So often there is a gap between what we know in our heads, and what we actually do in our lives. Fear of failure and anxiety about the opinions of others are just a couple of the reasons many people never translate their untapped stores of knowledge into action.

Are you realising your full potential, or are you letting non-action get in your way? There is a tremendous gap between knowing and doing. We know so much more than we do. We know more about healthy eating and exercising than we put into practice. We know more about what we could be doing in our role at work to be more effective than we put into practice. We know more about listening, being patient, and other relationship skills than we do, especially when we’re under pressure and feel stressed.

If we were to measure our level of actual performance against our level of knowledge, we always under-perform. We always over-know. This is normal. Yet sometimes the lag in the transfer of knowledge to action becomes too much of a gap. How big is the gap in your life? What can we do about closing the gap?

Closing the gap between knowing and doing
It seems so obvious that great ideas, insightful plans and intentions, and larger-level perspectives ought to be transferred into our everyday thinking so that we enhance our performance level. Some of the things that clog up the gap between Knowing and Doing have to do with:

• Fear
• Taboos
• Excuses

We become afraid and so we feel inhibited from taking action. We freeze up, becoming paralysed. In this case, we know but we cannot do. Another frame of mind is getting in the way. We set a fear frame that says, “Danger; too risky; avoid“. It is that frame that makes what we know further and further from what we do.

Are you someone who often thinks, “I need to know more?” We buy another book, attend more training, sign up for another course, consult with another coach and so on. This further broadens the knowing-doing gap. As we learn more, we are still not doing. The problem is not in knowing and so the solution will not be in more learning. The problem is the fear frame - the refusal to face the fear and just do it. The problem is the refusal to take an intelligent and calculated risk.

Then there are the taboos that forbid and prevent us from taking action. There are the structures, or lack of structures, that increase the gap: systems that don’t allow the translation from knowing to doing. Do you have a structure set up for acting on your knowledge about exercise, fitness, eating right and saving money? You don’t? Then no wonder the gap keeps widening between knowing and doing!

And finally there are more personal things like failing to be action oriented. In their book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton have identified the following:

• Clogging the gap by giving in to the inhibitions of fear
• Fearing complexity, lack of clarity about what specifically to do
• Fearing risk, mistakes, errors, and imperfection
• Fearing competition, focusing on what others are doing and trying to get ahead
• Fearing the new, the different, the unpredictable, falling back on precedence (standard operating procedures) and so mindlessly defaulting to what you’ve always done
Taboos that prevent and forbid action:
• “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
• “Don’t risk making a mistake, it’s too dangerous.”
• “Don’t be imperfect.”
Lack of structure for action:
• No structure for following up
• No structure for rewarding learning from mistakes
• No structure for rewarding risk taking
Personal items preventing us from taking action:
• Not being action-oriented in our person, being inactive and passive
• Making excuses and letting excuses stop us
• Discounting small actions

We have to get out there and make mistakes. Yet, fear of making a mistake is yet another key way that many people widen the Knowing-and-Doing gap. They know but won’t do because they fear messing up, making a mistake, risking failure, etc. So they excuse themselves from the most basic form of learning, “trial and error” learning.

Do something, experiment, see what happens. Did it work or not? Take the “or not” in a matter-of-fact way. It’s just information, just feedback. No big deal.

Let what is in the mind be in the muscles
If you want to really worsen the Knowing-Doing gap and make the gap bigger and bigger, scare yourself with horror stories about how terrible it would be to make a mistake. Fill your mind and body with fear and dread and terror at risking a mistake. That will prevent things in your mind from getting into your muscles.

Confusing talking with doing is another major way that we fill our heads with more and more and weaken our performance muscles from actually doing anything. Talk may prepare us for doing. Talk may empower us to formulate our plans and motivate us, but talk in and of its self is not doing.

Getting into action
Because the Knowing-Doing gap prevents actual implementation and undermines top-quality performance, we are making the business of closing the Knowledge-Doing gap a primary focus in Neuro-Semantics.

The Mind-to-Muscle Technique/Pattern utilises the power of language to represent step-by-step the levels of the mind that offers us a bridge from a concept down to belief, decision, state, and finally to action. But the process doesn’t end there. We then begin cycling through the process over and over. This taps into and utilises the power of repetition to habituate a new way of operating.

As a neuro-semantic pattern, we activate more and more of the body as we bring a conceptual state down and translate it into action. It becomes what we do. No more excuses, we just get things done. No more inertia, no more procrastination, no more taking counsel of irrational fears - just effective action.

Do you have any knowledge that has untapped power and potential just waiting to be released? Would you like to release it so that it becomes the engine in your performances? Would you like to know yourself as an efficient person who takes effective action? The future does not lie in the hands of those who think, plan, imagine, dream, and hope but don’t do. It lies in the hands and feet of those who do.

“You can’t change anything by fighting it. You change something by making it obsolete through superior methods” - Buckminster Fuller

About the author: Cindy Bell, the owner of DIRECTIONS, has a passion for talent management, celebrating an individual’s uniqueness and inspiring this into a satisfying direction. This focus empowers people in whatever they do - for the benefit of all. Cindy’s studies and business experience culminate into an interesting collaboration of outlooks for Coaching individuals and teams towards effective performance strategies. Cindy is an internationally accredited Meta Coach and Trainer, a Neuro-Semantics and NLP Master Practitioner, all recognized by the International Society of Neuro-Semantics (ISNS). DIRECTIONS has a firm commitment to empowering people to transform their individual ownership and purpose to affect performance in their roles and responsibilities. Contact Cindy Bell for a free Meta Coaching intro session or a free needs analysis for team/group requirements This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it / 011 462 5079

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