Freedom vs Agency

“I just want to have more freedom.”

Some version of this statement is probably the number one item that comes up in the Coaching world these days. Freedom from routines, freedom from old patterns, and freedom from limitations – especially one’s self-imposed or otherwise unconscious framing that is being outgrown. And yes! These are all great reasons to explore the field of Coaching in hopes of matching up with a Coach that can help you surface the things holding you back so that you CAN free yourself from repressive routines, outdated patterns, and hidden assumptions that may be holding you back.

But...

Freedom “from” these kinds of things is only half the picture, and the lesser half if I were to speak frankly here. A better kind of freedom exists out there, and that comes in the form of true Agency, or the ability to make things happen. I often write about the importance of action in these articles (like here, here, and here), but the best actions to take are ones that create novelty, that “build the new,” that lean out over your front foot and push your boundaries further.

How are these 2 kinds of freedoms different?

The first freedom is pretty self-explanatory. Fewer limits mean more freedom. More options are better than less. Less duty equals more opportunity. Of course we all want more of this kind of freedom, right?

The second form, the freedom of Agency and the ability to make things happen, is much trickier. You may have set up your life to where your afternoons are free of appointments, achieving that first definition of freedom sufficient to allow you almost unfettered optionality on how to fill that time in ways that interest you. But what are you truly able to accomplish here?

Have you developed enough skill in playing guitar to where you are “free” to play along with some of your favorite songs, or even compose your own? Do you have enough training and practice in the culinary arts to enable you to enjoy the process of creating a 5 course meal for you and your friends this evening? Or even at the most basic level, have you cultivated enough curiosity and interest in the world around you that you have a half of dozen hobbies that you joyfully devote your time, energy, and money (TME) to further exploring?

The first freedom, freedom from obligations and limits, is a great place to start. But it gets real boring, really quick, if it isn’t soon replaced by prioritizing your ability to follow the path of action and agency into the realm of the second one. Only there are you really free to express your most unique qualities, pursue your passions, and fully bloom into your true Individuality.

What would YOU be doing if you had minimal obligations and restrictions on your TME, and could really lean into that 2nd freedom? And perhaps more importantly, what could you start doing today to create that reality?

Making your goals SMART

My last batch of blogs comprising the Action Audit series were specifically focused and designed to help close Action Gaps between our words and deeds so that we can enhance our personal integrity. The CAR process I prescribe is specifically designed to connect singular statements (or Commitments) with singular behaviors (or Actions) with the idea that successful outcomes help us enhance our personal integrity with ourselves, ultimately resulting in increasing our social integrity within our relationships as well. A critical distinction in this process is to be very clear that the outcome is only focused on integrity enhancement, and not at all on goal attainment. 

To further clarify, I use “Actions” here to describe single, 1-time events. In this context, they are usually set in the future in the form of a plan or promise. For example, “get up early and go to the gym,” or “meet for a drink at 5pm sharp,” or some other specific behavior.

I make it a point to clearly differentiate these actions from any larger goals that they may be in service to. For example, the plan to “get up early and go to the gym” may be in service to a larger goal of “losing weight” or “getting healthier,” but the existence of a goal is irrelevant to the CAR process and efforts towards integrity enhancement. Again, the CAR process is focused on singular events, period.

Goals, on the other hand, are often about some far off, nebulous state of being. They exist in the future land of “eventually” and are often vaguely defined or even imaginary. “Richer,” “thinner,” and “happier” are all common goals I often hear from clients. They’re all invisible and immaterial, yet paradoxically, any meaningful progress towards them requires steady attention and focused intention. Their constant drag on our awareness can have enormous impacts on our mental health and wellbeing, even as they promise to improve it.

How we connect our actions of integrity enhancement to larger goals of attainment? How do we take a “random heap” of individual actions and turn them into an “integrated whole” of goal accomplishment? By turning our vague “-er” (thinner, richer, better, etc...) hopes into concrete plans through application of the SMART process.

SMART goals are those that not only answer “yes” to the following 5 questions, but follow up with concrete answers.

1.    Is it Specific? Here you need to turn your nebulous “-er” goal, such as “richer” or “thinner” into something else more quantifiable.

2.    Is it Measureable? Thankfully this 2nd question provides direction here. How could you quantify the invisible goal of “richer” or “thinner” into something more objectively visible? Examples would be “increase salary by 20%,” or “lose 10 pounds.”

3.    Is it Achievable? This 3rd question further brings reality into play by forcing you to account for more of what is actually true for you now and what steps you might need to consider to reach the specific goal you stated. Here is where many clients initially struggle but then come out of the process more motivated to begin the work necessary for achievement.

