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The Goal Declaration Trap
9 Plays23 days ago
In this episode of Voice of Growth, Manny Teran explores the Goal Declaration Effect — a psychological phenomenon where publicly announcing goals can actually reduce the motivation needed to accomplish them.
Drawing from personal experience, Stoic philosophy, and insights from Atomic Habits, this episode explains why lasting success comes not from goals alone, but from systems, habits, and identity transformation.
If you want to understand how to build real momentum in your personal and professional life, this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast Theme
00:00:04
Speaker
The Voice of Growth, Mastering the Mind and Market. Welcome to the Voice of Growth podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host.
00:00:17
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This podcast is about personal and professional growth. We hear stories of entrepreneurship, those that succeeded, and those that failed and then succeeded.
Embracing Failure for Success
00:00:30
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We believe that failure is nothing more than a stepping stone if you're open enough to learn from your mistakes. I rely upon my experiences, but I also bring guests who have had tremendous success, who have had huge failures, and who are here courageous enough to discuss them with our audience.
00:00:54
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We rely on stoic principles as a means to guide us through business and in life, those that are there to support us in navigating the chaotic world that we live in and helping us to achieve and execute on our vision.
00:01:13
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Today's podcast is really going to the heart of some of the things that prevent us from getting to our full potential.
The Goal Declaration Effect
00:01:23
Speaker
One of those is called the goal declaration effect.
00:01:29
Speaker
I have succumbed to it many times. And if you think about it, you might have as well. So what is this fabled goal declaration effect? Essentially, If you have a vision, if you have an idea and you contemplate it, you think about it internally, you maybe map some things out, maybe you look online, you begin to put a framework together and you've got this this impetus, you've got this energy towards that goal, towards that vision.
00:01:57
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Well, here's what happens. We then get excited about it and we begin to announce it to everybody around us. We get excited because we feel as though the world needs to know about this amazing idea.
00:02:12
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Well, this gold declaration effect prevents us from actually getting to that next level. What this is, is by declaring our idea, by declaring what we believe is going to be our vision realized, we knock the air and the energy out of ourselves in order to get that thing done.
00:02:38
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I'm sitting here in our beautiful motor coach that we're converting into our podcast studio.
Personal Story: RV Studio Challenge
00:02:44
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We bought this about a year ago with the idea that we are going to convert it into this amazing podcast studio to be able to not only do podcasts here in Tucson, but to travel regionally and eventually nationally with the podcast down the road.
00:03:03
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Now I went out and I told lots of people about it. After I had bought it, I was excited and I declared it. And by doing so, it knocked some of the wind out of my sails.
00:03:16
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Now, I say this in full transparency, vulnerable, because I got so excited, I began doing work on it, and the more time passed, the more I'd say, well, I'll work on it next weekend, or I'll work on it some other time, or we'll bring in people to do this or that.
00:03:33
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But what happened is life took over. Other projects came to be. moving into a new house. All these things took the energy, took that that wind out of my sail.
00:03:46
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And I say this because this weekend, I decided to get back to working on this. Now, I have chosen to work on the majority of this on my own for a number of reasons. First of all, I love working with my hands. I love getting involved.
00:04:02
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And also the details. For me to hire somebody to do this would have been a a bit of a Russian roulette. I would not know what the outcome would be. And since I was very particular about how I wanted things, I was going this myself.
00:04:17
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But what's happened is that I started of filming inside my living room and I really didn't give attention to this beautiful RV we've got here, this motor coach.
00:04:29
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And i see it every day and it's a project that I want to get involved with even more so, but I don't have that impetus.
Identity and Systems in Success
00:04:41
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So let me rewind a little bit. Let's talk about identity. Identity is this magic word that myself have only really understood over the past about three years.
00:04:55
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When we set goals, we have this idea that we put together this goal, we put it on a shelf, and then we're going to do all that we can to reach that said goal.
00:05:08
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The problem that we've seen, the problem that research supports, is that that's not good enough. So then you say, okay, now I'm gonna put this goal up on the shelf and I'm gonna put together a plan.
00:05:22
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And this plan is gonna have timelines, it's gonna have milestones and all of these other aspects, resources put to it, so forth. But we fall into the same trap. The trap is that we don't see, we don't connect the dots forward. We talked about this in a podcast about a month ago.
