Why can you not just do the thing?
This is a free publication, crafted with love. The best way to support its growth is to subscribe if you haven’t. Or forward this to someone who would recognize themselves in these words.
I think almost every adult has a thing:
a form
an email
a phone call
a text
a donation box
a thank- you card
a library book
a return
something they’ve already decided to do. It would probably take ten minutes. And you’ve been walking past it for six months.
In my work I call this the Knowing/Doing Gap. It shows up in small ways like this. But also in major life decisions. Like knowing for years your relationship is over. You’ve made the decision in your therapist’s office, you’ve written the letter, you’re mentally gone, but you just keep showing up rather than have the conversation. Same thing.
You know what you need to do. You did the research. Read the reviews. Read all the conflicting articles. Sought out expert advice. Made a pros & cons list. You’re sure. And you’ve been meaning to start. But it’s like there’s this alien forcefield between you and the thing.
Procrastination? You just need to try harder? Need more motivation? Whatever it is, you don’t have it.
Why does knowing what to do so often fail to change what we do?
We act like knowledge should solve our behavior. But has that ever been a reliable pattern? You know sugar is bad for you. You know you need eight hours of sleep. Five minutes of meditation a day is a small price to pay for improved mental health. If you’re doing those, backing up your photos, and saving for retirement, you can just skip the rest of this article.
This is pretty standard human behavior. But now your A1C is up, your doctor has given you some dietary guidelines which you are going to start any day now for the last year, and you’re baffled at your inability to launch the program.
The more stuck you feel, the harder it is to start, and you might even feel the pull back into the research phase. Maybe one more podcast will fix it. One more article. One more review.
What if obedience trained us to solve the wrong problem?
For me it felt like falling through space with nothing to hold onto. Nowhere to land. Nowhere to turn for help.
When I ran to my husband with the horrifying discovery that the foundation of our lives – our religion — was a lie, I never expected to be disbelieved. Isn’t that funny? I think we all feel that way. It’s the biggest discovery of our lifetimes. And we are treated as messengers of the devil. Digression.
The point: You are never so alone. Your world is the same. Your family. Your church. Maybe your calling. You show up. You are asked to keep showing up in the same way. Everyone knows you don’t believe. They ask you to keep trying. You want out. You know it’s wrong. You know you are done. You know you want to leave. You know you can’t do this anymore. But you do. I did. For years. How many years did you go? How many years did you keep pretending? To keep the peace. Until you couldn’t anymore. Until it hurt too much. Or until something outside of you shifted.
This is also the Knowing/Doing Gap.
We were trained in a specific pattern.
First came certainty. Through God in some fashion. Usually priesthood authority. And then prayer to confirm that authority through personal revelation. Then came action. There was a right choice and a wrong one. Always. And so many signs to point the way. You didn’t have to generate the feeling that it was okay to act. The feeling was provided. Externally. You knew where to look for it.
Then the source disappeared. But you kept waiting.
Same effect. Different mechanism than the library book. But the same muddy feeling of knowing and not moving.
Most of my clients are both people with ADHD and former believers, which is its own kind of double exposure. The gap looks the same from the outside. The same months of a thing sitting there. A different reason why.
For the ADHD brain it’s a starting point problem. No clear entry. No concrete first step. No on-ramp. So the brain keeps circling. And ambiguity can be paralyzing.
In both cases, the person sitting in the gap has come to the same conclusion about themselves. Something is wrong with them.
That’s the part I want to interrupt.
I’m going deeper on all of this — the certainty piece, the ADHD piece, and what actually bridges the gap — in a one-hour workshop on July 7th @ 7 MT (Arizona). If this landed somewhere specific, that’s probably the room for you. Free for CNRS members here. And my paid subscribers below the jump.
