"The science behind (NOT) accomplishing your goals"

Do you ever find yourself setting a goal, running to all of your friends and family and telling them what you plan to do for their "support" but end up not actually accomplish them?

There's scientific claims that perhaps everything you've heard about all of the goal setting claims out there could be dead wrong and perhaps that's the reason why you can't get anything done!

88% of resolutions fail and a lot of people look to find something that will help them accomplish their goals.

There's a lot of humbug out there!

For instance, the Laws of Attraction claims that somehow just your "vibrations" of wanting something will make it happen. Because of this "fact", clearly telling everyone else you know too will only help it become a reality more!

Try telling that to a third world community when they say "I want food." 

I hope you see why this is insulting. There is absolutely no science to back up this claim that somehow your thoughts attract certain events outside of your brain. That's not the case at all and that idea comes from a few "Life Coaches" who listen to Deepak Chopra and his new age pseudoscience of Quantum Mechanics. This new trend is definitely a derivative of those new age ideas, and using these gimmicks actually may produce the opposite effect of what you want.

The fact of the matter is we have advanced quite a lot in the field of neuroscience and we can scientifically study and investigate these human problems and mishaps and understand why they happen and how we can change it.

I saw an interesting TEDTalk on the subject in which Derek Sivers a CEO gives a presentation exhibiting studies that show people that talk about their goals before accomplishing them are less likely to do so and why.

Dopamine acts as your brains motivator, when you desire something it triggers your neurotransmitters and releases dopamine and you begin to feel pleasure from the anticipation of wanting something almost identical to the pleasure of acquiring what you want. 

The difference is that your brain becomes really attached to your possessions and not so attached to goals. 

It may be possible that the more we talk about our goals, the more our brains are convinced we have achieved them and therefore we get less and less dopamine the more we talk about them.

Believing in the false claims made by new age self help media and life coaches is bad for you because it's not a science and the facts actually show that by thinking about what you want over and over again  actually make you feel less motivated and trick your brain into thinking you're closer to your goal than you really are.


Opinion:

A lot of the disappointment that follows by not accomplishing a goal could come from the embarrassment from having told everyone you know and now you feel like it was expected of you and you've made yourself look foolish.

That's motivation enough to keep quiet!

You are probably less likely to accomplish your goals by reading about how other people tell you to accomplish your goals. There are some goals not worth accomplishing, some goals you clearly didn't really want, and some you didn't want for the right reasons.

You will accomplish the goals (most of the time) that assist your needs and some accomplishments that weren't even goals... just accidental awesomeness. There will also be cases in which you actually DID accomplish a goal and found out later it really wasn't what you wanted, so perhaps it's good we fail 88% of the time.

Try to expect a little less from your outcomes and expect more from the process or journey of your actions, it will make your goals worthy of wanting and you will feel even better about accomplishing them. 

(For the evidence of my claims please refer to the Standford study, published in Neuron by Dr. Brian Knutson and site the research conducted by Emily Balcetis and David Dunning, published in the Psychological Science journal)