00:05:42
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And so what this really becomes is a challenge of identity. James Clear, that wrote the book Atomic Habits, laid it out for us all to read, to consume, and most importantly, to execute on.
00:05:58
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What James Clear said is that we don't need another goal. We need systems in place that will create habits, and those habits will help shape a new identity.
00:06:12
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And that identity is the kind of person we will become that will work on this RV, that will start that new business, that will go back and get their MBA.
00:06:23
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Whatever that might be for you, that identity needs to be brought back in stages so that we create these systems and then habits so that ultimately we can become that which we aspire to be.
00:06:40
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Might sound sound lofty, mount might sound far removed from our our thinking, But once you start to break it down, once you start to understand the psychology of it, it becomes more tangible of how we're going to do these things in our lives.
00:06:56
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Then there's the other camp.
Private Goal Declarations
00:06:59
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The camp that says, i am declaring this as a thing that will be as my goal. because I need accountability.
00:07:09
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I need to put it out there into the ether so that my peers, my loved ones, the community at large could hold me accountable for these things that I've proclaimed out in public.
00:07:22
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I happened to be one of those people pre three years ago that felt that way. I declared something, so then now I'm beholden to that declaration, my word, so that I can go out and get this done and so forth and so on.
00:07:39
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But what I've learned over the past three years in particular, that it takes more than that. So the framework that I've been working on is a combination of the two.
00:07:53
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It is a private declaration among your family members, your loved ones, maybe a small tight-knit group. We're talking about two or three people with a shift in how we build systems, habits, and ultimately identity.
00:08:13
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The caveat of doing it this way in this framework is that those people around us that we proclaim to towards this goal need to understand the framework in which we're operating from.
00:08:28
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They need to understand that systems need to be put in place so that habits are formed and ultimately identities are changed.
Incremental Progress Strategy
00:08:36
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Example, me declaring the fact that I wanted to create this beautiful, transform this beautiful RV into an r into a podcast studio needs to be put in motion with what systems I'm going to be put in place, what habits are gonna be formed, and ultimately what I proclaim this to be as a mobile podcast studio that will provide us the ability to create a lot more richer content in different places and ultimately create a gravitational pull
00:09:13
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driving down the the highway, going to these cities, setting up camp, bringing in the team, and create this buzz around the message that we're going out to the world with.
00:09:25
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Now, sounds like a mouthful, but here's how I'm beginning to break this down. I have tools in here. I have tools in my workshop. I have projects half started,
00:09:40
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not started at all. I have projects at all levels. You see the back here, the paneling, that's been one of the hardest things we've been working on. So the habits that I'm putting into place is that rather than dedicate an entire weekend or 40 hour period to work on this, I am putting together a system in place where every day, maybe every other day,
00:10:10
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I spend half an hour on something here. Whether that's some level of construction, whether that's planning, whether that is maintenance, whether that is bringing tools in here, bringing the right tools.
00:10:27
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Because sometimes I'm in here, my workshop is 150 feet away. So I feel this sort of Anchor that, man, I got to go with that tool. I got to come back and back and forth. And that that eats up a lot of time.
00:10:44
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So what if I do this? What if I instead come in here that one of these half an hour in the morning, identify what project I'm working on. And then my only goal for that day, my only milestone for that day, excuse me, is to bring the right tools so that the next day i can work on a small piece of the project.
00:11:06
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Now, I say this and I understand there's going to be moments and days where i I choose not to do it, but that is going to defeat the purpose of getting this out on a timely manner.
00:11:20
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So it doesn't mean that gonna be working on this for eight months straight. It means that I'm gonna be working on this until I am the person that is the captain of this ship.
00:11:35
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that identity shift, rather than set a gate, rather than say, this is what it's going to have to be before I start to do guest podcasts in here. No, instead, I'm going to be focused solely on the systems in place, bringing in tools over, spending half an hour in here in the morning to do a few things here and there.
00:11:57
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So that when I look backwards, when we connect the dots backwards, we realize that we've actually come quite a long way.
Task Prioritization with EMT Triage
00:12:04
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I look ah around and there is a list that is ever growing of the different aspects that need to be worked on for this project.
00:12:15
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Identifying them on a piece of paper in a big giant ah list can prove to be daunting and ominous, but could also prove to help narrow in and identify your priorities.
