I was recently watching an episode of Hart to Heart where Kevin Hart was interviewing Jay-Z, and Jay-Z talks about the Knowing-Doing Gap.  Watching this brought to mind a very impactful example of the Knowing-Doing gap in my own life that:

• Took me a year to overcome

• Cost me long term relationships

• Resulted in a lot of suffering for everyone involved

What is the Knowing-Doing Gap?

It’s:

• When you intellectually know what to do, yet can’t seem to bring yourself to do it

• The disconnect between knowledge and action

• The space between having an idea, and being able to implement it

• All talk and no action

This Knowing-Doing Gap can be for an individual or within an organization.  As change agents / leaders we’ve all seen an organization talk about an initiative, yet never be able to implement it.

What are some other examples of Knowing-Doing Gaps?

• Knowing eating healthy and exercising will result in losing weight, yet still eating poorly and skipping exercising

• Knowing you have something to do, and procrastinating doing it

• Knowing smoking is hurting you, yet still continuing to do it

• Knowing major changes in strategy and operations are required, yet leaders are focused on how things have always been done

What Knowing-Doing Gap Cost me Long Term Relationships?

Four years into one of my five year relationships, I realized whenever he said something I was hurt by, I went straight to anger.  So even though I was hurting inside, all he could see was my anger being expressed instead of my hurt. It wasn’t until after the argument, and I was alone with my thoughts, would I start to get in touch with my sadness. This resulted in:

• A tremendous amount of miscommunication in the relationship

• Him having a perception that:

• I was angry with him, when in reality I was hurt by him

• I was a very different person than who I really was at my core

When I had this realization, I ignorantly thought, “oh I see how this behavior is negatively impacting the relationship. I want to change. All I have to do next time is express my sadness instead of anger”. Boy was I in for a rude awakening.

Even though I had the knowing of what to do differently, express my sadness instead of my anger when I felt hurt, in the heat of the next opportunity to do this differently, that knowing went completely out the window. It was several days post the argument when it dawned on me I had completely forgotten to do this, and had once again expressed anger instead of sadness. I reminded myself again to do this differently next time.

After several more unsuccessful attempts, I started to realize, this was nowhere near as easy as I had originally thought it was going to be. I had no language for this at the time. Now I can say, this was one of the more impactful Knowing-Doing Gaps I’ve experienced in my life.

After three more months of attempting to change this behavior, I was getting mad at myself. I thought, “how can this be so hard?!”.

Getting mad at myself was getting me nowhere so I started noticing the more I attempted to change the behavior, the shorter the Knowing-Doing Gap was becoming. Instead of it taking days post the argument to realize I had missed expressing my sadness, it was becoming hours.

Until eventually, one year after I knew what to do differently, I had a breakthrough on a mountain top in Switzerland of all places. We were in a restaurant, he said something I was hurt by, and I broke down crying instead of yelling at him. Eureka!!!

As big as the breakthrough was for me, unfortunately:

• I’m unsure he ever realized how big of a deal it was as I’m unsure I ever confided in him:

• I was trying to change this behavior

• The internal struggle I was going through trying to change the behavior

• It was too late for the fruits of my labor to blossom in that relationship

• After five years of me expressing anger instead of sadness when I was hurt by something he said, the damage was done

• He had made up his mind on who I was, even though I was actually someone different than who he thought I was

I am happy to report long term relationships after this certainly bore the fruits of my labor. It was like a dam had been released. Once I had that breakthrough:

• I had rewired my brain to no longer instantly respond with anger when I was hurt

• It was major growth for me

How could I have closed this gap much sooner, had I known then what I know now?

Had I hired a certified professional coach to help me close this Knowing-Doing Gap, what took me a year on my own, probably would have taken 6 months or less with a coach. Unfortunately at the time I was working on this behavior change, I was unaware of Certified Professional Coaches, and how they could have helped me shorten my internal struggle.

Reflecting on the above:

• What Knowing-Doing Gap is most impacting your life?

• What is that Knowing-Doing Gap costing you?

• What if you could close that Knowing-Doing Gap?

Call to Action

• Unhappy with the answers to the second question above and struggling to close the Knowing-Doing Gap impacting you?  Reach out to Rosanne for help in closing the gap so:

• It stops costing you

• You can be a more effective change agent / leader for yourself, your organization, and family

• Using the comments feature, what’s a Knowing-Doing gap you experienced previously at work or in your personal life, that you’ve since overcome?

• Found this blog useful or know someone this can help? Share it with your network and sign up at the bottom of the home page to receive the latest blog posts.

About the Author: Rosanne Essiambre helps change agents and departments in one-on-one and group settings to be seen, be heard, and be effective in bringing about change in the organization and/or in their personal lives.  She provides consulting and facilitation to organizations to improve communications and collaboration, smooth out the change / transformation journey, get to the root cause of an issue so it can be solved for good, improve processes, and implement successful lessons learned. And she conducts workshops, trains, and speaks on Energy Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Being a Change Agent and more. If you or your organization could use support with your change effort or some inspiration, contact Rosanne for a complimentary discovery session. Rosanne is a Change Agent Coach, Facilitator, Six Sigma Black Belt, Change Management / Continuous Improvement Consultant, Speaker, and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner with more than 20 years experience working on a variety of transformations across a diverse set of industries both domestically and internationally, while continuously improving herself.