At one of my first ever jobs, I had a boss by the name of Ward Curtis.  When he thought people weren’t working hard enough, he’d walk around saying, “Less Talkin’, more Rockin.’  Ironically, Ward was fired for lack of productivity.  Now I understand why.

It turns out that too much talk actually leads to too little doing, but not in the way you think.

A psychology professor by the name of Peter Gollwitzer explains why this is in the research article, When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap? Tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve those intended goals than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others. Here is the deal: once you tell people of your intentions, it gives you a “premature sense of completeness.”

Here’s why:  you have “identity symbols” in your brain that make up your self-image.  Since both actions and talk create symbols in your brain, talking satisfies the brain enough that it, “neglects the pursuit of further symbols.”  By satisfying those symbols, you no longer feel the need to do what needs to be done to accomplish whatever you were talking so much about.

I’ve got several projects on the burner right now, but I’m not going to talk about them until I’ve got something to show you.