Why You Should Talk About Your Goals
How do humans improve their lives? Ultimately, through agency. We possess the capacity to direct our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors toward outcomes we desire, to imagine a better future and work to realize it. Goals serve as the concrete expression of our agency in action. When we set a goal and work toward it, we are taking responsibility for improving our own lives.
We all know other people help us in various ways. But given the personal nature of agency, that our ability to imagine, plan, and pursue goals happens within our own minds, it is easy to forget the extent to which close relationships can support us in pursuing individual goals. New research on talking to others about our goals provides a useful reminder that agency also has a social dimension.
In this research, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, psychologists Johanna Peetz, Roger Buehler, and Tayler Wells examined whether sharing personal goals with others enhances goal pursuit. Specifically, across four longitudinal studies involving over 1,000 participants, they tracked whether goal disclosure leads to receiving more support from others and ultimately facilitates greater effort to achieve goals.
In these studies, participants identified personally important goals they had been working toward. These included things like losing weight, completing a degree, learning a new skill, or saving money. The researchers then examined what happened when people shared these goals compared to keeping them private. In some studies, participants naturally chose whether to share their goals. In others, researchers randomly assigned participants either to share their goals with someone or to keep them private, then followed up a week later to measure social support received and effort invested.
First, the researchers found that when people chose to share their goals, they most often did so through conversations with those closest to them. About 80 percent told their romantic partner, while others confided in family members (45 percent), friends (37 percent), or colleagues (12 percent). Very few (5 percent) posted about their goals on social media. Goal sharing tends to be an intimate, relational experience rather than a public announcement.
In addition, participants who told someone about their goals reported receiving significantly more support from others in the form of reminders, encouragement, or practical resources. And they were more likely to receive support from the specific people they told. If you told your romantic partner about your goal, your partner was far more likely to help you pursue it. The same pattern held for friends, family members, and others. Importantly, those who shared their goals also reported investing considerably more effort into pursuing them.
Across most of the studies, the researchers found that the effect of sharing goals on goal pursuit effort appeared to be at least partially driven by the support people received. This pattern suggests that one important way goal sharing works is by activating supportive responses from the people we tell.
Most of us have experienced setting ambitious goals only to struggle to stay the course when faced with temptations, obstacles, and daily distractions. Sometimes we simply lose our motivation to persist on a goal, especially one that is difficult and will take a long time to achieve. This is where the social side of agency becomes especially important. When we tell someone about a goal, we invite them into our self-regulation process. They can remind us of what we are working toward when we get distracted, offer encouragement when we face setbacks, or provide practical resources like information or accountability. Indeed, the researchers measured various forms of support and found that participants who shared goals reported receiving multiple types of help.
We typically frame goals in terms of our own motivation, willpower, and self-discipline. We often celebrate individual agency and self-reliance, and rightfully so. Personal responsibility and self-direction are indeed vital. But this research shows that even our most personal ambitions are embedded in social contexts, and our relationships have direct implications for how effectively we regulate ourselves and pursue our goals. Our agentic capacities are most effective when we strategically involve others. Sharing our aspirations with people who care about us enhances our capacity to follow through on the futures we envision for ourselves.
This insight takes on particular significance when we consider broader trends in American social life. In recent decades, marriage rates have declined, young people date less, Americans eat more meals alone, fewer people host or attend in-person social gatherings, and people have fewer close friends. When we discuss these trends, we tend to focus on how they may be contributing to problems such as rising rates of depression and anxiety, eroding social trust, deepening political polarization, and widespread pessimism about the future. But this goal-sharing research highlights something else. Our close relationships aren’t just important for our mental health or for societal wellbeing. They also play a crucial role in helping us achieve the aspirations we often view as purely individual pursuits. When we think about the costs of social disconnection, we should consider the loss of support for our personal ambitions.
The research offers practical guidance. The finding that people naturally tend to share goals with close others in conversational settings, combined with evidence that such sharing leads to increased support and effort, suggests a straightforward strategy. If you have a goal you are serious about achieving, consider having a conversation about it with someone you trust. Choose someone you believe will be supportive, whether that is a romantic partner, close friend, family member, or mentor. The conversation does not need to be formal or elaborate.
When others share their goals with you, recognize that you are being invited to play a supporting role in something important to them. Even simple expressions of encouragement or occasional reminders can make a meaningful difference.
Our goals are how we translate our hopes for the future into concrete plans and behaviors. By thoughtfully involving others through the simple act of sharing our goals, we activate social resources that support our self-regulation and enhance our ability to make progress on the aspirations that improve our lives and the lives of others. This is human agency at its best, not isolated individualism but rather individuals strategically using their social connections to achieve their full potential.
Have a great weekend!
Clay