on with stuff and stop get sidetracked by irrelevant details and extras. Also, announcing plans publically gets everyone hyped up about something to the point its original creator may struggle to get said project to live up to its own hype.
tunesmith 7y ago
Note the followup link he posts at the end: https://www.bassam.com/single-post/CSI-TED-Talks-What-Derek-Sivers-Was-Really-Saying https://www.bassam.com/single-post/CSI-TED-Talks-What-Derek-... Where it comes out in support of stating goals in some circumstances, and clarifies that what it's really against is saying things like "I want to be a lawyer", because then what that means is that you'll be apt to behave consistently with wanting to be a lawyer, and not with taking the steps to actually become a lawyer. (Or how my yoga-instructor friend explained it, "So then the universe responds, 'ok, poof! You now want to be a lawyer!'")
- esotericn 7y ago
  Precisely. You don't "want" to stick to a vegan diet. You have a vegan diet. The distinction is roughly, between a goal, and a plan. A plan is something that you can immediately begin executing upon. That doesn't mean you won't falter, or that it has to be an on/off switch style revolution, but there's a clear set of things to do. A goal is embryonic. You don't know how, or if, you can achieve it yet.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    I am skeptical. Human desires are a thing, and I am going to continue to assume that there is a good reason they are a thing until I have a very detailed and very well tested explanation for why there is no harm in replacing all of my desires with plans.
    - milohax 7y ago
      I think I understand you. At a lower level, there is a very good reason why, during our teenage years, we develop our prefrontal cortex to moderate between our desires and our actions (and why for all of us, going from childlike "I see, I want, I do" to adult "I see, I want, I plan, I evaluate, I might do") is so traumatic. That, or you've made a subtle joke which I'm not quite seeing :-)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
notjustanymike 7y ago
I'd be interested in seeing what happens when someone else announces your plans. You don't get the same payoff, but still feel the obligation.
honkycat 7y ago
I've heard the exact opposite from a lot of people I respect. That announcing plans and communicating with your peers and getting support and accountability for your plans actually increases the likelihood of success. But I mean, that doesn't let you shit on the "posers" so whatever.
- Pabss 7y ago
  I believe that communicating a plan already in motion is not the same as expressing an idea one might have. If I understood correctly this article points out to the latter. While having already a plan in motion, you will want to share it with the people and colleagues that you want in order to continue an idea. But if you have an idea that you want to set in motion, and just share it around with everyone there's a high chance that it wont kick off.
hartator 7y ago
yeah I have this feeling as well. At the same time if someone asking “what’s up?” and you say nothing, I feel like lying.
shadowmore 7y ago
Oh, thank God, I'm not crazy.
magashna 7y ago
The best thing I did last year was going to a gym 2 weeks before xmas and getting a membership and a trainer. I didn't tell anyone, I didn't make it my "new year resolution", I just went and did it. I'm still happily chugging along about 10 months later.
mindgam3 7y ago
This very much depends on how motivated you are by external validation. For some people, the fear of losing social capital by not following through on a public commitment is motivating enough to accomplish stretch goals. Source: used this technique to overcome my own procrastination trying to launch my first app as a solo founder. It worked, and I went on to raised a million VC to see if I could scale up the vision of a social goals app. The downside of relying on external validation, as I learned the hard way, is when your self improvement startup goes down in flames, you really feel like a fuckup.
- rubbingalcohol 7y ago
  I announce my projects so people can tell me how stupid I am and it makes me more determined to succeed and show them how they are actually the ones who are stupid. I guess I'm petty like that.
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    I feel that. One could argue that all ambitious entrepreneur types are motivated at least partly by a burning desire to prove that the other guy or “the system” is in fact the asshole.
    - fhbdukfrh 7y ago
      I don't agree. True ambition is very self centered, almost egotistic. The detractors never have as much invested as you and are largely irrelevant. You don't do it because they say you can't, you do it because they don't even exist.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    Defiance. Often a negative trait, sometimes a motivator. Learn to control and harness it.
  - fhbdukfrh 7y ago
    Shouldn't you be doing this as a positive for yourself, instead of for a negative, external motivator?
furyofantares 7y ago
The number of things that I have an impulse to accomplish vastly exceeds my physical ability to accomplish them. This used to cause me great frustration but I’ve learned that I get a lot of value out of thought exploration, even if I can’t tell the difference between something I’ll want to stick with and something I’ll want to dump at any specific stage in the process. If I announce my plans and am left without a need to follow through, that’s great. Apparently I didn’t really have a need for the thing, I just had a need for exploration, and I didn’t know that’s all I needed from the idea yet. I have plenty of things I want to do and can move on to the next thing.
dreeves 7y ago
This is (mostly) wrong. Sivers himself seems to have regretted how his talk was interpreted and posted this semi-retraction: https://sivers.org/zipit2 https://sivers.org/zipit2 But identity-based goal or not, the conclusion that you make yourself less likely to achieve a goal by telling people about it defies common sense. I mean, here's the peer-reviewed science saying my common sense is wrong -- http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Seifert_Michalski_When_Intentions_.pdf http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Se... -- but this is a psychology paper from 2009 so I'm willing to bet real money on common sense, despite seeing no obvious flaw with the paper.
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
