Why do I know what to do but don't do it?

What happens between knowing and doing?

That phone call you need to make.

That email that's been waiting for days.

That workout you'll start again on Monday.

You know why it matters. You also know how to do it.

Then the moment comes.

And you find an excellent reason to push it back a little further.

In the evening, maybe, you tell yourself:

“I knew it.”

Knowing something and doing it don't necessarily happen at the same moment.

You know when you're calm, when you think about it with a cool head.

But you have to act when you're tired, distracted, maybe in the middle of a day full of commitments.

And right then something interesting can happen: what you knew perfectly well, a moment before, seems to be no longer available.

You haven't forgotten what to do.

You haven't necessarily lost the ability to do it.

The state you're in at the moment of acting has changed.

And so I ask you:

At what moment did you really decide not to do it?

Why isn't knowing what to do enough?

Understanding something doesn't yet mean knowing how to use it.

Between knowledge and competence there is a path made of experience, application and practice.

The four stages of learning describe precisely the passage from what you can't yet do to what becomes progressively available, until you can carry it out without having to think about it continuously.

But there's a further distinction.

You may already have a skill and still be unable to use it in a particular situation.

You know how to handle that conversation.

You've done it before.

And yet today you put it off.

Then the question changes.

No longer just:

“Do I know how to do it?”

But:

“What happens at the moment when I should use what I know?”

Because learning a skill and being able to access it when you need it are two different steps.

How many times have you understood something perfectly?

And how many times have you managed to put it into practice exactly when you needed it?

Who decides, when the moment to act arrives?

In the book I often use an image: the carriage metaphor.

It's a symbolic representation of the person, not a scientific description.

The carriage is the body.

The horses are the emotions.

The coachman, reins in hand, represents the mind.

The coachman knows the road.

He knows where he wants to go.

But if he's distracted, or if the horses pull in another direction, the carriage might not follow the planned route.

You don't lack the map. Sometimes the coachman knows the road, but isn't guiding the horses.

And here's the point.

You can know perfectly well where you want to go and still find yourself on the usual road.

Because your behavior doesn't depend only on the information you have.

The state you're in while you have to use it matters too.

And it's not only the result that influences how you feel.

Often it's the state you're in that helps steer what you do and, therefore, the result you get.

What state are you usually in when you put things off?

What do you tell yourself right before putting it off?

There's often a sentence.

Short.

Familiar.

“I'll do it later.”

“I'm not in the mood right now.”

“It won't change anything anyway.”

So familiar that you might not even notice you said it inside yourself.

Pause for a moment.

While you read these words, try listening to what happens.

Maybe a part of you comments.

Maybe it agrees.

Maybe it's already looking for an objection.

You are not that voice. You are also the one who can learn to listen to it.

And there's another interesting element.

It's not only what you tell yourself.

How you tell it matters too.

The same sentence, said inwardly in a harsh tone or a calm one, can produce a different experience.

The volume, the rhythm, the distance and the qualities of the inner voice become elements to observe.

I talk about this on the page dedicated to internal dialogue.

But for now I'll leave you with a question.

What tone do you use with yourself when you decide not to do it?

Why does the same choice repeat every time?

Imagine you have to make a phone call you don't feel like facing.

You think about it.

You feel a certain tension.

Then you tell yourself:

“I'll do it tomorrow.”

And, suddenly, that tension eases.

For the moment you no longer have to face it.

You've got a result: immediate relief.

The next time, the same path can repeat.

Situation.

Discomfort.

Postponement.

Relief.

By repeating this sequence, the behavior can be reinforced, making it more and more likely that you'll use it again.

Experience. Trace. Pattern. Automatism.

And slowly something can change in the language you use to describe yourself, too.

“I put it off” becomes “That's just how I am.”

Then come the labels.

Lazy.

Unmotivated.

Inconsistent.

But are we sure those words describe what is really happening?

It's not always laziness.

Sometimes it's a learned strategy that keeps producing an immediate advantage, even when it gets in the way of a more important goal.

There are also decision shortcuts, like those described on the page on heuristics.

Among these, the tendency to maintain the current situation can help make it harder to start a change.

And so you keep looking at the result:

“I didn't do it.”

Without seeing the process that led you to put it off.

People see the effects. Few see the structure that generates them.

Now consider your last postponement.

What did that “I'll do it tomorrow” allow you to get, right at that moment?

What can you change, then?

Between what happens and your response there can be a space.

Sometimes it's so brief you don't recognize it.

But that's exactly where you can start to introduce a different possibility.

Not necessarily through greater effort.

And not by convincing yourself, for the umpteenth time, that you need more willpower.

You can start by observing the state you're in.

Your posture.

Your breathing.

Your movement.

The way you direct your attention.

They are elements that can influence your experience and your readiness to act. I go into them in more depth on the page on physiology and mood.

Then you can work on language.

When you hear that voice telling you:

“I can't do it.”

Try asking yourself:

“What makes me say I can't do it?”

And then:

“What would I need in order to succeed?”

Notice what happens.

The first question invites you to examine what you're taking for granted.

The second shifts your attention to the resources and conditions needed.

But there's still a step missing.

The one that turns the new possibility into a behavior.

What is the smallest action you can take right now?

Not tomorrow.

Not when you finally feel in the right mood.

Now.

Because the point isn't knowing more.

It's being able to choose differently at the moment when what you know has to become action.

If this difficulty is persistent, causes significant distress or compromises your daily life, it may be useful to explore its causes with a qualified professional.

A small exercise

I'm not asking you to make a long list of goals.

Nor to promise yourself that everything will change from tomorrow.

I'm suggesting you observe a single moment.

The one when you know what you'd like to do and you're about to put it off.

1. Recognize the moment. When the first impulse to postpone appears, pause for a moment. What has just happened?

1. Listen to the sentence. What words are you using? “I'll do it later,” “I don't have time,” “I can't do it.” Retrieve the exact sentence, without correcting it.

1. Observe your body. What's your posture like? How are you breathing? Where is your attention?

1. Change one element. Stand up, if you're sitting. Straighten your back. Change your position or slow your breathing for a moment, if you feel comfortable. Notice what changes.

1. Ask yourself an opening question. “What is the next useful step I can take right now?”

1. Take that step. Not all the work. Only the first concrete action. Open the email. Dial the number. Put on your training shoes.

Then pause again.

What did you notice?

Did something change in the sentence you were telling yourself?

In your state?

In the way you represented the task?

Or in your readiness to begin?

It's not necessary for everything to work immediately.

If you put it off again, you can observe the moment when it happened.

If you took the first step, you can recognize which conditions helped you do it.

In both cases you've gathered information about your strategy.

And next time you'll be able to use it.

Because knowing what to do is important. But learning to recognize the moment when you choose to do it can make the difference.

To go deeper

You've seen that the distance between knowing and doing doesn't depend only on the information you have.

Inner state, the dialogue you keep with yourself and the automatisms that can kick in right at the moment you have to act all come into play.

And you've experienced a key step: recognizing a habitual response, introducing a different possibility and turning it into a first concrete action.

In the the Premium Edition of Strategic NLP – The Invisible Blade you'll find the chapter “Knowing Isn't Enough,” dedicated to the shift from knowledge to competence.

I also go deeper into techniques for working on internal dialogue and the possibility of intervening in the space between stimulus and response.

You can start with the very sentence you recognized during the exercise.

The one you may have been telling yourself for a long time, without ever really observing it.

To explore further:

• How do you overcome procrastination?
• How do you recognize and overcome self-sabotage?
• How do you make change last?