Why You SHOULD Tell People About Your Goals

Flipping The Script

Don’t tell people about your goals. You’ll never get them done.

At the start of my self-improvement journey, I believed that saying too.

This commonly given advice, most recently popularized by the likes of Andrew Huberman (who put it in science terms), has made hundreds of thousands of people keep their goals in the shadows.

The advice goes something like this: If you tell people about your goals before you’ve started them, you are getting the same type of dopamine and other rewards you would get from having completed said goal.

Therefore, the more people you tell, the less likely you are to actually go after that goal and achieve it.

But what if I told you this can have the opposite of it’s intended effect?

Achievements Require Urgency

For the past 9 months, I’ve been working on the biggest project of my life (which some of you are aware of):

My very first short film for YouTube.

The scope of this project far exceeded any video I’ve ever done.

With an entire screenplay needing to be written, actors to be hired, and locations to be scouted, I estimated the amount of time required to make this film come into being would be upwards of 500 hours.

I believe I made my first announcement regarding my short film in June of 2022, somewhere on social media.

At the time, there were no real deadlines set. I just put the idea out into the world that I wanted to make a short film soon by telling my audience.

Bad idea.

Just like the common advice fortold, I briefly started the screenplay, but went months without making any actual progress on it.

This was a massive problem. If I wanted to make this dream come to fruition, I would need to create some sort of urgency.

So in August, I told a few people who asked in my livestreams/comment section that I would try and have the film done by the end of the year.

It still wasn’t a big enough commitment.

While I did have a rough deadline, it didn’t create the urgency my brain needed, nor did I tell enough people.

But regardless, through my own willpower, I managed to finish the screenplay on a flight back from Italy in early October.

This is when I made my first official announcement to my YouTube channel about the film.

And while I didn’t have an exact date, I did say I’d like to have it completed by the end of the year.

I started the process of finding actors and scouting locations. I hired a videographer to help with shooting, and all the equipment. And by early December, 90% of the scenes had been shot.

All that was left to do at that point, was edit.

But because I still did not have the exact date I wanted the film to be completed, I let other tasks and priorities get in the way.

Finally, after months of ambiguous commitment, I set a concrete deadline of an early 2024 release. And I announced this in a community post a couple months ago.

The result?

I’ve now spent the past month making more progress on editing/filming the very last scenes than I did in the first 7 months of flimsy preparation.

All it took was ACTUALLY committing to a proper deadline, and telling a host of people who were counting on me to abide by that deadline.

So this is where the common advice fails.

If nobody knows about your goals, AND you have no deadline for when you want to achieve it, you have basically zero reason to fully commit to them.

But if you have at least one person—who believes in you, who has an idea of who you could be if you put in the work, and holds you to a certain standard—and you have a hard deadline with an actual date, you will do everything in your power to see that you hit that goal.

It’s why I instantly started increasing my weekly mileage from 4 miles a week to roughly 20 miles a week when I signed up for a marathon.

It’s why I instantly started studying Japanese every single day for at least 30 minutes once I bought my flight to Japan a month ago.

And on top of that, I told people I would be doing these things, so I had the accountability from people who see me in a high regard—mainly which, are my subscribers/followers.

Start announcing your goals to the world with a concrete deadline, and you will get more done in the time between the start of the deadline’s announcement, and the end of the deadline, than you have gotten done in the past months, or years that you’ve been keeping your goals a secret.

But remember: this ONLY works when you have at least one person whom you could potentially dissapoint if you were to not complete the goal in the allotted time.

Don’t have that in real life?

Well allow me, and the people in my free community to be that for you.

Join my free self-improvement community by clicking here, and make a post announcing a goal of something you want to do by a given date.

You might also be able to find a good accountability partner through that process as well.

Speaking of my short film…

A Massive Announcement

This email will be the first place where I announce the official date and time of my first self-improvement short film, which will be free to watch on YouTube.

“The Weight Of What Could Be” (which will probably be titled something else on YouTube to optimize for the algorithm) will be released on March 10th, 2024 at 11AM CST.

Set a reminder in your calendar if you wanna catch the premiere.

I cannot wait for you to see all the work that’s been put into this project.

Having Deep Accountability

The only thing that’s been more fulfilling than creating videos that have the potential to reach millions of people and positively impact their lives, is working with people in a much more intimate, close matter through means of an online community.

I wanted to create a complete resource for you to learn every technique I’ve used to become the most mentally, physically and financially fulfilled I’ve ever been, all while being in an exclusive community that keeps each other accountable every single day.

And that is why I created my self mastery school.

The Ultimate Self Mastery School is a place for those who want to actualize their greatest potential, strengthen their self awareness, build better habits, and develop a fulfilling life.

The school features 14 videos with 15+ worksheets, a guided meditation, and an exclusive community where we all hold each other accountable and give further advice.

It’s a culmination of years of research on behavioral science, psychology, and of course, trial and error from my own life.

And it’s specifically designed for those who want to go deeper than superficial YouTube videos/articles, make close friends who uplift them, and gain a better understanding of themselves.

Being able to actually apply the advice you receive, and get consistent feedback from like-minded people are probably the two most important factors in seeing permanent change.

And I’m guessing you currently feel like you can’t talk to anyone in real life about your struggles with self-development, right?

That’s why our community meets in a group coaching call every other week to make sure we are all staying on the path towards self mastery.

It’s also been an incredible way for everyone to open up about things that they have been going through, have accountability surrounding the habits we are trying to build/remove, and get feedback and advice without judgement.

And because of that, the friendships in there feel genuine.

It’s easily the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever created.

Here's some recent wins from our community:

Watch the intro video on that page to see if the course is right for you.

Hope to see you in there.

Quote of The Week

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Cole