4.    Is it Relevant? Another good question that comes from a place that you, like everybody, only have so much TME to dedicate to this process. A key to success here is to make sure that this particular goal is worth the struggle!

5.    Finally, is it Time Bound? We need to get out of misty “eventual” land and anchor our goal firmly to the calendar. Maybe our original sense of “thinner” could be helpfully tied to an upcoming event? Or “richer” can be connected to our upcoming performance review conversation. Regardless, we need to set a hard timeline here to drive focus and effort.

All this comes together in framing out our goal in accordance to the SMART process. Just like the CAR process above ties Commitment to Action and binds them in the final step of Recognition, the SMART goal process turns half-conscious aspirations into concrete plans.

For example, “I want to be thinner” gets turned into “My goal is to lose 10 pounds by Janet’s wedding coming up in 2 months. I will accomplish this goal by increasing my time at the gym from 2 x/week for 45 minutes/session to 4x/week for 1 hr/session. Accomplishing this goal will allow me to wear an awesome dress that I feel great in, (and most importantly, will help me further boost my integrity and self-confidence as somebody who can set goals and then attain them!).”

That last part of the last sentence is the real take-away for me and my work with my clients. Acting as a Catalyst, my goal is to help you get where you want to go, just quicker and easier. Book a complimentary 30-minute Discovery call here to set up a chat to see where I might be able to help you close some Action Gaps and/or rework your vague aspirations into attainable SMART goals.

Action Audit Wrap Up – The 60-Day Challenge

Here in our 5th and final piece of our Action Audit series we’ll put together the insights you may have gained from you Self Audit process with those that you might have discovered through your interactions with friends and family through your Action Audit 360 surveys.

 Hopefully you have already started applying the CAR process to those Action Gap areas that you previously discovered in your Self Audit examinations. Again, in the CAR acronym, C stands for Commitment, where you pause when an idea for future plans or actions come up and make a point to decide there and then if you are willing to fully commit to it or not. For those things that you do decide to commit to, when the time comes you then have to take the Action required to meet the commitment. And finally, for every Commitment you complete with Action, you want to make a point to intentionally and consciously Recognize this fact with a short moment of appreciation and applause for yourself.

 No matter how small they may seem, these moments of Recognition are critically important components for solidifying your deeper integrity and further bolstering your awareness and identity as somebody who says what they mean and means what they say. Every success in your efforts to integrate the CAR process into your normal flow of life should result in increased self-confidence which leads to and supports others increasing their confidence in you as well.

 Now it is time to review your Action Audit 360 surveys, specifically looking with an eye for 2 things. The first thing is see what each person listed as the most relevant for them and their experience of you. Working with this item as relates to that individual person will be a big part of your 60-day challenge, so it is important to have a clear understanding of how they see you coming up short in their experience of you.

 The second thing to look for in those surveys is to see if there is a theme or themes present underneath and/or across the specifics of all the individual responses. Examples of common themes in play include timeliness, overcommitting or last minute cancellations, and lack of follow through on often stated life goals like fitness, diet, or even travel aspirations.

 From here you should be able to make some connections between your Self Audit findings and those coming from your Action Audit 360’s, and the more, the better! In a perfect world, your Action Audit 360’s revealed no surprises and all mentioned the same 1 or 2 things that you have already been working on in your Self Audit CAR process efforts. However, it’s more likely that while there is some overlap, your Action Audit 360 surveys also revealed some bigger issues in play whose existence might have come as a bit of a shock or surprise.

 Armed with your Self-Audit results and both the individual and thematic items from your Action Audit 360 surveys, you now have the basic information in front of you to officially begin your 60-Day Challenge of closing some more Action Gaps.

 Step 1: Get more clarity on exactly what Action Gaps you want to close when it comes to your social circles. As mentioned above, I’d recommend focusing on items that were highlighted by relevant individuals as well as any larger thematic ones.

 Step 2: Write out the specifics of these Action Gaps, and then also write out how you might apply the CAR process to closing them and potential opportunities to do so. The more specific and detailed you are here, the better for your future chances of success!

