The Battle Between Knowing and Doing

I know what I should do, you do too.

We could sit down right now and write out a list, wake up early, get enough sleep, eat the right amount, drink enough water, stay off social media when we should be working, exercise, pray, read, be present, not waste time. The list is easy, it’s the following that’s hard.

Rare are the times when we don’t know what’s good for us. We don’t binge junk food because we think it’s better than a home-cooked meal. We don’t hit snooze because we believe an extra nine minutes will change our lives. We don’t scroll mindlessly on our phones because we truly believe we have nothing better to do. We know better, we just don’t always do better.

Paul put it plainly in Romans 7:15, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.A line written nearly two thousand years ago, yet it could have been scribbled in my journal this morning.

Because here I am, someone who can summon extreme discipline in the most difficult situations, and yet it’s only 7 AM, and I’ve already skipped two of my ten non-negotiables. Small things, but if I had done them, my day would already be better. When I follow my own list for a week, or even just a day, I feel a clear, positive shift immediately.

So why don’t we do it?

Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. But sometimes, we don’t think, we leave intentionality on the sideline, drifting through the day, letting old habits lead. We imagine the discomfort, the effort, the discipline required, and that hesitation is enough to stop us. The workout seems too hard before we start. The task seems overwhelming before we take the first step. The effort feels exhausting before we’ve even tried.

But action, not intention, is what shapes us.

I will never be perfect, you won’t either. But maybe the goal isn’t perfection, maybe it’s catching ourselves a little faster, resetting a little sooner, refusing to let one missed step turn into ten. Maybe it’s doing the small, right thing even when we don’t feel like it, until we become the kind of person who does what we should, not because we have to, but because we no longer know how to live any other way.