Why you shouldn't share your dreams with everyone

Have you ever shared an amazing plan and watched the other person react with all the excitement of someone watching paint dry?

It’s worth sharing your dreams only with people who can understand what they mean to you. Not everyone close to you has the experience or the stage of life to back a plan that’s just getting started, and that rarely comes from bad intent, because everyone sees the world through their own lenses.

It’s a bucket of cold water. You were expecting a shower of encouragement, and all you got was an empty, automatic “cool, but will it actually work?”.

Our first instinct is usually to feel hurt. We believe the other person is to blame: it’s envy, a lack of consideration or a lack of support. But most of the time, the problem isn’t other people being mean. The problem is our expectations.

We forget that each person sees the world through their own lenses. And when we place something very precious in the hands of someone who doesn’t have the tools to understand it, frustration is the only possible result.

Who should you share your plans with? The rule of the house and its rooms

Think of your life and your relationships as a house.

Most of the people we know, like coworkers, distant relatives or even some longtime friends, stay on the porch. It’s a pleasant place, where you chat about nothing in particular, the weather, sports or the day’s news.

But your dreams, your more complex ways of thinking and your life goals are kept in your bedroom, the safest and most private room in the house.

The mistake we make is handing out the key to that room to everyone who crosses our path on the street.

Imagine you spent hours putting together a new venture, mapping out every stage of your project and writing down every detail of the new business on paper. You share the news with a coworker. They just want to finish the workday and go home, so they barely look up and shrug.

The disappointment hits hard. Psychologically, what happens is that you were looking for outside validation to strengthen an inner conviction. When that validation doesn’t come, your brain concludes that maybe the idea isn’t that good after all. Without realizing it, you let someone else’s limited view define the value of your own project.

How do you protect your dreams without isolating yourself?

Adjusting this doesn’t mean you should become cold, defensive or always on guard. Quite the opposite.

Understanding how other people work frees you from the exhausting need to try to change them. You keep loving your family and being a great friend, but now you know exactly what you can and can’t expect from each person.

Some people are great company for a laugh on the weekend; others are the rare, right people to talk about the future and build big things with. And that’s perfectly fine.

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it brilliantly almost two thousand years ago: “If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?”

Keeping your most private thoughts to yourself isn’t selfishness, it’s an act of self-mastery and personal management. You start shielding whatever is still in the growing phase.

Be the smart guardian of your own ideas. Adjust your expectations to the person in front of you. At the end of the day, the only approval your dream really needs to get off the paper and start moving is yours.

To take good care of every room in your house, here are three more reads:

• Protecting your plans doesn’t mean isolating yourself, and here’s why loneliness is the worst choice.
• Whoever shares life with you needs to want to go in the same direction. Learn the secret of a relationship that works.
• If the fear of other people’s opinions weighs on you, see why showing your flaws can bring people closer.

Editor’s note: Everyone knows someone who’s an expert at dumping a bucket of ice on other people’s projects. Send this article to that friend who keeps getting frustrated because the world doesn’t applaud their ideas. Maybe they’ll learn to lock the bedroom door and let certain visitors stay comfortable on the porch.