“I’ve got a secret.” When you were a child, did you ever taunt someone with that phrase in a singsong voice? There’s something about keeping and sharing secrets that’s hardwired into our DNA. Some people use secrets as social capital. Sharing secrets can be a way to cement a bond or just take the easy way out -- keeping secrets requires serious mental effort.
Do you know someone who just can’t keep a secret? Spilling the beans isn’t always a willful disregard of confidentiality, it may be taxing to avoid coming clean. Secrets have an annoying habit of drawing our mental focus to them no matter where we are or who we’re with.
When we’re trying to keep a secret, our minds will wander to that secret with more frequency than we’d like. It’s like trying to remember how to correctly pronounce someone’s name . We focus so hard on how NOT to say it that we end up saying the wrong thing anyway.
However, there’s a difference between keeping bad news and good news a secret. While most people share positive news shortly after it’s received, there’s a sizable group of folks who keep good news close to the vest for a while before sharing.
It turns out that this type of secret keeping isn’t a mental burden at all – keeping good news secret is energizing and exciting. It keeps the information “fresh,” and folks can reflect on it and relish it in ways that they can’t once they go “public.”
Next time you receive good news, feel free to keep it private until you’re really ready to share – you might enjoy a little extra boost of energy knowing “you’ve got a secret.”
I’m Suzanne Degges-White and that’s no secret.
