Don't Count Your Chickens...

A blog post by Derek Sivers links to evidence that stating one's goals makes one less likely to accomplish them.

Excerpt:

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed.

A blog post by Derek Sivers links to evidence that stating one's goals makes one less likely to accomplish them.

Excerpt:

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed.

All the books say to tell people when you stop smoking - to allow for peer pressure effects. I think that way is more common.

All the books say to tell people when you stop smoking

Just because all the books say it, doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. There are three major confounding factors in self-help literature:

People repeat ideas that sound good
Some procedures are shibboleths or survivor-bias filters. That is, if you're willing to tell people you've quit, it's likely correlated with your actual judgment of your ability to do so. Thus, the procedure gets credit for success, and the person who can't bring themselves to do it gets the blame for failure.
There ar

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