 Step 3: Here’s another scary part. Have a short conversation with each of the relevant Action Audit 360 survey respondent where you briefly recap what came up in the survey and then tell them about your 60-Day Challenge of trying to close those Action Gaps. Finally, I recommend actually inviting them into the challenge as a way to further build that relationship and get real time feedback on your efforts. Here’s an example of what that might look like:

 “Hey Mike, thanks for making time for this chat, I appreciate it. I wanted to share the results of my Action Audit 360 survey that you helped me with a few weeks back. It turns out that you and several other people all pointed to my lack of timeliness as a place where I had an Action Gap. So, first of all, thank you again for being honest with me there. But secondly, and more importantly, I’m undertaking a 60-Day Challenge where I am going to put more effort and attention into watching myself when it comes to my timeliness. This may look like me being clearer about when I can be somewhere, including if I don’t think I can make it at the preferred time. And on my end, I will be much more intentional about honoring the time commitments I do make. My goal is to be where I said I would be at the time I agreed to be there. That would be refreshing, right?

 This being said, I’d like to invite you into my 60-Day Challenge by simply asking you to pay a little more attention to my timeliness for the next 2 months to see if how I do. I’d like to receive a little push if I’m not doing well, and perhaps hear a little acknowledgement if I am doing well. Building up my own integrity is important to me, and I’m grateful for your continued support in those efforts.”

 Of course, that’s just a hypothetical example, but it covers the basics of appreciation for honesty, communication of results, aspiration for improvement, and request for open-mindedness on their part to go along with the attention and effort on yours. These ingredients should come together to create stronger relationships in the end, especially to the degree that you can show up with more integrity and fewer Action Gaps going forwards.

 Finally, the key moving forward is to intentionally apply your CAR process each and every time anything remotely near the area of your identified Action Gaps comes up. Sticking with the above “Mike” example, say Mike and few others mention a post-work Happy Hour meet up at the pub down the street, starting at 5:30. Upon hearing this, pause first and simply check in with yourself to see if you want to Commit to going instead of just expressing vague commitment. Assuming you want to go, now ask yourself if 5:30 is workable. If so, say “Yeah man, I’ll see you at 5:30.” If not, say something like, “Yeah man, but I’ll be closer to 6. I need to button up this report before I leave today.

 Next, follow up with appropriate Actions that get you there at the time you agreed upon. Again, as a reminder, this is much more about your integrity, and much less about their opinion of you. Take the necessary actions that strengthen your integrity and their observations of such will automatically increase your standing with them.

 When you get there at 5:30, or 6, or whenever, make a brief point to touch base with Mike and say something short and sweet, like, “Alright, I made it!” with a smile to let him know that meeting your expressed commitment connects to your previous conversation around your 60-Day Challenge. The subtler here, the better. But the point here is to not only have your own Recognition of making this improvement, but to have it be a shared Recognition as well.

 Over the course of your 60-Day Challenge you should have plenty of opportunities to engage or even create chances to give your friends and family members new experiences of you showing up better and in more alignment with your spoken commitments. Making a point to connect with them before and during the 60-Day Challenge can be a helpful catalyst for creating a new shared reality between you that is an upgrade and overwrite of the previous one.

 This new shared reality now features you as more reliable, more dependable, and in fact, more admirable for having taken on your Action Gap challenges in a direct and focused manner. While these results speak for themselves, you might be surprised to see how much they inspire others to speak positively to and about you as a result as well.

Action Audit 360, pt. 2

In this 4th installment of our Action Audit series we’ll tackle perhaps the trickiest part of the process – asking other people for their honest feedback on how we may be coming up short in relationships with them. For many of my clients these requests for feedback are difficult to send out, and even more difficult to read through with an open mind and positive attitude. And rightly so, as these reports peel back a layer on one the most important parts of our innate drive for status, perhaps one of the central components of our social lives as humans.

 While status itself is huge and hugely interesting topic, suffice it say here that the temporary challenge to our self-perception of our social status is very necessary first step in elevating it, especially if our self-perception is significantly out of alignment with what actually exists in our social networks. This mismatch never works out in our favor, and almost always is an impediment to any and all personal growth and achievement goals. Therefore, it is imperative to first identify where we have opportunities to increase our actual social status by seeing where we have Action Gaps in our social sphere so that we can begin to close them

 Again, this actual practice is much trickier than it may sound at first read. Part of the issue is that these Action Audit 360’s can range from extremely thorough and complex, such as those Leadership 360’s used by many large corporations when choosing new C-Suite Executives, to the very short and simple, like what I’ll suggest here for my casual readers further on.

 Another dimension of difficulty that is largely invisible but massively impactful is the fact that most people have strong aversions to honest critical feedback – both giving it and receiving it! Human relationships have a lot of flexibility and resiliency to them, and a big part of this fact is our willingness to overlook or otherwise accommodate various degrees of our inherent flaws, foibles, and other shortcomings as humans.