  A single psychology paper showing a certain result is some evidence, but it's not much. Replication crisis and all that. With that said, it does make some intuitive sense to me (not that that counts as evidence either!). It may be that the pressure to change is relieved somewhat simply by announcing plans to do so.
- v64 7y ago
  Not generalizing, but for me personally, I'll often tell people about my plans as a way to hold myself to them. If I keep it to myself, it's easy for me to talk myself out of it, but once it's out there to other people and I know they're going to ask me for followup, I can commit.
  - kyllo 7y ago
    I always think this way, but once I make a commitment, now I basically have a deadline, which for me, causes the procrastination impulse to kick in, and it takes effort to fight it. I think that telling someone I'm going to do something makes me want to do it a little bit less because now I'm doing it for them, not for myself.
    - v64 7y ago
      Yeah, I think it's definitely something that will vary by personality. I'm somewhat of a people pleaser so the external motivation works well for me.
zarro 7y ago
How about keeping a plan secret makes you more motivated to accomplish it. In the opposite case, you were already rewarded before the successful action, in this case, you will only get the reward once it succeeds. It forces you to focus on accomplishing instead of on giving off the appearance that you will be successful. Although often the former may depend on the latter.
dzink 7y ago
The article linked is not the one of the actual study. Here is the actual study: https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/sites/6235/2019/02/gollwitzer-et-al-2009-when-intentions-go-public.pdf https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/site... A cursory look shows the study talks about identity projection and actions (law students given extra material and asked to watch it, are less likely to watch it if they have told their observer they are going to watch it). However the difference is 1 minute of less watching and could be attributed to other factors. Additionally, the same author has published research 5 years later (https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/sites/6235/2019/02/ahn-et-al-2015-goal-projection-in-public-places.pdf https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/site...) that explains goal projection in public places is helpful as " is part of our everyday life and is fostered by high-goal commitment, perceiving others as similar, and ongoing goal striving.". So it is one thing to say you are going to be better at something by own self-study, but another when you are actually pursuing something and need help to achieve it. Announcing something allows you to connect with others sharing the same goal to get help or community, and shows you continue to be committed. Feel free to read the studies and see if you can draw other conclusions, but this is not as black and white as the article claims.
matwood 7y ago
I don't know about plans, but it does help to identify as 'the person who...' as long as those are the attributes you want. The person who executes or the person who is in shape or eats well are all positive traits that can be cultivated and self-reinforce. For me, there is more general bang for the popsci buck in the above than announcing plans.
baxtr 7y ago
But then again: dreaming about startups will help you avoid pursuing a crazy career with no guarantee that it will work out. I often dream about startups that I could do and vividly imagine how successful they’d be. It feels really good. Then I stop and tell myself that I’ll never do it
dang 7y ago
A thread from 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496923 Discussed at the time (and submitted by the author): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660720
ada1981 7y ago
#BuildTheWall #LockHerUp
nonbirithm 7y ago
I was torn on this. I don't want to feel like I'm shouting into the void if I'm working on something creative, because I do want other people to see what I make eventually. It seems to be reasonable to say that criticism is helpful if you're trying to get better at something (and take it in good faith). At some point that means releasing something to the public. But I had been conflating finished work with the work needed to finish things. I'm also very tempted to reach out to people about what I want to get better at since I tend to seek validation externally. But only I can actually put in any effort towards my own goals. Now my policy is to just shut up about it and put all that effort I could be spending speaking empty promises that haven't been fulfilled into putting my head down and doing things myself. Reaching out to people comes after you have something to show. At the same time I want to meet people who are creative and that means outing yourself as creative also if you want that connection. It's hard putting in all that effort and being unable to talk to people about it.
kelnos 7y ago
I find this incredibly transformative, more than I expected when clicking on the link. Intuitively, I always believed that announcing my plans would sort of put me on the hook for completing them. That if I announced something and later didn't deliver, I'd feel ashamed. Obviously avoiding shame wouldn't be the only thing motivated me, but I figured I could add shame-avoidance to the list of motivations and make things overall stronger. But this is definitely something to think about, and try to apply to myself.
doyoulikeworms 7y ago
I definitely buy this. I've blogged about personal projects, and writing out plans for a project tends to take some wind out of its sails. It's motivating to share progress, though.
audiometry 7y ago
https://interruptions.net/literature/Wicklund-BASP81.pdf https://interruptions.net/literature/Wicklund-BASP81.pdf Is my go-to reference article. The idea of 'symbolic self completion' resonates so strongly with my personal experiences that 'talking depletes'. The less said about what you're working on, what your goals are, how you want to be, the better. The book "Ego is the Enemy" also explains this effect. (It may have been the origin idea that led me to chase down the research paper in the first place)
NoPicklez 7y ago
I think it's just safe to say that it depends on what motivates you. It's been known for a very long time that announcing plans creates a form of external accountability, which might be motivation for a number of people, but not for some. So saying that announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them I think is too much of a blanket statement.
thatgerhard 7y ago
This is my personal way of doing things, if its my own plan where I wont need any outside parties, nobody hears about it
indoor47 7y ago
So, do OKRs then make any sense?

