Ever find yourself stuck in the cycle of knowing what you need to do but struggling to take action? You are not alone! Today, we are talking about why it’s so hard to move from knowing what to do to actually doing it. I’ll explain the psychological barriers that keep us stuck, especially when it comes to making changes in our health, habits, and daily life.

I’ll share three simple, yet transformative strategies that have helped me and many of my clients shift from intention to action. These strategies are designed to address the root causes of why we self-sabotage and how to overcome them to create lasting change.

It is time to start showing up for yourself, even when things feel uncomfortable, and move toward the healthiest version of yourself, one small, manageable step at a time. Let me know your thoughts on self-care versus self-comfort, and which strategy resonates most with you.

Conclusion:

Breaking the gap between knowing and doing isn’t about willpower. You have to understand the psychology behind your behaviors and make small, intentional shifts. Start implementing these strategies today and embrace the change you’ve been craving. You’re capable of more than you think!

In This Episode:

00:00 Introduction: The knowing-doing gap

03:29 The role of your brain in self-sabotage

10:06 Difference between self-care and self-comfort

15:05 Strategy #1: Identify your identity

18:19 Strategy #2: Vision cast for future action

21:12 Strategy #3: Say it out loud 

25:18 The 1% rule: Small shifts for lasting change

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Sign up here: https://www.carrielupoli.com/corsettocrown   

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Looking for more tips to optimize your health? Listen to these episodes:

• The Missing Piece in Your Health (That No One’s Talking About)
 
• Simple Habits That Are Reversing Chronic Illness

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Carrie Lupoli: Have you ever caught yourself saying, I know what to do, I just don't do it. If so, you're not alone and you're definitely not broken. You're human. We all have moments when our intentions are solid, our goals are clear, and we still find ourselves skipping the workout, eating the thing we said we wouldn't or promising.

[00:00:17] Carrie Lupoli: We'll start again tomorrow. Here's the truth. The gap between knowing and doing is predictable and it's fixable. And today I'm gonna show you exactly how. In this episode, I'm gonna share three strategies I personally use to show up even when I absolutely do not feel like it. They're simple, they're powerful shifts, and they're gonna help you get out of your own head, get out of your own way, and get into action because only action creates change, and let's get you into alignment with the healthiest version of you.

[00:00:47] Carrie Lupoli: So if you've ever felt stuck in the cycle of, I know what to do, but I just don't do it. This episode is gonna hit home. Let's dive in.

[00:00:57] Carrie Lupoli: Well, hey there, diet disruptors. Let's [00:01:00] get real. How many times have you told yourself over the years, I know what to do, I just don't do it. Well, I'll argue. Most people don't know what to do. But even when you learn how the BS of the diet industry is not serving you and the BS that you actually need, like blood sugar, you still won't do it.

[00:01:19] Carrie Lupoli: I know this because when I first started out as a nutritionist teaching people how to bounce their blood sugar through food, it was life changing for all of these women. I remember I started my, my first like set of clients, I had about 250 of them and within a year and. Every single woman fell off, even though they all told me I cannot believe, I do not have to count calories anymore.

[00:01:41] Carrie Lupoli: I don't have to count macros, and I am stronger and leaner and I've lost weight, and I feel amazing. I don't have to track my food. They're like, this is what I've always been looking for. And yet. They all fell off and that's when I really got obsessed with success because I am not the kind [00:02:00] of person that likes to fail.

[00:02:01] Carrie Lupoli: I am like, no. How is it that I'm giving you everything you said you wanted and you're still not doing it? Well? There is a gap between information and transformation. There is a, a chasm between who you say you wanna be and actually getting to be that person. Right, and because I'm a behavior specialist, because I did that for 20 years before I became a nutritionist, when I realized what was going on, I was like, Carrie, you didn't put your behavior specialist hat on with these women.

[00:02:36] Carrie Lupoli: You gave them the information, but. We know that just simply knowing is not going to mean doing. And even if it does for a short period of time, it doesn't mean sustainable doing. And so we are going to tap into why we do this, why we know what to do and we just [00:03:00] don't do it. I mean, there are, there was a phrase once.

