Personal Development
The Knowing-Doing Gap. Why You Don’t Do What You Know, You Should Be Doing. And How To Close The Gap
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not good enough; we must do.” — Johann Wolgang von Goethe.
You know you shouldn’t be eating that extra piece of cake if you’re trying to lose weight. And you know what you need to do if you want to increase your sales, improve your health, and deepen your significant relationships.
You’ve listened to enough self-help gurus, read countless books on personal growth, written down your goals, and made plans to do something to move that dial. But she never followed through.
You’ve told yourself you need to stop self-sabotaging, stop procrastinating, and do what you know you need to do. You know it, but you don’t do it.
Head full of knowledge.
We are all full of knowledge on how and what to change- reduce sugar in our diets, turn off Netflix and finish writing our article, detox from social media, look up from our phones and talk to our kids.
We have great intentions to achieve our sales targets, call our parents, and exercise regularly. But we don’t do what we know we should be doing. The list is endless. So, what’s the resistance?
In the book “The Knowing-Doing Gap; How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, “ Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton share their research on applying the wealth of knowledge we have, taking action, and getting the results we seek change our lives.
Here are some of the reasons for the resistance to doing what we need to do:
Comfort
The greatest obstacle stopping you from doing what you need to do is comfort. Modern society is designed to convince us that a good life is pain-free, comfortable, and secure. Humans are hard-wired to seek comfort.
The real question and the real work is not to understand what’s good for us because we already know that. The real question is knowing why we resist doing what’s good for us.
If you want to move past resistance, you must first move past comfort. Think instead of the discomfort by avoiding what you must do.
Memory.
There is pressure to stay consistent with what we’ve always been doing, even if it is insane. As we all know, insanity is to continue doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting different results.
But most of us move in this state of comfortable insanity, resisting doing the thing that will change our lives because we are used to it.
Fear.
Fear of the unknown and fear of failure paralyzes us. We’re more afraid of the unknown, even if the known is like hell.
To overcome this fear, rescript. Instead of saying, ‘what if we fail?” start saying, “what if we succeed.’
Perfection is the enemy of performance.
The other reason for the resistance is we think more knowledge will close the knowing-doing gap. We permit ourselves to stall indefinitely by asking ‘but how?”
Business consultant Peter Block acknowledges this in his book, “The Answer To How Is Yes: Acting On What Matters.” His advice against this is to take the first step and make it up as you move forward.
Reward action, not discussion.
So, what’s the one thing you want to change? What’s the obstacle that is stopping you from doing it? Time? Lack of urgency.
Give yourself a deadline. And as much as possible, automate.
What do you know but are not doing?
Are you allowing yourself to stall by asking ‘how?
How can you improve your doing percentages?
Don’t talk. Do.
Related Reading
How Do You Move From Success to Significance?
The Meaning Of “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
What Are Your Motivated To Do When Fear Is No Longer An Option?
What You Need To Give Up To “Glow Up”
Emotional Intelligence. Make It A Priority in 2022. Your Success In Life Depends On It.
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