00:12:30
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When I was in search and rescue, when I did my EMT training back in the day, we had a component of that called triage. And triage is a methodology that I've actually taken to the business world, that I've taken to my personal world. And it does have a bit of a stoic angle. So let me explain what triage is.
00:12:53
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In the search and rescue EMT world, if there's a massive accident, if there's a massive issue, and there's dozens of people involved that are hurt or possibly killed, as a provider, you need to assess at each person what their level of rescue ability is, if you will.
00:13:20
Speaker
This person has a broken leg. All right, they get a green card. They can wait. It's not the end of the world. they're not as long as it's not a compound flag fracture, they're going to be fine. You go to the next person, they've got a massive arterial bleeding from their their their neck, and they're going to bleed out.
00:13:38
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Even though you'd love to help help them, they are beyond help. You give them a black card. And then you've got different levels in between that, people that may have something that's very, very complex and life-threatening, but with the right attention, you can you can actually save them.
00:13:56
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So triage is a crazy thing because you've got to make an instant, in-the-moment decision based on what information you have in front of me in front of yourself and what resources you have at play as well.
00:14:11
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This project doesn't represent that. I've got time. There's nobody who's going to die if I don't get things done. But I, at the same time, need to elevate the priority, elevate the the needs of these individual projects based on what I want to do as an identity, as a podcaster who has a mobile podcast platform.
00:14:40
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So I'm going to focus first on creating the space necessary behind me in order to do a guest podcast in this platform.
00:14:51
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On the other side of this of the camera are cabinets that are unpainted. There's aspects back there that are going to be less of a priority because I'm prioritizing getting a guest in here as soon as possible.
00:15:07
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So does that mean I'm cutting corners? No. It means I'm using my priorities in the right place so that I can achieve that identity sooner.
00:15:19
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The odd side of this motor coach is intact, but there are some things that need to be worked on. Lower priority. The engine and all the drivetrain and everything else that's involved in getting this thing moving, thankfully, is solid.
00:15:35
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But if there's maintenance issues that pop up, they will be addressed because it also plays into the ability to have somebody in this podcast, albeit one level below.
00:15:46
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I can operate this right now as it is parked on my property with no problem. So I'm beginning to give you some aspects here of how I will put this together.
00:15:59
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Now, you may say, Manny, you are basically going against your word by proclaiming these things to an audience and essentially giving more fuel to this goal declaration effect.
00:16:16
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And I would say, i agree with you. But the caveat is is that I'm actually taking this as a an example, a transparent example of the journey that I'm taking to get this podcast studio up and running.
00:16:33
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And my small circle are my actual um providers of that accountability I mentioned before. The cat's out of the bag already. I've already talked about this podcast studio in the port and in the past. I've discussed it with dozens of people on the outside world. I've been excited about it. I've gotten good feedback about it, but I still haven't gotten to the level where I need to get it.
00:16:59
Speaker
But i'm I'm changing my framework in that I'm i'm considering this interaction right now to be relatively one-sided. And in in the sense of, I do have friends and family that listen podcast and give me feedback. I'm sure I might hear things about it here and there.
00:17:15
Speaker
But fundamentally, I'm gonna work on this for myself, for my own identity, for the Voice of Growth podcast, for Perfectory, for what this mission is all about. And you've gotta be mission-driven.
00:17:27
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You've gotta be mission-driven.
CEO Responsibilities and Vision
00:17:29
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If we rewind, and I'll talk about what I see my job as as CEO. I also lead a company here in town. We've got lots of things at play, but I've been very clear with my staff and with those around me, and this is something I do not have any problem sharing, is three jobs as a CEO.
00:17:51
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The first of which is to set and execute the vision of the company. Number one, what are we all about? What are we becoming? What is our value to the world? All these things are basically my number one goal.
00:18:07
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My number two goal is to block and tackle. If my employees have an issue, I step in and I do my best to clear those issues, whether it's with vendors, whether it's for cashflow, whether it's resources, whether it's regulatory, whatever it might be, I'm going to step in, bring the right people to the table and get that done.
00:18:27
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And the third thing is to build up my employees. Now, it may not always be a a very clear, here is your A, B, C, D, F, G framework to help elevate your career.
00:18:43
Speaker
a lot of the times, because we're much smaller than other companies, we're only about 15 employees, I'm able to do this in a very um high touch level. very bespoke manner, very custom for the person, for the individual.