[00:03:04] Carrie Lupoli: That I heard when I was in school studying to become a behavior specialist and they said, there are plenty of overweight, unhealthy physicians and crazy psychiatrists. And I was like, okay. Just because they may know information doesn't mean they actually implement it in their own lives. And that's what I was trained to do.

[00:03:24] Carrie Lupoli: Getting people to change when change. Is hard, and let's face it, change is hard. Our brain doesn't like change. It actually looks at anything different As new and new to our brain is scary. Seriously, our brain doesn't like unfamiliar different, and I always say if you want something different, you gotta do something different.

[00:03:48] Carrie Lupoli: But the problem with that. Is that we won't do something different if to our brain. It feels different. Different is scary, and your brain doesn't know the difference [00:04:00] truly between getting a chased by a bear or that you are now trying to get healthy and go to the gym every morning. It's just simply new.

[00:04:10] Carrie Lupoli: New is scary, and when we are scared we don't move. And it's sort of like a cycle because it continues to happen. The problem is we aren't aware of it. Self-consciousness is a disease. We keep comparing ourselves to others or compare ourselves to our former self or our younger self, but it's actually self-awareness that brings us health and when we can be aware.

[00:04:37] Carrie Lupoli: Of the things that we're gonna talk about today, like really truly be aware that our brain doesn't like something new. It will fight it subconsciously. Like, let me give you a good example. Let's take the gym. It's January and you do the whole new January, like biggest, biggest time of the year. It's like the Super Bowl for gyms every January, right?

[00:04:57] Carrie Lupoli: And you're gonna swear you're gonna work out this time [00:05:00] you're gonna do it. So you start gonna the gym, you wake up early, you set your clothes out, right? And you're like, I am gonna meal prep on Sundays. I'm gonna go to the gym at five o'clock in the morning every single day. And I am truly, I'm just gonna be eating salads, kale.

[00:05:15] Carrie Lupoli: Chicken. I'm so motivated. New Year, new me. Right. Well then what happens like January 3rd, we're like, yeah, I, nah. Well, first of all, I will say nothing magical happens in January. Nothing magical happens on any day. It's going to be a shift internally that actually makes sustainable change. But the, the biggest thing is that when we try to put all this new into our life at once, it like, it hits us, like what we say is like a ton of bricks.

[00:05:49] Carrie Lupoli: And your brain is like, whoa, there is a lot of change happening. So let's say you go to the gym at five o'clock in the morning. You get up, you go, you feel so good. Afterwards, you're [00:06:00] like, I'm totally gonna do this tomorrow. And maybe you get up tomorrow and you do it again, right? And you're like, this is awesome.

[00:06:06] Carrie Lupoli: And then Wednesday, let's say it's like you've done it two days, Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday comes and you go to bed a little bit later, you're a little tired. You're like, yeah, uh, you know, I already went two days this week. I'm not gonna go again. I'll go tomorrow, and then something happens Wednesday night and you tell yourself, oh, you know what?

[00:06:25] Carrie Lupoli: The gym is actually just kind of far away. If I just work out at home tomorrow, I can get done. I can pack the kids' lunch and I can get done things, things done. So then you decide you're gonna work out from home, but then on Thursday morning, like your kid forgets their shoes and you have to bring it to school, and then you're late for work and you're like, I, I wasn't able to work out in the morning.

[00:06:46] Carrie Lupoli: Do you see where I'm going with this? We think it's our own willpower. It's our own issue. Like we don't have enough motivation what is going on? But in all reality, it's your subconscious brain being like, whoa, five o'clock in the [00:07:00] morning, Jim is not something we are used to. This is not safe. We can't keep doing this.

[00:07:08] Carrie Lupoli: New is scary. Scary means it must not be safe. So subconsciously you start to question your decisions. And you start to convince yourself, rationalize your with yourself, and justify why you're not gonna keep doing it, but you don't know what's happening. You don't, let's say you're gonna, you're, I'm grocery shopping every Sunday.

