In the past I used to talk about projects I wanted to do in the near future in my journals. I was always very excited about them when I was writing the journal entry and felt a greater need to share them because of that. Unfortunately, none of the goals or projects I have discussed have been fulfilled. At first, I thought I was just lazy, or was unconfident with my artistic skills. Those probably were contributing factors but apparently there is a psychological factor. It has something to do with being a human.

There's this video on TED Talks about this. If I remember correctly, In the video the speaker asked the audience to come up with a goal they want to complete eventually - it could be soon or in the far future. He then told them to tell it to the people beside them. He then said,

"Don't you feel invigorated and excited that you have a great goal to work towards? Do you feel any closer to your goal now that you told someonw? Well, the truth is you're not. You haven't done anything, so you are exactly where you started."

Then he went on to explain that since we feel like we are closer to our goal when we tell someone about it even though we haven't started yet, we are less inclined to begin. Basically we feel that we can put it off a bit since we are already underway when in fact we haven't gotten closer at all. I have done this more times than I can count.

So, the thing to take from this is to wait until you have already begun working towards your goal before telling someone. By doing that, you won't be blinded by the exhilaration you get when you tell someone your goal because you have actually started and have a real sense of how close you really are. By how much work you have already done so far you have a feeling of how much more work you need to do in order to reach your goal.

I thought that my Japanese studies were an exception to this, but remembering back I realized that I had started doing a lot of work before I told anyone. I had already found some materials to get me started (Textfugu, Smart.fm) and I had already begun learning Hiragana and Katakana. And now, two years later, I am at an Intermediate to Upper Intermediate level and well on the path to fluency. Which goes to show that keeping it to yourself until you really get underway most likely guarantees that you will reach it eventually. Actions definitely speak louder than words.

So, from now on I will keep all my goals to myself until I have some work to show for them.

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