A recent study shows that keeping positive news a secret has an energizing effect. Positive secrets are good news, such as getting into the college of your dreams or a salary bump. Survey shows that 76% of respondents share their good news upon learning about it. Understandable, especially if we want to celebrate with people we care about, but keeping positive news to ourselves has added advantage.
Time to Savor
Keeping good news secret (at least for a while), allows us to sit with it and savor the moment. “Savoring positive experiences enhances positive feelings”.
Intrinsic Motivation
Positive secrets energize us when our motivation is internal to us. This is in contrast with deciding to keep a good news secret because of external factors. For example, you purchased a house and you have a friend who is struggling financially, so you decide to keep the purchase a secret. In this scenario, external factors (your friend’s situation) motivated your secret. Internal motivation, in contrast, empowers us:
When motivated intrinsically, we “emphasizes autonomy in the decision to keep the secret”.
The Bright Side of Secrecy: The Energizing Effect of Positive Secrets
This study reminds us of the importance of communing with your thoughts and yourself. Especially with live-streaming and the ease in which to contact people we know and followers on social media, you need to create moments with yourself to savor good news. Your reaction to your good news should be enough. You don’t have to seek the satisfaction of how others will react to make the good news worthwhile. Easier said than done–I know. But the power of internal motivation lies on prioritizing yourself, rather than others, when it comes to achievements.
My Takeaway
I’ve never thought about it until I read this study, but something does happen to how I feel about good news after I share it with others. I find that this doesn’t happen when I share it with my husband, but as the group gets larger, the feeling shifts.
This quote captures the study’s sentiment:
Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.
Kahlil Gibran
