[Neurons] 2022 Neurons #10 DISTINGUISHING KNOWING AND DOING

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2022 Neurons #10

March 14, 2022

Distinctions #10

 

DISTINGUISHING

KNOWING & DOING

 

Knowing is not doing.  That distinction seems obvious ... and yet sometimes,
just sometimes, we get the impression that we are doing something when we
learn and come to know something and sometimes, it seems that we are done.
It is seductive to have a group meeting, talk through lots of things, cover
the agenda, write things done on our schedules, make notes about things ...
and then to walk away feeling that we have just done what needs to be done
for the organization.  Actually, however, we have not done anything.  We
have just talked.  We talked about planning, and plan our talking, and
planned our doing.  But we have not acted.

 

You read a book, maybe you even take notes, and when you close the
book-sometimes it feels like because you have read, thought, learned,
remembered, written notes, etc., that your sense of accomplishment deceives
you into thinking you have acted.  Of course, you have not.  You still need
to take action if you are to  do anything about what you learned.  

 

Now we're talking about one of the great occupational hazards of being
human: Knowing more than you do.  Do you know more than you are doing?  The
answer, of course, is Yes.  We all do.  So make a list.  What do you know
about health, well-ness, and vitality but you are not doing?  What do you
know about relationships, love, compassion, patience, etc. that you are not
doing?  Or doing to the degree of your knowledge?  Now ask it about work,
career, purpose, spirituality, etc.

 

There is a gap between knowing and doing.  And there always will be, but you
can reduce that gap and keep at least someone small as you commit yourself
to doing what you know.  You make that decision and follow up with your
commitment, you establish a habit of integrating what you know into action.
You develop a powerful habit of implementing your latest knowledge and
thereby increasing the quality of your actions and improving the chances of
succeeding in your field.

 

The problem is not merely the fact of this gap-the problem is failing to
work on closing this knowing-doing gap.  The problem is letting the gap grow
larger and larger so that you implement less and less.  What's the problem
with that?  Obvious, you are going to experience less and less results.  You
will not achieve your goals.  But worse, you will be getting yourself into a
really unresourceful habit of not-implementing, not integrating knowledge
with action.  Eventually, you become a non-implementer and then wonder why
others are experiencing a lot more success than you are.

 

What's the solution?  Decide today that every time you learn something,
every time you gain new knowledge, "I am going to do something about it."
It doesn't have to be a big thing-just something that helps you to get into
action.  Decide to never leave the scene of a learning without taking action
on it.  Taking action and doing something gets the learning inside.  And
that changes you.  Practice this and you will become an implementer.  You
will become a person who does not just fill your head with more and more
information, you let the information in-form you.  It forms you on the
inside.  You start to use your neurology so that it gets in muscle-memory
where it then becomes available to you when you really need it.

 

All of this starts with the distinction between knowing and doing.  Knowing
is about your mental mapping of ideas and learnings.  Doing is about
practicing what you know.  Doing involves actions.  It involves training
your neurology to "know" what you know mentally and conceptually.  Without
it, your conceptual knowledge will not make much of a difference in your
life.  With it, you begin to learn experientially and that's where expertise
begins.  So when you learn something new, get into the habit of asking
yourself, "What can I do that will apply this knowledge or idea in my life
or in a specific area of my life?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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