[00:07:29] Carrie Lupoli: I'm gonna meal prep. I'm gonna have all of this in. And then it's like, really rainy day, or it's really cold out and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't have the right shoes to go out in this weather. Ugh. You know what? It's fine. I will just, I will get takeout tomorrow. I'll go to the little lunch place down by my office, and then Tuesday I'll start meal prepping.

[00:07:50] Carrie Lupoli: These are the things that our brain does subconsciously, and if we don't actually understand it, we're never going to be able to deal with it. I call it the cell, [00:08:00] the I originally, we used to call it the cycle of self-sabotage, but in all reality, it isn't about sabotaging, it's about protecting. It's really the cycle of self-protection.

[00:08:12] Carrie Lupoli: Your body is so incredible. Like every time we're on a blood sugar rollercoaster, we spike our blood sugar, it goes down to low. Our body has to keep adjusting and in order to deal with all the excess glucose that we put in our body, because we either overeat like we might fast all day and we overeat at night.

[00:08:27] Carrie Lupoli: Uh, we, we. Overdo it with carbs. We're not balancing our pro, our protein and our fat, whatever it is. Every time we have this influx of glucose in our system, our body does something called glyc and a whole lot of things happen. But one of them is that our body can only store so much glucose. It stores it in a liver and our muscles, and that's it.

[00:08:45] Carrie Lupoli: And so what does it do with the excess glucose? It stores it in fat cells. Which is amazing and also awful, right? Like you're gaining weight and you don't know why, and it feels like really, really, really sucky, [00:09:00] but your body's trying to protect you. It's not sabotaging you. It's putting toxicity, toxins into your fat cells to try to protect you.

[00:09:09] Carrie Lupoli: That's what's happening with what we would call self-sabotage. When our brain, our body, our being feels like we're so doing something new. It feels unsafe. And when we feel unsafe, we need to protect ourselves. And so we protect ourselves subconsciously by justifying why we can't do this new thing. Well, that may, uh, kind of let us sleep at night because we justify not doing something in the moment.

[00:09:38] Carrie Lupoli: But over the long term, it continues to just eat away at our confidence, at our willingness to see ourselves as a strong person and our ability to feel success because we don't know what's happening. And that's why self-awareness is so important. So if we can get to that point in that cycle of, of recognizing that our brain is like, whoa, this is [00:10:00] new.

[00:10:01] Carrie Lupoli: We can do a whole lot of things better and different. See, there is a difference. And I think when, when I teach this to women, and I think this is a huge aha moment, there is a difference between self-care and self comfort. Self-care is really not the facials, the manicures, the massages. Self-care is doing things for your being for yourself that moves you forward in some way.

[00:10:33] Carrie Lupoli: It's showing up so that you can move in a direction of health. Self comfort. Comfort is comfortable. New is uncomfortable to your brain. So self care, if you haven't done this on a consistent basis, will feel new and uncomfortable, and you will always go towards comfort. [00:11:00] Self comfort does not move you forward.

[00:11:04] Carrie Lupoli: It's easy, it's simple, it's familiar. It's comfortable. And so we need to differentiate between the difference between self care and self comfort because if we don't. We will never look at working out as self-care. We will look at, look at it as something, ugh, we have to do with a mindset of feeling ick about it, or we will look at it as optional and negotiable where we can justify and talk ourselves out of it.

[00:11:39] Carrie Lupoli: Self-care moves you forward and you can actually ask yourself, is this something that's self-care or is this self comfort? Now I have terrible neck issues, like, oh my gosh, I see a chiropractor. And for me, a massage actually is self-care. I have to get a massage once a week so that I [00:12:00] can. Care for myself.

[00:12:01] Carrie Lupoli: So I'm not saying that a massage or a facial or anything like that is not something that is a good practice to do, but it is pretty darn comfortable. Right, and we will always lean towards the easy, the simple, the comfortable. You might feel like, Ugh, working out this morning when it's really cold out and I could sit with a cup of coffee by the fire and read my devotional.

