When Knowing Is Not Enough

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There are moments when we catch ourselves in the act. We hear ourselves telling a colleague that they should take more time to rest, advising a friend not to put off that difficult conversation any longer, or telling our children that making mistakes is part of life and that no one needs to be perfect.

A few hours later, we do the opposite. We stay at work a little longer, put off a difficult conversation, or lie awake worrying about a mistake we cannot seem to let go of. We say yes when we wanted to say no. Not because we do not know better, but because, in that moment, it is easier to do what we have always done.

There is something deeply human in this. We have access to an unprecedented amount of knowledge and have never been able to find information about health, stress, sleep, nutrition and behavior so easily. Almost everyone knows that sufficient rest matters, that exercise helps, that social relationships are important and that prolonged stress takes its toll. Organizations invest in training programs, leadership development and wellbeing initiatives, while bookshelves fill with titles on personal leadership, habit formation and behavioral change.

We rarely lack knowledge. Yet often, less changes than we might expect.

We tend to approach change as a matter of insight, as though understanding naturally leads to different behavior and, once convinced, a person will automatically do what makes sense. Reality is more stubborn.

Anyone who has ever tried to worry less, exercise more, leave work on time more often or care less about what others think knows that understanding and doing are two different things. Between what we know and what we do, there seems to be a space in which good intentions dissolve into the pressures of everyday life, old habits reappear and we sometimes find ourselves, with mild surprise, doing the very thing we had decided to stop doing.

That space deserves our attention.

As long as we continue to think of human beings primarily as rational creatures who act on what they know, much of our behavior will remain puzzling. When we become curious about what happens between knowing and doing, a different conversation becomes possible. Not about a lack of discipline or willpower, but about the way human behavior is shaped.

It makes sense that we look to knowledge for change. The world we live in has benefited enormously from our ability to investigate, analyze and explain. When a machine fails, we look for the cause. When cracks appear in a bridge, we calculate where the structure is failing. And when illness develops, we try to identify the mechanism behind it. Our curiosity has helped us live longer, learn things earlier generations could only have imagined, and solve problems that once seemed impossible.

It is therefore natural that we apply the same way of thinking to ourselves. When something in our lives is not going well, we search for an explanation. Why do I keep putting things off? Why do I become tense so quickly? Why do I struggle to protect my boundaries? Behind such questions often lies the expectation that understanding will lead to change, as though insight were the missing link.

Sometimes it does. An insight can bring clarity, give words to an experience that has been difficult to name for years, and offer relief or direction. Someone who suddenly understands why a particular event still affects them may begin to see their history differently.

Understanding matters, but it also has its limits.

Anyone who has lost someone knows that knowledge does not take away the sense of loss. Someone who has cared for a sick child or partner for a long time may understand perfectly well that rest is important, yet that understanding changes little about the demands of everyday life. We see the same thing at work. A manager may know exactly how important attention and trust are, yet still be swept along by targets, packed schedules, and a constant stream of decisions that need to be made.

Our actions never arise from knowledge alone. Habits, expectations, responsibilities and previous experiences all play a part in the choices we make. Yet we often speak about change in terms of willpower, motivation and discipline, as though we could simply choose a different direction whenever we wanted. When that does not happen, we quickly conclude that we should have tried harder.

That does little justice to the history each person carries with them.

Our behavior emerges from an organism that has developed over an extraordinarily long period of time. Long before human beings thought about meaning, leadership or psychological flexibility, their primary task was to survive.

Generation after generation, it was not the individuals who felt happiest who were selected, but those whose behavior gave them the best chance of surviving and reproducing. From that perspective, it is hardly surprising that our nervous system is particularly sensitive to signs of danger, loss and uncertainty. What is safe requires little attention. What might pose a threat captures it immediately (Nesse & Williams, 1994; Nesse, 2005).

We still recognize this pattern today. A critical remark from a colleague can occupy us for hours, while a series of appreciative comments barely lingers. A single mistake can seem to outweigh ten things that went well. We prepare carefully for what might go wrong, far less for what will probably go well. Psychologists have extensively described this tendency as the negativity bias (Baumeister et al., 2001; Rozin & Royzman, 2001).

This does not mean that people are inherently pessimistic. Our brains simply give greater weight to information that may signal danger. From an evolutionary perspective, that makes sense: missing an opportunity usually costs less than failing to notice a threat.

This ancient sensitivity to danger does not disappear simply because our environment has changed. We may know perfectly well that no immediate danger is present, yet our bodies can respond as though something important is at stake. A presentation, a performance review or a conflict with a colleague can make our heart rate rise, narrow our attention and increase the urge to avoid the situation.

There is a paradox here. The same capacity that helped our ancestors survive can keep us trapped today in patterns that are no longer helpful. To understand that paradox, we need to consider another human capacity: our ability to use language to give meaning to everything we experience.

Human language allows us to make things psychologically present even when they are not actually here. We can think about yesterday, worry about tomorrow and imagine what might happen without any of it actually taking place. We can have conversations with people who are not there, prepare for situations that may never occur and relive events from the distant past as though they were happening now.

This capacity has made cooperation, the transmission of knowledge and the development of complex societies possible (Harari, 2015; Tomasello, 2014). But every capacity also has another side.

Because language allows us to move beyond the reality of the present moment, we can also suffer from events that are not happening at all right now. A remark made years ago can suddenly return when someone uses a similar tone today. A presentation next week can keep us awake tonight. A single thought — this is going to go wrong, I’m not good enough, I can’t keep this up — can be enough to trigger tension even when there is no actual danger in that moment.