507 points by mhb 7y ago

poppycock

My experience confirms the decrease in motivation after anouncement of a new exercise routine, diet, or life plan. Keep it private unless you already have a 100% committment within yourself to follow through. I pre-announced that I was quitting smoking, but I was really ready, and haven't smoked in 12+ years.

deleted 7y ago

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dschuetz 7y ago

It definitely sets back the initial excitement or motivation behind a new idea, especially if it's half-backed. Can confirm from experience.

RichardHeart 7y ago

Depends on how you do it. Announce a launch date for your project and tell me you're not 100% busting your ass to try and meet it.

jniedrauer 7y ago

I sometimes wonder if a similar mechanism might be at play when you imagine accomplishing your goal in a Walter Mitty sort of way. There are many projects which I can envision completing, and which I know I have the technical skills for. But I gain a certain amount of satisfaction just from picturing the completed work, and in the end I don't actually put in the effort to make it reality.

realbarack 7y ago
This mechanism (but applied to good deeds) is described hilariously by Louis C.K.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiCyT5pY_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eiCyT5pY_E
agota 7y ago
I vaguely remember something about research showing that visualisation works well if you visualize both the positive outcome of achieving a goal and the negative outcome of not achieving it. Can't be bothered to look it up, though :D
jmatthews 7y ago
I suffer from the same affliction. Daydreaming forward often reveals additional functionalities and synergies and implications, so it even "feels" like progress, but I've learned the hard way that skipping to the last page of the book is counter-productive.

mzkply 7y ago

That has the exact opposite effect on me. I actually use that method to shame myself into accomplishing what I've announced...

jhoechtl 7y ago
That's gernerally true for polster-types who brag around with what they have done wjile others see their contribution rather miniscule. I know this could be understood insulting, still my observation though.
- mzkply 7y ago
  That's only if you're talking about major accomplishments, like "I'm gonna make Director by 2021". Ya that's bullshit and bragging. I'm referring to things like saying "Guys i'm gonna not drink for a month" or "I'm gonna finish that damn car repair this summer".
darrenf 7y ago
Likewise. I achieve very little unless I feel like I'm letting down other people if I don't succeed. I can cope with the self-loathing of letting myself down, so if my plans are private I struggle with motivation. In fact, I add extra sticks (which I react to far better than carrots): two years ago I announced my weight loss goal – which had a strict deadline – in public and the extra stipulation that were I to fail, I would not touch alcohol for the entire following year. I firmly believe that without either of those, I would have found it ludicrously easy to cheat and fail.
wool_gather 7y ago
Agree. It seems plausible that this just varies by personality: some people are motivated by announcing, some are demotivated (and probably some are indifferent).

Maximus9000 7y ago

I'd word it differently: "Share your 'go up' goals selectively... share your 'go up' goals with everyone you possibly can" So, if you want to give up smoking, share that with everyone including your mailman. They will help you on your path. However, beware of sharing your 'go up' goals - like starting a business - with others... they might drag you down.

droobles 7y ago

I generally find this is true. I work better on side projects and such if no one knows I'm doing it.

angel_j 7y ago

I always had some uncanny notion of this, and would keep my plans to myself. For some things, it's the way to go (like quitting your job and traveling). Probably b/c you don't need the external input; it only adds noise. Yet I wouldn't be so quick to discourage sharing and doing what it takes to stay motivated. External motivation is great, I wish I had more of it! I reckon there is greater glory in stating what you will do and following through ftw... and yummy humble pie for you if you give up or fail.

agota 7y ago
I think you have a good point on external input noise. When you announce your plans to people close to you, such as family and friends and coworkers, you start getting input which is not necessarily useful even if their intentions are good. Moreover, your announcement might make some people uncomfortable to the point where they try to sabotage you, either intentionally or subconsciously.

SkyTreasure 7y ago

So true it happens to me many times. When I tell about the new idea or half done projects I feel less motivated to complete it. So right now my lips are sealed on the current project that I am working and it's coming in good shape as of now

malux85 7y ago
Did you just jinkx the “coming in good shape as of now” part because you announced it?
- SkyTreasure 7y ago
  Nope unless i tell what i am building its jinkx protected :D
zikani_03 7y ago
This happens to me too, and it's doubly worse when I've made a little progress on a project in addition to telling/showing someone. For example, a couple of days ago, I implemented a 'MVP' for a sweet (my opinion ;) IntelliJ plugin[1], but since telling/showing co-workers I lost the motivation that got me started on it. [1]: https://github.com/nndi-oss/intellij-gensett https://github.com/nndi-oss/intellij-gensett

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

I had never seen these ideas put down on paper but it is true for me. My mind can be pretty satisfied with just thinking it knows how it would be if I accomplished something instead of actually doing it.

jhoechtl 7y ago
While I share your sentiment I think the article means sthg. Different. What I think it says is: If you have a plan and tell others about it's realization, you are less motivated to actually implement your plan. Thinking about me it is bexause others start to monitor my doings, causing pressure and somewhat forcing me to work according to others schedules instead of my own. That's what workflife is about, no?

growlist 7y ago

53 days sober. Announced it at the start.

topkai22 7y ago
I think the difference here is it is announcing an accomplishment, not an intention. Since its already happened, you can build pride around it. I believe the article is saying is that announcing "I'm going to quit drinking." Is not a good way to get and stay sober.
- mhb 7y ago
  Right but growlist is providing a counterexample since Announced it at the start.
  - taeric 7y ago
    It is a probabilistic claim, not a causal one. Whether you announce it can clearly have no bearing on doing it, at the physical level. However, the studies showed that you're more likely to succeed it you kept it private. Not guaranteed to succeed. Not doomed to fail if you announce. Just like getting dealt an ace as the first card doesn't determine if you win. Has better chances than getting a two, though.

