How To: Why Keeping Good News to Yourself Is a Good Thing

Can't stand seeing your Facebook news feed full of peoples' good news and awesome accomplishments? Those oversharing friends are, in a sense, hampering their great news simply by sharing it. If you hold back and keep your accomplishments from friends, you might find even more success than if you'd shared with your support network.

No News Is Better News,

According to Reddit user maybe_a_little, keeping good news to yourself offers a chance to make big life changes without negative feedback. If you're making a change in your life—say, changing your ideology or giving up on an unhealthy habit—it's important to give yourself time to adjust before sharing your new lifestyle with others.

So, rather than immediately sharing your good news about a job change, move, or other big milestone, you might want to consider keeping quiet with your friends, acquaintances, and social media followers. Silence just might be the best course of action.

Take a Breather Before Sharing

Frequently, when we announce important changes, others have quite a lot to say. Whether they agree with your new lifestyle choices or not, they're going to have some feedback that they want you to hear. That can often make you feel as though you've wronged them or made a poor decision by choosing to follow a path they disagree with.

Taking a few-months-long time period of silence means you'll get time to enjoy the change before people can offer up negatives. Forget hearing about how forgoing carbs is wrong; instead, once you've successfully made the change and stuck with your new goals, others will only have positives to reply with when they see you.

Additionally, spending some time alone with your new habit will allow you to fully immerse yourself in the lifestyle. Reddit users suggest gaining knowledge about your change in order to better combat negativity. After all, the only people you'll have to defend yourself against are those closest to you. If you master your new lifestyle and know its ins and outs—and, of course, stick with it—you'll be able to defeat any naysayers easily.

Keeping Quiet Leads to Better Success

Staying mum when it comes to big changes and great news also increases your chance of sticking with your new decision.

According to Derek Silvers, our instinct to share exciting changes and developments in our lives hampers our ability to execute them. When we express ideas like "I want to start eating healthier," or "I'm going to start hitting the gym four days a week," we immediately weaken in our perseverance towards those goals.

By sharing our goals with others, we trick our brains into thinking that we've actually accomplished part of the goal. In response, we become less motivated to hitting the gym and modifying our meals—all because we think we've made progress simply by opening our mouth.

The longer you hold onto your great news and resist the urge to share each accomplishment with your Facebook or Twitter network, the greater benefits you'll see. Not only will you grow comfortable in your new lifestyle before facing a firing squad of criticism, but you'll become confident in your choice without the approval of others.

PS: Want to be even more quiet? Click here to see why staying quiet in the workplace can help your productivity.