Words have no weight, color or temperature. They consist of sounds or marks on a page. Yet they can make our hearts beat faster, bring tears to our eyes or create a sense of relief. Reading the word lemon can almost evoke its sour taste. Hearing our own name unexpectedly in a crowded room draws our attention almost automatically. And when the phone rings in the middle of the night and someone says, ‘We need to tell you something,’ our body responds before we even know what the call is about.

Language does not merely describe reality; it can also evoke experience. Words become connected to memories, expectations, emotions and previous events. They can therefore comfort, inspire and warn us. But they can also keep us caught in stories we once came to believe about ourselves.

Beliefs about who we are rarely feel like beliefs. They feel like facts. The idea that we must always perform, should avoid conflict or cannot afford to make mistakes can become so self-evident that we barely stop to consider where those ideas came from. Yet they have been shaped by experience, by the responses of others and by the meaning we have given those experiences over time.

This capacity to create connections and meaning is one of the foundations of ACT. Behavioral science has extensively explored how people use language to establish relationships between events, words and experiences, and how those relationships influence behavior. This work gave rise to Relational Frame Theory, a theory of human language and cognition that shows how our ability to create such relationships makes us not only extraordinarily flexible, but also vulnerable to psychological suffering (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001; Hughes & Barnes-Holmes, 2016).

Thoughts are not isolated sentences passing through our minds. They form part of a network of meanings built over a lifetime, in which memories, feelings and experiences are interconnected. That is why they cannot simply be dismissed because we have decided they are no longer welcome.

This raises another question: what do we do when that inner world becomes painful, threatening or overwhelming?

When we burn our hand on a hot pan, we instinctively pull it away. When we cross a busy road, we look carefully. Avoidance is an extraordinarily useful capacity. Without it, we would put ourselves in danger. In many situations, it is essential to our survival.

What makes sense in the outside world, however, is not always helpful in our inner world.

In the outside world, we can move away from what threatens us. Thoughts, memories and feelings are different. They cannot simply be kept at a distance. The harder we try to keep them out of our awareness, the more insistently they return.

This says little about a person’s strength or resilience. Look closely and you see how much energy people invest in trying to keep life manageable. Some work increasingly hard so that they never have to experience a moment of stillness. Others fill every evening with distraction because silence brings uncomfortable thoughts to the surface. Still others avoid conflict at all costs, seek reassurance or postpone decisions for as long as uncertainty remains. From the outside, these behaviors may look very different. On the inside, they often serve the same purpose: avoiding what, in that moment, feels too painful, frightening or vulnerable.

That is why these strategies are so appealing: in the short term, they often work surprisingly well. Postponing a difficult conversation brings immediate relief. Throwing ourselves into work means we do not have to dwell on grief or doubt for a while. Repeatedly checking something can make us feel more certain, if only briefly. Our brains learn quickly. Behavior that reduces tension is easily repeated. This principle of negative reinforcement is one of the best-established mechanisms in learning theory and plays an important role in both the development and maintenance of avoidance behavior (Skinner, 1953; Catania, 2013).

What brings relief today can quietly become a habit tomorrow. What once helped us cope with a difficult situation can gradually become a fixed way of living.

Within ACT, this process is described as experiential avoidance: the tendency to try to control unwanted inner experiences, even when those attempts restrict our lives in the longer term (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2012). The term may sound technical, but it refers to something deeply human. Almost everyone knows the impulse to move away from pain.

Avoidance, then, is not inherently wrong. Sometimes stepping back is wise, and not every feeling requires our attention at every moment. What matters is what happens over time. Someone primarily concerned with avoiding rejection may become less willing to speak up. Someone determined to eliminate all uncertainty may become less willing to try something new. In this way, behavior that once offered protection can gradually narrow our room to move.

The question, therefore, is not why we developed these strategies, but whether they still help us. Does what I am doing now bring me closer to the life that matters to me?

That calls for curiosity rather than judgment. Many of our habits have a history. They developed because they once helped us cope with loss, uncertainty, rejection or pain. But what once offered protection does not have to determine our direction forever.

People do not leave that history behind when they go to work. There too, they respond from what they have learned, experienced and come to value. Organizations can describe processes and measure performance, but people cannot be organized with the same predictability. They bring their hopes, concerns and vulnerabilities with them. This is also what enables them to connect with others, take responsibility and find meaning in their work.

A meaningful life takes shape around what we value: the people who matter to us, work in which we can invest something of ourselves, caring for others, curiosity, beauty, commitment, justice or simplicity. Such values do not describe a destination we will one day reach. They give direction to how we want to live along the way.

Difficult thoughts and feelings do not disappear as a result. Where people form attachments, there is the possibility of loss. Where they take responsibility, they can fall short. Where there is love, there can also be separation, pain, and grief. Because something matters to us, it can also affect us deeply.

This is at the heart of ACT: not the question of how we can always feel better, but how we can live a rich and meaningful life even when pain, doubt, or fear arise (Hayes et al., 2012).

From this perspective, resilience does not mean that difficult experiences leave us untouched. It means finding ways to respond to what happens to us, even when we cannot change it (Frankl, 2006; Nussbaum, 2001).

This ability to respond flexibly to what happens within and around us is at the heart of psychological flexibility.

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This chapter is from my book Doing What Matters – Resilience at Work with ACT.

Learn more about the book, online course, and training programs