[00:12:26] Carrie Lupoli: You could justify that. That actually is like self-care in some ways. But in all reality, if you're giving up the thing that you know you need to do and you do this on a regular basis, you're not choosing self-care. Self comfort is okay. When you're not sacrificing yourself, your self care on a regular basis, the exception cannot become the norm.

[00:12:52] Carrie Lupoli: So if you've been around for a while, you know I'm obsessed with ingredients that actually work with your body instead of against it. And one of the things that I am really [00:13:00] obsessed with is elderberry. Elderberry has actually been used for generations. It supports immunity and the thing is. Not all elderberry products are created equal.

[00:13:10] Carrie Lupoli: That's why I only get my elderberry from Amelia at all things elderberry. They make everything in small batches. She's a mom. She cares about real clean ingredients, staying away from all the artificial fillers and sugars, and my kids actually take it to college with them when they run out, they're like, mom, I need more elderberry.

[00:13:30] Carrie Lupoli: They never get sick, and if they get a little bit of a cold, it's like they make sure they just. You know, really double down on their elderberry and they heal almost right away. It is amazing. They taste amazing. They're crafted with integrity, and they are a staple in our house. So if you wanna try it, you can get 15% off your first order.

[00:13:52] Carrie Lupoli: We will drop the link below. Use the code carry lip pulley at checkout for all things elderberry. So let's talk [00:14:00] about the strategies when it comes to actually showing up for yourself when you don't want to. How do you self-care? Self-care is supportive but not comfortable. It comes from a grounded, aligned place.

[00:14:15] Carrie Lupoli: It will always move you forward towards the healthiest version of yourself. But it may not feel comfortable, and if it doesn't feel comfortable, if it doesn't feel familiar, your brain is going to just log that in as new. New is scary. Scary is not safe, recognize that, okay. Self comfort is relief.

[00:14:35] Carrie Lupoli: Self-care is respect. So it's so true that although I will say most people don't know what to do, and I love being able to teach people about the BS that they really need blood sugar, behavioral science, and belief systems. But even when they know that most people don't fail because they don't know what to do, they fail because in the moment of a decision, when comfort whispers louder than our calling, [00:15:00] there are three strategies that will help bridge the gap every single day.

[00:15:04] Carrie Lupoli: Okay, first, the first strategy I call identify your identity. You cannot behave your way into becoming someone you haven't defined. You can't be somebody that you aren't Now. Who do you want to be? You have to know what does the healthiest version of you do, say, think and believe. If you're not actually doing, saying, thinking and believing, like that healthy version of yourself, there's no way you're going to be become that person.

[00:15:42] Carrie Lupoli: You actually have to start doing those things before you feel ready. But what are those things? When I built my house, we had a blueprint. How do you build a house without a plan? How do you build a healthy identity without actually [00:16:00] identifying what it is that that person does, how that person reacts and responds.

[00:16:07] Carrie Lupoli: Otherwise, you will just simply rely on your feelings in the moment, and your feelings will always take you to comfort. Your actions actually become a vote for the identity you wanna embody. I'm gonna say that one more time. Your actions become a vote for the identity of the person that you want to embody, so you can start thinking about like actually writing this down during your morning time.

[00:16:30] Carrie Lupoli: If the healthiest version of me plans meals, I need to be planning meals if the healthiest version of me speaks kindly to herself. You need to stop the self-criticism. If the healthiest version of you moves her body consistently, then you have to move your body. But if you don't identify who that person is, then it's always gonna be a crapshoot.

[00:16:54] Carrie Lupoli: It's always gonna be a crapshoot. When you clarify who you're becoming, your choices have a direction. It's like, [00:17:00] it's a GPS. It's telling you which way to go. It's not just a desire, it's just not like, oh. A wish and a dream. It's gotta be a plan. It's the only way I built my house. It's the only way you're gonna build your identity as a healthy person.

[00:17:17] Carrie Lupoli: When I do events with women, I'm always asking them what do they want and why do they want it? And so many women are just, they wanna have peace. They wanna have hope, they wanna, they wanna live a life where they're not always obsessing about food in their body. That's a great place to start. So what does a person that does not obsess about their body and food do say, think and believe?