00:18:58
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And I try to use as many of my leadership skills in empowering my managers and my own leaders so that they can do that with their subordinates. Now, challenges come up, issues come up, opportunities come up.
00:19:16
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So my three goals are going to persevere and exist and move forward irrespective of what's happening in the world. It's very hard sometimes when the sky is seemingly fallen falling, but leaning back on our stoic principles, that of it's From one level of memento mori to amor fati to the other aspects of wisdom, courage, and temperance. you know Those are, for me, the fundamentals of what it really means. and of course, justice.
00:19:49
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Those are the pieces where I rely upon internally. And those that know me and have known me for a while understand that. When faced with difficult challenges, I am ah pretty good at managing them because I've learned triage, because I've learned the idea that at the end of the day, we're all gonna die.
00:20:12
Speaker
Again, crazy backdrop, but what it means is that I'm able to take a slower time in making decisions, but I do make a decision. Another aspect of leadership that moves the needle You've got to move. You've got to decide.
00:20:29
Speaker
If you sit on a project or something you need to make a decision on for days and weeks and months, things aren't going to get done.
00:20:40
Speaker
there is a lot of power in identifying something that comes up, making a quick decision if it needs to be made, and then if it isn't the right decision, you assess and reorient yourself and execute again.
00:21:02
Speaker
Now, the caveat to that, because nothing is, ever of course, a straight line, The caveat to that is when there is a fairly large monumental style decision that needs to be made.
00:21:15
Speaker
And in that case, i make the time and I sit on it overnight. But I make the decision the next day. When I have suffered the most in business and making decisions is when I've contemplated for so long and i build up this whole thing in my brain and it starts to affect my my motivation, my anxiety, all these things come into play.
00:21:40
Speaker
And then four, five, six, eight, nine, 10 days later, I'm still struggling with this decision. Then I make it and then everything changes. Looking back at moments when I haven't made a decision in ah and that sort of expeditious manner quickly, overnight, I've realized that I've lost.
00:22:03
Speaker
I have lost time, I've lost resources, I've lost money, I've lost employees from not acting fast enough. And I've made lots of bad decisions in my day.
00:22:15
Speaker
And I will continue to make bad decisions, but I will make decisions. And I'll do my very best. I'm leaning on my principles. I did a great podcast on Polaris, which is my creed.
00:22:27
Speaker
And in that creed, it defines what I value the most. And that, for me, has been a guiding light. So you have all these things that I've mentioned. You've got your goal declaration effect. you've got this idea of accountability.
00:22:45
Speaker
You've got, in my case, the three core principles of being a CEO. You have this four ah major stoic principles. I've talked about my creed, Polaris.
00:22:59
Speaker
So how do you juggle all these things? How do you identify which is the one you lean on? Well, the beauty of all these is that they are all tied together.
00:23:10
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They all work in harmony.
Harmony vs. Balance in Life
00:23:12
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They all work to support the other. I once worked for a very powerful, very smart, very driven, very well-balanced CEO.
00:23:25
Speaker
And I've shared this in the past and I'll share it again. This guy ran a $150 million dollars company. He had a lot of things on his shoulders, but he was still able to smile and be courteous and be driven and be assertive, but also had a family life and also had good health.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I once asked him, hey, Mark, how do you do it all? How do you balance it all? And I remember clear as day, he looked at me and he said, Manny, it's not about balance.
00:23:58
Speaker
all about harmony. And that blew my mind away. Harmony is the ability for these things to coexist and support one another.
00:24:10
Speaker
If you listen to an orchestra, you have the strings, you have the brass, you have percussion, you have all these things working together in harmony. And at the end of the day, this entire orchestra orchestra is one single voice.
00:24:26
Speaker
And balance, he told me, is extremely difficult. He said, have you ever seen a tight rope walker? Yeah, I've seen him, of course. Is it easy?
00:24:38
Speaker
No, not at all. And if you make a mistake, you're going to be shifted to one direction, you're going to be shifted another direction, and then ultimately you're you'll become wobbly and topple and fall. That's not what we have room for in our life.
00:24:52
Speaker
And harmony is better. Practically speaking, this is what it looks like. Harmony for me is that if I am having a very bad day at work, I've got lots of things going on, harmony is i will take an hour and a half lunch, a two hour lunch.
