What is it that stands between us knowing what we’re supposed to do and actually doing it?
In many cases in our everyday lives, whether personal or professional, we find ourselves in a situation where we know what we’re supposed to do to reach a certain goal, to become better, to move forward, but still for some unknown reason we just don’t do it.
We know what is needed to finish off this projet or that… to become better husbands/wives/fathers/children… to move forward in our careers… to ameliorate our incomes… to live happier… to do whatever it is we want to do.
But it stops there, we know, yet we don’t actually take the steps to do.
Why?
Is it just plain old procrastination at work?
But procrastination is the act of putting off things for the future, delaying them, and it’s mainly a psychological mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.
So even though it may apply to a bunch of the projects/actions we have in mind, I don’t think it covers them all.
When you really want to do a certain something like become a better husband/wife/father/child for example; there you’ve got all the good will to do it, you know it’s something that will make you happy in the end, the outcome is positive no matter what, and you know what you have to do; but you’re just not doing it.
Maybe it boils down to something like the difference between theory and practice. You know or learn a lot of things in theory, but you don’t always go on and practice them.
Are we taking some of our decisions in theory but lacking the courage, will or whatever else it is to carry them out in practice?
I found a simple quote by a certain Dr. Robert Anthony that goes as follows: “It is not enough to know what to do, you must do what you know.”
And even though that is clear, and everyone would agree on it, a lot of us are not applying that simple, logical rule.
Unlike procrastination where we can actually come up with sets of different absurd reasons why we’re putting off something, in these cases we ask ourselves and find no answer. We just don’t know why we’re not doing what we have to do; there are no reasons.
So, what is it that stands between us knowing what we’re supposed to do and actually doing it?