[00:17:42] Carrie Lupoli: What does a person who loves themselves loves her body, has a good relationship with their body? What do they say? Do think and believe. And if you're not sure, ask people. Ask people who you know, who have that relationship, that strong relationship with themselves, what do they do? [00:18:00] Just notice what do what they do.

[00:18:02] Carrie Lupoli: Those are really important pieces because feelings will drive your actions, but the problem is feelings change too quickly and they're so comfort, they're so tied to comfort and fatigue, and so we gotta get over that. That brings me to my second strategy, okay. After identifying your identity, the second strategy in the moment, this happens to me multiple times a week.

[00:18:30] Carrie Lupoli: Vision cast. So we, we often work on feelings that that's what we do. We don't feel like doing something, so we think, and it is excused not to. Our thoughts and our beliefs, they dictate our actions. And so it is hard to do something when you don't feel like it. But it's also hard to be weak. It is also hard to be sick.

[00:18:55] Carrie Lupoli: So at the end of the day, you gotta pick your heart. And I don't want, [00:19:00] it feels hard, so I can't do it to be my mo. So because my feelings are fickled like a pickle, I always say that, and they're often tied to that comfort. We can honor how we feel, but in a bit of a different way. All right, so I work out at seven o'clock every morning, and I never want to, literally, never ever, like, I, I can't think of a day where I'm like, woo, I'm excited to work out.

[00:19:26] Carrie Lupoli: I have systems in place, so I get my clothes on right away and it becomes like where it, it's sort of on overdrive right now. I go live in the morning on Instagram at 6:45 AM Eastern time, and then right after that I go right down to the gym. My husband is actually downstairs setting up for our trainer to be able to zoom in with us.

[00:19:43] Carrie Lupoli: It is. A system. I don't ever want to do it, but this is what I do. I also get into the sauna at eight o'clock. I get into the sauna. I love the sauna. I love sitting in the sauna. It is like my little reward. So [00:20:00] I picture myself at eight o'clock sitting in the sauna, having worked out or sitting in the sauna, having not worked out.

[00:20:11] Carrie Lupoli: You could also do this like in the office, right? What time do you get to the office? Let's say you're in your desk at nine o'clock, whether you've worked out or not, you're sitting at your desk at nine o'clock in the morning having worked out and having not worked out. You picture both. How do you feel if you had worked out?

[00:20:30] Carrie Lupoli: How do you feel at nine o'clock in the morning knowing you went to the gym, and then how do you feel at nine o'clock in the morning knowing you allowed self comfort to rule and you didn't go to the gym? You can feel that feeling, right? So now you're going to act on the feeling that you know you are going to have, not the feeling that you have right now.

[00:20:49] Carrie Lupoli: It is an incredible strategy that works for me all the time. So if you really think about that and get yourself into the place of where [00:21:00] you are going to be, you get to still act on your feelings. I just want you to act on the feelings of your future self, not your current one. It is a strategy that I've used for years and it works.

[00:21:11] Carrie Lupoli: Okay. My third strategy, I say, say it, say it out loud. Have you ever like, um, had a dream and you like, it's so clear in your head this dream that you've had, and then you tell your, your spouse or your kids or a friend what your dream was. And it's like, what? You're saying it out loud and then you're like, well, I don't actually know how I got there, or I don't really, oh, I don't know.

[00:21:35] Carrie Lupoli: Like now I'm saying it like none of it's making sense. It made sense in my brain. Right? Or if you've thought something and you thought about it for a long time and then you said it out loud, you're like, well, it made sense when I was in my head. It doesn't make sense when I say it out loud. Now, that is real.

[00:21:51] Carrie Lupoli: This is where like our behavioral science, our belief systems, everything all comes together. The right side of our [00:22:00] brain is our messy side. It's our creative side. It's where those thoughts make sense. The left side of our brain is our solution oriented brain. It's our problem solving side, and it, it, it's like this is how we figure things out by using the left side of our brain.

[00:22:20] Carrie Lupoli: Well, what's so interesting about this is that there is a bridge, a bridge from the right side to the left side. If you let things sit in your head and you negotiate with yourself, you, you're, you do exactly what we talked about. When your brain feels something new, you say, Ugh, the gym is far away. I don't really have time to go.