00:25:14
Speaker
I'll call a friend and say, hey, you wanna go grab some lunch? And that means that I'm able to harmonize and blend that into my life. On the other side, if I'm going on vacation and i need to take a call or I need to be on my my laptop for a bit, it's understood by my loved ones that that's part of the framework. That's part of the harmony.
00:25:39
Speaker
Harmony also has to do with my health. My health, I've prioritized my health over the past years. three years for sure, five years little bit beyond that, so that it's paramount.
00:25:51
Speaker
I was living an unhealthy life five, six, seven, eight years ago. My blood levels are you know weren't what they needed to be. i was overweight. I was drinking too much. i was wouldn't say I was tired a lot, but I didn't have the kind of energy that I have now.
00:26:06
Speaker
Focusing in on my health has given me that edge with people 20, 30 years younger than me, by the way, but also because of my wisdom, because I am humble and I'm um able to ask questions and come to the table of mentorship with those that I admire, those that I seek mentorship from with an open mind, with an open heart and with a conversational tone that I really want to learn.
00:26:37
Speaker
And my mentors come ah at all levels. they They are much older than me. They're younger than me. They are in different industries. And i have no pretense to know everything. No, absolutely not. I have a lot to learn and I'm thirsty to learn.
00:26:54
Speaker
And I really admire those leaders that have that same sensibility about them, that are open, that are vulnerable, and also that stand strong and are able to make those decisions.
00:27:09
Speaker
The interview I had with Terry Lundgren recently was fantastic. It gave me so much of a guiding light of here's this person who has transformed an industry.
00:27:25
Speaker
He really is a titan of real of of retail. He has done so much for Macy's and beyond. He's touched so many lives. And I look at somebody like him and I don't see what he's done as beyond my reach.
00:27:42
Speaker
Matter of fact, I sat at the table with him and I felt like an equal. However, i also was thirsty to learn and I asked questions even beyond the podcast before we got to the podcast studio and after.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I have a ah certain kink kinship with him. And you'll see this as you're, if you happen to be in an up and up and growing stage, the more people you talk with that have this sort of background and vulnerability, the more you'll get from them and vice versa.
00:28:17
Speaker
It's important for you to share your stories, open up the kimono a bit, and say, these are my experiences. How can I help you?
Revisiting Goal Declaration Effect
00:28:26
Speaker
So to round out today's podcast, the idea of this goal declaration effect is ever-present.
00:28:33
Speaker
You can go on YouTube or Google, get more information about it. But what's worked for me is keeping a very tight group of those that i declare goals aspirations, my identity to, and the rest, keeping it on ice, keeping it so that when it does come out and is ready to go, you're you're basically almost done.
00:29:02
Speaker
i did another podcast recently, and there was a moment where that was brought up, and that gave me the idea for this podcast. That and the fact that I was working on this this weekend and it just kind of came together.
00:29:15
Speaker
And that's where I draw my inspiration, by the way. I just open my eyes, I look around what's happening in my life, and that is what seeds me, that is what feeds me, and that's what gives me the energy and the excitement to get in front of this camera with my team and create these podcasts.
00:29:35
Speaker
Because one of the reasons I created this podcast is the audience on the other side of that camera right now, besides you, is me.
00:29:49
Speaker
When I was growing my company back 2015 or so, 15, 16 timeframe, I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have a resource like we do now and in all the social media, all these podcasts didn't exist in the same way.
00:30:05
Speaker
And my audience is me, is basically me now telling my myself in 2015, 2015, what things I should look at, how I should approach problems, how I should look at the world, what identity is all about, what is stoicism?
Social Media vs. Personal Insights
00:30:24
Speaker
All these things are brand new and you've got to go through the noise of all the other things that are happening day-to-day on social media, I mean, you can just flip through that thing and you will be bombarded with both sides.
00:30:36
Speaker
I challenge you to sit across the table with somebody who has your opposite politics, we'll say. Somebody who has something completely different. Or whoever. Swap phones with them real quick.
00:30:48
Speaker
Go through their social media feed. You're going to be seeing things that are geared towards their particular appetite. And this is what the social media machine does for us. It serves up that exactly what we're looking for, satiates us, it hits our dopa dopamine receptors, and it fires that off, and it gives you that continuum that will keep you drawn to that so that they can sell ads, so that they can sell their wares, and ultimately keep you in that loop and keep you away from, against, finding, and becoming who you are, your a identity.
00:31:28
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Cheers.