drakonka 7y ago

I watched a TED talk about this years ago and recognized myself and my habits. I've since stopped announcing plans until I have a certain amount of concrete progress. Sometimes I still misjudge, and lose motivation. For me this applies for both small and big things. Eg say I make plans to go to the gym tomorrow. If I tell someone I'm going to go to the gym, I am less likely to actually do it. If I keep my mouth shut I'll probably follow through. I currently have an idea of something I'd like to do. It will take a lot of physical and emotional work. I've tried to make plans before and discussed them with some friends, and always after the discussions it never ends up happening. This time I'm not telling anyone until the plan is actually in motion.

taeric 7y ago
I'm interested in seeing that talk, if you can remember who it was. Or have a link. I had thought the opposite was true. Announcing was supposed to be like committing. Curious if it just became a form of virtue signaling.
- agota 7y ago
  I'm not the person you replied to, but... Could it be Derek Sivers' TED Talk "Keep your goals to yourself"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4
  - milohax 7y ago
    I haven't watched this (I'm on a bus, bandwidth concerns) but the title just made me think: "yes, keep your goals to myself. In a diary. That way I won't be demotivated by premature announcement, yet I'll be bursting to have something to show when I make progress" Promissing to ones self, for me at least, is a motivator because I trust myself more, and the trust is reinforced as I complete goals. But announcing "I'm doing this thing" either causes anxiety, or demotivates nectar is already our there, as the article describes.
deleted 7y ago
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JohnFen 7y ago

I'm exactly opposite of that. If I announce plans, that adds an additional cost (embarrassment) to failing to accomplish them, which makes it less likely that I'll procrastinate or abandon the effort.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
A lot of people don't seem to be bothered by that.
- all2 7y ago
  I am. But the cost of embarrassing myself isn't something I consider up front. I'm working on taking the long view, but it is hard.
xwdv 7y ago
This only works if people are excited for what you are making. I once worked on an ambitious game for months, and then decided to make an announcement about what I was building. The reaction from most people was meh. I stopped working on it about a month later and all remaining copies of it have since been deleted by now. Never released.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > This only works if people are excited for what you are making. I suppose I should have been more specific. I'm not talking about a public announcement, I'm talking about announcing it to my personal friends and colleagues. Whether or not they are excited by the project itself isn't really a factor -- they'll still want to know how the project is going. I tend not to make any public announcements until at least beta.
onemoresoop 7y ago
That's how I thought the fear of embarrassment turns into motivation too, but that is not real motivation as it doesn't come from within but from the outside, fearing of disappointing others or fearing personal embarrassment. That may work to keep one going but the reality is that things change, priorities change, motivation fades for good reasons. It is probably better to not announce anything until you've started off and made some progress and realized that you're on a good path.

Porthos9K 7y ago

The concept of "vaporware" seems relevant to this discussion. It's easy to talk big and hype a product that doesn't actually exist yet, but following through and getting the product shipped is a hell of a lot harder.

GCA10 7y ago

This article treats all types of announcements as being equal. Not so! A hazy announcement like "I'll be doing more to fight climate change" may indeed be empty virtue signaling that leads to nothing. But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got intermediate deadlines, and deliverables, and at least the first stirrings of a coherent plan. Announcements can work quite well, as long as you're willing to commit with enough clarity that your friends and rivals will keep you honest.

feanaro 7y ago
> But what about a more precise announcement like: "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? Now we've got intermediate deadlines, and deliverables, and at least the first stirrings of a coherent plan. As a data point, if I did this, it would probably make me much less likely to work on it and very anxious about the whole thing.
munificent 7y ago
> "I'll be writing a book on Topic X, which I plan to publish 15 months from now, and I'll be completing one chapter on the 25th of every month until then"? I did something similar when I began my first book. It accomplished nothing. I ended up stalling for several years. What helped was a private commitment to myself to work on the book every day. It's definitely important to have a plan, but that's orthogonal to sharing a plan. > your friends and rivals will keep you honest. This depends on your friends, but I think at least in the US, most friendships are based on uncritical support. They aren't likely to cause friction by calling you on things you previously committed to doing unless that commitment actually affects them personally. Maybe that's the way to use your social network to keep you honest. Make a commitment like: "If I finish this project by date X, I will contribute $YYYY to your favorite charity." Now your friend has some skin in the game.
- LanceH 7y ago
  Not the least reason is that you've constrained yourself to Topic X due to your own announcement.

burtonator 7y ago

There's another counter to this. If you announce your plans but put a penalty on it for non-accomplishment it acts as a commitment device. You should read about commitment devices in general but the idea is they FORCE you to do something you know you're probably not going to do. A good example is to tell your friend you're going to run a marathon and if you don't you'll give her $1000.

wool_gather 7y ago
The way you phrased that kind of makes it sound like just another commitment to be avoided. Wouldn't you need to do something more like "give your friend $1000 in escrow and tell her she should only give it back to you if you run the marathon"?
- yebyen 7y ago
  This depends how trustworthy you are in general, and is definitely an interesting question. Would Gandhi take a pill which made him 1% less likely to not commit any murders, if it meant receiving a million dollars with no other strings attached? The answer seems to be, "he would use a Schelling Fence" if that was an option. https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://blog.beeminder.com/schelling/ https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdkAesHBt4tsivEKe/gandhi-murder-pills-and-mental-illness https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdkAesHBt4tsivEKe/gandhi-mur...
gadders 7y ago
You can go to a website like https://www.stickk.com/ https://www.stickk.com/ and set up your commitment contract there.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  Or Beeminder: https://www.beeminder.com https://www.beeminder.com
  - yebyen 7y ago
    Here's the Beeminder twitter account, earlier this month giving a link to their response to this exact question: https://twitter.com/bmndr/status/1169303739657682944 https://twitter.com/bmndr/status/1169303739657682944 (tl;dr: they don't agree that announcing your goals makes you less likely to accomplish them. Which should not be surprising, to anyone who has already heard of Beeminder.)