[00:22:42] Carrie Lupoli: I'll just work out at home. You are not saying it out loud, you're saying it in your head. You're negotiating with that little devil on your right side of your shoulder, right? Sitting on the right shoulder. That's the right side of your brain. But the minute you say it out loud, it, it's like it [00:23:00] walks a little bridge from the right side to the left side.

[00:23:03] Carrie Lupoli: This is why therapy works. This is why journaling works, 'cause writing or saying moves it from the messy side to the more practical, pragmatic, problem solving side of your brain. And so if you literally say out loud. I, you can, you can say the thing out loud that you're negotiating with yourself, like, yeah, I could just do it tomorrow.

[00:23:30] Carrie Lupoli: I'll just work out at home tomorrow. The minute you start doing that, your brain is gonna be like, Ooh. Girl, you know, you're not going to, you. You can actually say all of this out loud. I am making an excuse right now for not going to the gym because I am justifying it by saying I could just work out at home.

[00:23:49] Carrie Lupoli: But I know myself and I know I won't work out at home. So I'm really making an excuse for. Literally that is a strategy by [00:24:00] saying the things that are in your brain and you say them out loud, it changes everything. I am walking to the cupboard right now to get a bag of chips because I am actually feeling really stressed, and I know that chips make me feel better in the moment.

[00:24:19] Carrie Lupoli: I will probably feel like garbage afterwards, but I'm still walking to the pantry to get the chips. When you say it out loud, it changes how you respond. And I can't tell you how many clients are like, oh my gosh. As soon as I say it out loud, I realize that it, it all, that impulse, that justification, that rationalization loses its power.

[00:24:45] Carrie Lupoli: It suddenly sounds ridiculous or unnecessary or misaligned with who I say I want to be. That's where strategy one comes in. Do you have an identity? Like who is the person that you say you want to be? And then [00:25:00] when you say those things that you're thinking out loud, you realize there is misalignment there.

[00:25:05] Carrie Lupoli: Your brain can trick you into silence, but it can't trick you out loud. And so those three strategies are one that's really, I mean, I use 'em on a regular basis, but one thing I will say is to remind you that you cannot, especially when you think about a new year, new you kind of a mentality. You cannot do all the things at once.

[00:25:29] Carrie Lupoli: Your brain will be an overload. It's like going zero to a hundred. It's not sustainable, and it's not safe. It's not safe for your brain. And if it doesn't feel safe, you will stop doing it. So the 1% at a time philosophy is always gonna be your best bet. You're still gonna be in some new situations that your brain is gonna try to talk you out of, but you have such a better chance of winning.

[00:25:56] Carrie Lupoli: If you're starting small and tricking [00:26:00] yourself into believing that this is just what we've always done, look, this is not that big of a shift. It's just a little tiny 1% shift. So if your self-care strategy is about moving forward at a 1% increment, then you won't ever get that far away because you're not throwing everything at it at once, and it's like going up a big rollercoaster and then falling down real fast.

[00:26:24] Carrie Lupoli: You're just. Little by little click, click, click, click going up and up and up and up. Little bits of self care over time. Add up. Big so I know what to do. I just don't do, it doesn't have to be in your vocabulary anymore, not when you identify your identity, when you vision cast your future feeling when you say it out loud.

[00:26:49] Carrie Lupoli: But all of that is wrapped in high levels of self-awareness and now that you know that what you think of as self-sabotage is really self-protection, you can [00:27:00] intercept it before it totally derails you. So what is a strategy that you feel like you identify with the most? What is something you can start with now?

[00:27:11] Carrie Lupoli: What are you thinking about the difference between self-care and self comfort? I'd love to hear from you. Go ahead and put in the comment, make sure you subscribe to our channel so that we can continue to give you content and support right from here into your own home, so you can continue from wherever you are in your journey to have a place wherever you are ready, willing, and able.

[00:27:36] Carrie Lupoli: I'm here to be able to help you every step of the way.