Happy New Year to everyone at Wise and Shine. Wishing a good year for all our readers and our team. I hope that you have an abundance of health, wealth and happiness.

As we begin a new year we reflect on the past year, making plans for the year ahead. We engage in the custom of making New Year Resolutions. I’ve done my bit too, and you can check out my plans for 2024 on my personal blog.

Effectiveness of sharing resolutions

Many New Year Resolutions made tend to remain unfulfilled, even up to 92% . They’re made on a whim, not thought through thoroughly. We may make them with the best of intentions, but without proper planning, they’re less likely to succeed. I’m sure there will be and are already many posts about writing goals/objectives and making New Year Resolutions that stick, so I’m not going there this time. Instead, I’m going to look at the psychology behind whether or not we share our intentions with others or keep them to ourselves. Especially when remember that only 8% of resolutions are successful.

Some literature, Forbes for example, says we should share our goals for accountability and support as we work on our goals. But even as I wrote my companion post sharing my goals I wondered if sharing is always a sensible approach. Might there be an argument for not sharing our goals, only sharing our successes?

An example of sharing

Around 30 I decided to go to university. This was after a 2 year absence from work due to illness. This was quite a major decision and not something I could typically keep quiet from anyone. Besides anything else, I was excited and I wanted those who were important to me to share my excitement.

My sister is 2.5 years younger than me and continued in education after leaving school eventually progressing to university where she failed exams, repeated years until she left. She was the only person in my extended family to have gone to university. Therefore, some years later, when I decided to study at university, I felt additional pressure of what I perceived to be family expectations that given my sister had failed, I would too. I felt the weight of expectations to succeed. I did, of course suceed, however, I wonder if that pressure was necessary.

Reflections on sharing

From my example I can see why sometimes it might be better not to share our goals as we don’t need the additional external pressure, or the comparison they or we might make. I must admit I got past this when I passed my first year as it took my sister 3 attempts to do the same.

What I take from reflecting on this is that we possibly put ourselves under more pressure than others do. I was imagining what I felt others were thinking, I’ve never asked them but I suspect they didn’t compare us. It was just me doing that. Its so easy to put ourselves under undue pressure to succeed and sometimes if its possible not to share objectives, it might reduce stress as we work towards their achievement.

What do you, dear reader, think? Might there be merit in not sharing our objectives, or are the benefits from sharing our goals greater. Would you share or keep quiet? What have you done about your own goals?

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