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It’s January.
You're full of mince pies and regret.
Overwhelmed by the chaos of train journeys and family.
Desperate for structure, and a salad.
So you reach for the familiar move.
You set intentions.
Goals.
Projects.
Direction.
You tell yourself this year will be different.
Maybe you mainline a bit of Hormozi motivation.
Then comes the part that feels like progress, but isn’t.
You start telling people your intentions.
And that’s where it quietly unravels.
Your intentions stop pointing at behaviour.
They start pointing at identity.
They become signals.
Bite size snippets of who you want to be seen as.
Not what you’re prepared to do repeatedly when no one’s watching.
You say you’re going to change how you live.
Train harder.
Work differently.
Start the side project.
And before you’ve endured a single boring, frustrating, lonely day of it, you’re already rewarded.
Not for the behaviour.
For declaring your intentions.
You get the nods.
The approval.
The “thats impressive".
The subtle social upgrade.
And without noticing, your motivation detaches from action and latches onto recognition.
You start optimising for the feeling of being aligned.
instead of the reality of acting in alignment.
Not the early starts.
Not the resistance.
Not the discomfort of doing the same thing again tomorrow.
Research has shown that people who publicly state their intentions are less likely to follow through than those who keep them private.
Why?
Because:
- Declaring an intention triggers an early reward
- Your brain registers social approval as partial completion
- Urgency reduces, effort softens, follow-through decays
In simple terms:
You collected the emotional reward without earning it.
That’s where virtue signalling slips in, unintentionally.
What should be a private commitment becomes a public badge.
And once identity feels confirmed, discipline weakens.
This applies far beyond goals or projects.
It happens with lifestyle changes.
Values.
Beliefs.
New ways of working.
Even boundaries.
You say you’re becoming someone different.
You feel the relief of saying it.
And that relief replaces the need to _prove it through action_.
The same loop plays out:
Intend → announce → feel validated → stall → drift.
Over time, something worse happens.
You don’t just stop acting.
You start believing a story about yourself.
That you’re inconsistent.
That you “lose motivation.”
That you don’t follow through.
You get:
- The excitement of intention
- The identity confirmation
- The social signal
Once that’s done, there’s nothing left pulling you forward.
If you want praise: tell everyone.
If you want accountability: tell the right people.
If you want change: tell no one.