mbarronj 7y ago

I call them "Secret Plans". You gotta save up the emotional energy and reward. On so many projects, you get the same neuro-chemical reward by talking about your project plans and how cool the result will be, as you do by making progress. By holding out, and only allowing progress itself to be a reward, and not just the talking, I usually get much further. The project may still die, but then I have something in my hands usually, and that's more rewarding than a bunch of people who think I only talk about things and never start/do any of them. . .

Folcon 7y ago
This is certainly a position I've found myself in, there's a temptation to talk about ideas you intend to do, but the ones I get progress on are ones where I actually execute on the concept, telling people later once I have something solid to show, or I already have someone engaged asking me about progress. The current commentary might be a personality specific thing however, I've certainly seen people discuss ideas as a forcing mechanism to get them to work on them, and also people discussing ideas as a way to evaluate whether they're worth working on. I doubt it's very clear cut.
smacktoward 7y ago
The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results. -- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 36, Stephen Mitchell translation (http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=36&a=Stephen+Mitchell http://taoteching.org.uk/index.php?c=36&a=Stephen+Mitchell)
- forgotpwd16 7y ago
  Compared with the others translation on the same chapter, Mitchell's translation supposedly conveys the meaning rather than being exact?
t34543 7y ago
This is why I refuse to do stand ups

sebringj 7y ago

What about announcing deadlines and completion times that others will depend on? Won't you feel more shameful if you can't meet that and will work harder to meet that rather than secretly working to accomplish something with no repercussions?

echelon 7y ago

I do not find this to be the case at all. My friends and coworkers are aware of my work on a particular ML task and are cheering me on. Every major hurdle and obstacle I've encountered is met with support and an unending eagerness to try my product. I am so ready to get this out the door and I'm spending all of my free time on it. It's going to be huge. This has been a year long project that is the offshoot of another project that led me down this more exciting path. My investment is only getting more and more intense now that I've found the correct problem domain gradient to explore.

rootusrootus 7y ago

I remember reading about this years ago (maybe this very article). Announcing your plans seems to give you some of the satisfaction of having accomplished them, without actually doing anything. So ... I don't tell anyone if I'm planning a workout change, diet change, side project, etc, unless I figure I'll need the peer pressure more than my internal motivation.

friendlybus 7y ago

I think the keyword in this article is intentions. Those should remain private, but anything else about your work can be discussed and managed and is frequently better to do so. The modern concept of a self is a difficult thing. I don't fully understand it. It seems to include a willingness to isolate and exile part of yourself. The boundary between what's internal and external is the basis of a whole category of research, but the modern pop-psychology idea is just to run with it as if we could know.

peterxpark 7y ago

While in general, I agree with not announcing plans until they're finished, I do have two counterpoints 1) A year ago, I announced to in-person friends and on FB eliminating certain foods from my diet. Afterwards, it was easy because I could always remember I publicly announced it. Last year, it was chicken. This year, I added pork, soda, and processed meats. Haven't touched them since. 2) If it's very tangible and concrete then I find it works well. I announced writing daily for 30 days on my blog and successfully did it. But yeah, general plans like I'm going to start a business or workout more usually fizzle out after the initial excitement.

mrslave 7y ago

I don't share ideas with many people anymore. Even ideas, and especially not goals. Any negative people are out, which unfortunately is too many. The few that are trusted and have an analytical mindset are helpful for sound boarding, even if you don't exactly get them to immediately quit their jobs and join you at exciting-new-startup-here.tld. Finally, I try to spend more time in general with those directly contributing to achieve my goals, usually in the activity itself (e.g. work, training, study). Work can be harder to navigate because, well, I'm not responsible for firing ;-) but it is possible to at least move the needle.

KangLi 7y ago

[Premature sense of completeness] Sums it all. I'd also add that such negative behavior is encouraged in our society to the point where praise is given for anything said, which is not even done yet. Premature achievers as well indeed take the idea of making the first step further down the perdition road and assume it's indeed even better to announce it publicly. I've always felt that speaking of what I plan to achieve is worthless because I knew I was seeking some gratification behind it, which sucked because why would you seek praise for what you haven't done yet?

shanemhansen 7y ago

I don't disagree with the study results. I guess talking about a thing can be a substitute for doing it. But as others have mentioned, publicly committing to a specific measurable goal can help others hold you accountable.

deleted 7y ago

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enobrev 7y ago

Does reserving a domain name fall under the category of "Announcing your plans"? If so, my experience absolutely correlates with this. I might as well save my ideas to pocket. At least that's a free way to keep really interesting things I'll never see again.

empressplay 7y ago
Ah, yes... domain name addiction. Been there, done that =)

tempsy 7y ago

Hm. I've heard the exact opposite e.g. if you want to keep yourself accountable about doing something then you should tell everyone you know that you're doing it.

dx87 7y ago
I think that only works if you tell people that will hold you accountable, like if you tell your spouse that you'll mow the lawn, they'll hold you to it. If you're posting "I'm going to lose weight this year!" on social media, people probably won't hold you accountable and you'll still be glad that you collected a bunch of likes and thumbsups without having to accomplish anything.

