Back in 10th grade when we were preparing for the English regents, my teacher told everyone to write on the top of their loose-leaf papers, “I want to get a 100 on my English regents”. At first, I just thought it was a one time thing but when she told us to do that every day, I was annoyed and curious. I wondered what difference would writing it everyday make if I wasn’t working hard and studying.
As my frustration increased, I decided to ask my teacher why she wanted us to write “I want to get a 100 on my English regents” everyday in our notebooks. She replied with a smile, “Raj, Writing it again and again will motivate you more and more and you will work harder to achieve it”. “Really” I wondered. Huh, what a misconception! I totally disagreed with my teacher. She was simply making us think that we will get a 100 just by writing it on a piece of paper. Huh!!
A recent article on Newsweek calls announcing goals “traditional” and a plain myth. New York University psychologist Peter Gollwitzer and his colleagues did an experiment in which some of his some law students kept their goals private while some had made them public. Then the students were given difficult cases to analyze and were told to work very hard. When the results came out, NYU psychologist found that the ones who kept their goals private worked hard and others did not.
Law students who made their goals public did the talking but didn’t put all their effort into the work. Many times when we announce our goals, we lose our focus and feel overconfident. Thus, simply announcing a goal won’t make you achieve it, you actually have to work for it and that work requires real effort.
Author: Raj Malhotra