hi41 7y ago

How would this work in the context of work in a team? Say you have an idea for fixing a bug. Without telling the manager about your intent how could you actually work on it? The manager comes quickly to find where all your hours went doing what pursuit.

dpedu 7y ago
Managers aren't hour bean counters or people you need permission from to do work. Of course, I'm not speaking of toxic environments.

btbuildem 7y ago

I call this "letting all the steam go to the whistle instead of the wheels"

RocketSyntax 7y ago

How else can you get validation?

viburnum 7y ago

Announcing plans is good because then you can actually get some satisfaction from it. You’re never going to accomplish anything anyway so you might as well take the happiness where you can get it.

zarro 7y ago
I don't think that they understood your next level satire.

nomilk 7y ago

Reminds me of a quote from Sara Blakely: “I was very careful right away, it was a gut instinct that I had, to keep it to myself because I believe ideas are most vulnerable in their infancy, and it’s instinct to turn to your right or left in that moment and tell a friend, or tell your husband, and the moment you do that ego is invited into the mix, and then you end up spending all your time defending it, explaining it, and not pursuing it” How I Built This podcast (9m20s)

wccrawford 7y ago
I have definitely had my battles with people who want to poke holes in my plans, rather than support me. They think they're helping me, but they aren't. They're just killing my enthusiasm. If I'd been left to try, I'd have worked hard at it, had an experienced, learned some things, and maybe even accomplished it. Instead, they did their best to stop me. I now snap at people who do this to me. I no longer let them throw problem after problem at me, and instead shut them down before they can destroy my dream. I accomplish a great many of the things I try, and I get exercise and knowledge from the failures.
- svantana 7y ago
  That's too bad. I invite criticism of my projects, because I want to make sure I'm not fooling myself. Other people's perspective can shine new light on a problem and force you to reconsider the idea, hopefully leading to improved design.
  - nefitty 7y ago
    This makes sense to keep in mind. It seems like there's a danger that some personalities will pursue a goal single-mindedly if there are absolutely no critical obstacles in their way. Not to beat a dead horse, but the Fyre Fest incident comes to mind. If the leads on that project had encountered more "No" would they have stopped, or at least scaled back, to something more achievable? This presumes positive intent in that case, though, which I'm not too sure of there.
  - 7y ago

dimitar 7y ago

Caveat for team and organizations: often leadership announces grand initiatives with great fanfare and the lack of follow-up, perceived or real makes people cynical. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid announcing your plans if you expect others to follow you - its possible people don't understand what you want to achieve and end up just as frustrated. This is part of a leaders job. I like what TA said about "make sure not to say it as a satisfaction but as dissatisfaction"- definitely keeping the focus on what you want to fix is better than the specific solution you've devised - you might end up finding a better solution anyway and people will help you do it. Make announcements on small sub-plans often and follow-up even more often, so that people know feel that whatever you want to implement in your team/organization is happening. Definitely tell them a long-term goal, but keep the focus on the next task that needs to be done. And make the "small" announcements at the moment you feel you are ready to answer all questions the team might ask you, but not earlier. So, to be effective in an organization you need to do "continuous announcing" of small plans.

LanceH 7y ago
The rule for big corporations is that you must announce your plans and make them as grand as possible to build your budget/empire. This is necessary to prevent a takeover from one of the other many groups doing the exact same thing within the company.

mrcoder111 7y ago

I really hate this article. Pretty much everything I've ever accomplished in my life is because I speak it into existence and hold myself accountable. But then again, if you're the type of person who makes things happen, you don't rely on crappy psychology studies to tell you how to live your life.

wccrawford 7y ago
I've seen a lot of these "successful people do this thing!" stories, but after years of reading them and watching how people act, I've come to the conclusion that those people are successful by nature first, and all these things they do are helpers, not enablers. Doing that thing won't turn people into successes. These things are crutches that successful people use to improve themselves, not something that they learned in order to be successful. They'd be successful either way, this is just easier.
agota 7y ago
I think most people struggle with holding themselves accountable. You are fortunate if you are an outlier in that regard.
erobbins 7y ago
I'm not the type of person who makes things happen. Especially if I can now fail in a public and embarrassing way having told people my plans. If I keep things to myself I end up generally doing better.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

I find this has cut both ways in my life. In piano, it was always my goal to play Chopin Ballade No 1. After ~5 years of playing, I heard it and KNEW I wanted to learn it. It was only around ~15 years in, when I got the gumption and a teacher who didn't put the idea down, I signed up for a concert to play it, and I was FORCED to learn it. At that point, announcing to friends/family enhanced my practice, because I knew it'd occur on X date and I knew the beastly passages would require dozens of hours of repetition each. On the other hand, the number of pieces I have stated my intention to learn, and never done so, is far greater than the number of pieces I actually know. I think it's just so easy to say "I love this piece, I'm going to learn it." Well, that took 5 seconds to say, but it will take 100 hours to learn the piece. So, for me, it comes down to how truly/deeply motivated I am to begin with. If it's something I truly want, announcing makes no difference. If it's something I'm lukewarm on, I'm probably likely to announce something impulsively and commit myself to something I didn't think through.

smacktoward 7y ago

Or as Al Swearengen put it on the best TV show ever, HBO's Deadwood: "Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh."

CM30 7y ago

Wonder if the feeling of being overwhelmed by the work involved in carrying out said plans feeds into this somehow. I mean, it's very easy to get carried away when planning things, and end up creating an absolutely enormous list of requirements you 'need' to meet to finish the project, many of which may require knowing more about the field to proceed. That's certainly been an issue with my own projects, where the 'plan' ends up being more in line with the current HTML 5 specification in terms of length. Meanwhile whenever I don't announce my plans/write them down in any way, it works better because I just get on with stuff and stop get sidetracked by irrelevant details and extras. Also, announcing plans publically gets everyone hyped up about something to the point its original creator may struggle to get said project to live up to its own hype.

tunesmith 7y ago

Note the followup link he posts at the end: https://www.bassam.com/single-post/CSI-TED-Talks-What-Derek-Sivers-Was-Really-Saying https://www.bassam.com/single-post/CSI-TED-Talks-What-Derek-... Where it comes out in support of stating goals in some circumstances, and clarifies that what it's really against is saying things like "I want to be a lawyer", because then what that means is that you'll be apt to behave consistently with wanting to be a lawyer, and not with taking the steps to actually become a lawyer. (Or how my yoga-instructor friend explained it, "So then the universe responds, 'ok, poof! You now want to be a lawyer!'")

esotericn 7y ago
Precisely. You don't "want" to stick to a vegan diet. You have a vegan diet. The distinction is roughly, between a goal, and a plan. A plan is something that you can immediately begin executing upon. That doesn't mean you won't falter, or that it has to be an on/off switch style revolution, but there's a clear set of things to do. A goal is embryonic. You don't know how, or if, you can achieve it yet.
- hollerith 7y ago
  I am skeptical. Human desires are a thing, and I am going to continue to assume that there is a good reason they are a thing until I have a very detailed and very well tested explanation for why there is no harm in replacing all of my desires with plans.
  - milohax 7y ago
    I think I understand you. At a lower level, there is a very good reason why, during our teenage years, we develop our prefrontal cortex to moderate between our desires and our actions (and why for all of us, going from childlike "I see, I want, I do" to adult "I see, I want, I plan, I evaluate, I might do") is so traumatic. That, or you've made a subtle joke which I'm not quite seeing :-)
deleted 7y ago
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notjustanymike 7y ago

I'd be interested in seeing what happens when someone else announces your plans. You don't get the same payoff, but still feel the obligation.

honkycat 7y ago

I've heard the exact opposite from a lot of people I respect. That announcing plans and communicating with your peers and getting support and accountability for your plans actually increases the likelihood of success. But I mean, that doesn't let you shit on the "posers" so whatever.

Pabss 7y ago
I believe that communicating a plan already in motion is not the same as expressing an idea one might have. If I understood correctly this article points out to the latter. While having already a plan in motion, you will want to share it with the people and colleagues that you want in order to continue an idea. But if you have an idea that you want to set in motion, and just share it around with everyone there's a high chance that it wont kick off.

hartator 7y ago

yeah I have this feeling as well. At the same time if someone asking “what’s up?” and you say nothing, I feel like lying.

shadowmore 7y ago

Oh, thank God, I'm not crazy.

magashna 7y ago

The best thing I did last year was going to a gym 2 weeks before xmas and getting a membership and a trainer. I didn't tell anyone, I didn't make it my "new year resolution", I just went and did it. I'm still happily chugging along about 10 months later.

mindgam3 7y ago

This very much depends on how motivated you are by external validation. For some people, the fear of losing social capital by not following through on a public commitment is motivating enough to accomplish stretch goals. Source: used this technique to overcome my own procrastination trying to launch my first app as a solo founder. It worked, and I went on to raised a million VC to see if I could scale up the vision of a social goals app. The downside of relying on external validation, as I learned the hard way, is when your self improvement startup goes down in flames, you really feel like a fuckup.

rubbingalcohol 7y ago
I announce my projects so people can tell me how stupid I am and it makes me more determined to succeed and show them how they are actually the ones who are stupid. I guess I'm petty like that.
- mindgam3 7y ago
  I feel that. One could argue that all ambitious entrepreneur types are motivated at least partly by a burning desire to prove that the other guy or “the system” is in fact the asshole.
  - fhbdukfrh 7y ago
    I don't agree. True ambition is very self centered, almost egotistic. The detractors never have as much invested as you and are largely irrelevant. You don't do it because they say you can't, you do it because they don't even exist.
- phkahler 7y ago
  Defiance. Often a negative trait, sometimes a motivator. Learn to control and harness it.
- fhbdukfrh 7y ago
  Shouldn't you be doing this as a positive for yourself, instead of for a negative, external motivator?

furyofantares 7y ago

The number of things that I have an impulse to accomplish vastly exceeds my physical ability to accomplish them. This used to cause me great frustration but I’ve learned that I get a lot of value out of thought exploration, even if I can’t tell the difference between something I’ll want to stick with and something I’ll want to dump at any specific stage in the process. If I announce my plans and am left without a need to follow through, that’s great. Apparently I didn’t really have a need for the thing, I just had a need for exploration, and I didn’t know that’s all I needed from the idea yet. I have plenty of things I want to do and can move on to the next thing.

dreeves 7y ago

This is (mostly) wrong. Sivers himself seems to have regretted how his talk was interpreted and posted this semi-retraction: https://sivers.org/zipit2 https://sivers.org/zipit2 But identity-based goal or not, the conclusion that you make yourself less likely to achieve a goal by telling people about it defies common sense. I mean, here's the peer-reviewed science saying my common sense is wrong -- http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Seifert_Michalski_When_Intentions_.pdf http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Se... -- but this is a psychology paper from 2009 so I'm willing to bet real money on common sense, despite seeing no obvious flaw with the paper.

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
A single psychology paper showing a certain result is some evidence, but it's not much. Replication crisis and all that. With that said, it does make some intuitive sense to me (not that that counts as evidence either!). It may be that the pressure to change is relieved somewhat simply by announcing plans to do so.
v64 7y ago
Not generalizing, but for me personally, I'll often tell people about my plans as a way to hold myself to them. If I keep it to myself, it's easy for me to talk myself out of it, but once it's out there to other people and I know they're going to ask me for followup, I can commit.
- kyllo 7y ago
  I always think this way, but once I make a commitment, now I basically have a deadline, which for me, causes the procrastination impulse to kick in, and it takes effort to fight it. I think that telling someone I'm going to do something makes me want to do it a little bit less because now I'm doing it for them, not for myself.
  - v64 7y ago
    Yeah, I think it's definitely something that will vary by personality. I'm somewhat of a people pleaser so the external motivation works well for me.

zarro 7y ago

How about keeping a plan secret makes you more motivated to accomplish it. In the opposite case, you were already rewarded before the successful action, in this case, you will only get the reward once it succeeds. It forces you to focus on accomplishing instead of on giving off the appearance that you will be successful. Although often the former may depend on the latter.

dzink 7y ago

The article linked is not the one of the actual study. Here is the actual study: https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/sites/6235/2019/02/gollwitzer-et-al-2009-when-intentions-go-public.pdf https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/site... A cursory look shows the study talks about identity projection and actions (law students given extra material and asked to watch it, are less likely to watch it if they have told their observer they are going to watch it). However the difference is 1 minute of less watching and could be attributed to other factors. Additionally, the same author has published research 5 years later (https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/sites/6235/2019/02/ahn-et-al-2015-goal-projection-in-public-places.pdf https://s18798.pcdn.co/motivationlab/wp-content/uploads/site...) that explains goal projection in public places is helpful as " is part of our everyday life and is fostered by high-goal commitment, perceiving others as similar, and ongoing goal striving.". So it is one thing to say you are going to be better at something by own self-study, but another when you are actually pursuing something and need help to achieve it. Announcing something allows you to connect with others sharing the same goal to get help or community, and shows you continue to be committed. Feel free to read the studies and see if you can draw other conclusions, but this is not as black and white as the article claims.

matwood 7y ago

I don't know about plans, but it does help to identify as 'the person who...' as long as those are the attributes you want. The person who executes or the person who is in shape or eats well are all positive traits that can be cultivated and self-reinforce. For me, there is more general bang for the popsci buck in the above than announcing plans.

baxtr 7y ago

But then again: dreaming about startups will help you avoid pursuing a crazy career with no guarantee that it will work out. I often dream about startups that I could do and vividly imagine how successful they’d be. It feels really good. Then I stop and tell myself that I’ll never do it

dang 7y ago

A thread from 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496923 Discussed at the time (and submitted by the author): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660720

ada1981 7y ago

#BuildTheWall #LockHerUp

nonbirithm 7y ago

I was torn on this. I don't want to feel like I'm shouting into the void if I'm working on something creative, because I do want other people to see what I make eventually. It seems to be reasonable to say that criticism is helpful if you're trying to get better at something (and take it in good faith). At some point that means releasing something to the public. But I had been conflating finished work with the work needed to finish things. I'm also very tempted to reach out to people about what I want to get better at since I tend to seek validation externally. But only I can actually put in any effort towards my own goals. Now my policy is to just shut up about it and put all that effort I could be spending speaking empty promises that haven't been fulfilled into putting my head down and doing things myself. Reaching out to people comes after you have something to show. At the same time I want to meet people who are creative and that means outing yourself as creative also if you want that connection. It's hard putting in all that effort and being unable to talk to people about it.

kelnos 7y ago

I find this incredibly transformative, more than I expected when clicking on the link. Intuitively, I always believed that announcing my plans would sort of put me on the hook for completing them. That if I announced something and later didn't deliver, I'd feel ashamed. Obviously avoiding shame wouldn't be the only thing motivated me, but I figured I could add shame-avoidance to the list of motivations and make things overall stronger. But this is definitely something to think about, and try to apply to myself.

doyoulikeworms 7y ago

I definitely buy this. I've blogged about personal projects, and writing out plans for a project tends to take some wind out of its sails. It's motivating to share progress, though.

audiometry 7y ago

https://interruptions.net/literature/Wicklund-BASP81.pdf https://interruptions.net/literature/Wicklund-BASP81.pdf Is my go-to reference article. The idea of 'symbolic self completion' resonates so strongly with my personal experiences that 'talking depletes'. The less said about what you're working on, what your goals are, how you want to be, the better. The book "Ego is the Enemy" also explains this effect. (It may have been the origin idea that led me to chase down the research paper in the first place)

NoPicklez 7y ago

I think it's just safe to say that it depends on what motivates you. It's been known for a very long time that announcing plans creates a form of external accountability, which might be motivation for a number of people, but not for some. So saying that announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them I think is too much of a blanket statement.

thatgerhard 7y ago

This is my personal way of doing things, if its my own plan where I wont need any outside parties, nobody hears about it

indoor47 7y ago

So, do OKRs then make any sense?