 Therefore, part of our challenge here is to invite feedback from our various social connections in a way that feels doable for them and doesn’t cross over into relationship-risking territory. In fact, for this exercise here I would strongly suggest ending all your feedback requests with a clear opportunity for your recipient to opt out of it entirely.

 The final area of challenge here is internal to us as recipients of the critical feedback. As I mentioned last week, all journeys of self-improvement begin with the bad news of seeing ourselves in light that’s a lot less favorable than we are used to doing. It is very natural to react to critical feedback with a wide variety of defense mechanisms, excuses, and rebuttals.

 And while these reactions are normal and expected when we feel attacked, it is important to remember that our goal here is greater awareness of our Action Gaps as experienced by other people. Therefore, the best responses to hearing them are a sincere and appreciative “thank you,” or perhaps even a “Can you please provide me an example or instance where you saw this to help me ground it better in my experience?”

 All of this being said, here is my simple template for beginning a short and simple Action Audit 360 assessment on any Action Gaps you may have as experienced by your community. Feel free to copy it for your own use, and to also make any changes to it as you see fit.

“Dear _________,

I am in the process of doing some internal housekeeping as part of new 60-Day Challenge I’m undertaking. Part of this Challenge is to identify what are called “Action Gaps” in my behavior where my actions don’t quite line up with my stated plans, promises, or commitments. I’m already running the Self-Audit part of this Challenge on my own, but I need help from a few trusted members of my social circle to get more perspective on my opportunities for positive growth and change. I would be honored if you could help me in the process. Is this something you’d be willing to help me with?

 If you are willing to assist me here, please share where you see me having an Action Gap where my behavior doesn’t line up 100% with my stated intentions. It could be something small, like I tend to show up later to events than I said I would, or have mentioned joining a gym for a while now but still haven’t done so. It may be a bit larger, like you’ve overheard me saying things you know not to be true or doing things that otherwise damage my integrity from your perspective.

 I know this may feel risky, or you might think that being honest here might damage our relationship. And I understand that because it certainly felt that way for me when I first looked into this Challenge. However, I truly believe that you sharing your perspective through some constructive feedback here will actually strengthen our relationship by giving me more awareness of where you already see it to be a bit weak and allowing me the opportunity to begin to close those Action Gaps that are hurting me.

 If you are willing to lean here and participate, then please complete the below questionnaire in whatever way feels most constructively honest for you.

 And again, if you don’t feel comfortable with this exercise at this time, then that is great too! I trust your judgement and concerns here 100% and appreciate you taking the time to consider it.

 Best wishes,

_________________”

 Again, the above component of your Action Audit 360 request is just the introduction to the actual 360 questionnaire that you will provide.

 The questionnaire that follows can just be a single, open response question, like “Where and/or how has my behavior given you reason to feel uncertain about my ability to follow through on something?” Or, perhaps something like “Where have you seen a disconnect between what I say and what I do? No answer or example is too big or too small to include here.” Or even, “What have I done that gives you reason to view my integrity as anything less than 100%?”

 Alternatively, you could create a simple list of questions like “Between 0 and 100%, generally speaking, how reliable would you say that I am?” and “What is one thing I could change that you think would help me be seen as more reliable by other people?” You can ask pretty much anything you want here, my only recommendation on specific content would be to consider tailoring your questions to fit your audience. For example, you might have one set of questions for your colleagues and another for you partner and yet another for your boss.

 And yes, I know, ALL of those questions may seem very risky to ask of your friends and family! But what’s the bigger risk? Having them answered in a way that gives you opportunities to address them, or having them remain unanswered and holding you back with them in any number of ways that are invisible to you?

Action Audit 360, pt. 1

A few weeks back I introduced the concept of Action Gaps – those places where we aren’t following through on expressed interests or commitments with actual actions when the time comes. As I discussed in that post, these Action Gaps can be very costly to our social status and professional reputations, and can cause greater damage in our close personal relationships. Yet, even more profound is the negative impact these Action Gaps can have on our self-confidence and trust in ourselves. In short, they weaken our integrity and compromise our ability to fully show up all throughout our lives.

 I followed up that initial post with another piece on running an Action Audit as the process of seeking to find where those Action Gaps might be lurking in our own planning and promises. The first place to start with this Action Audit is with ourselves via the process of a Self-Audit where we turn our focus onto our behavior to see where we make plans and promises to ourselves but then don’t follow through with action. Examples mentioned include telling ourselves we’ll go to the gym or skip dessert, but then, when the time comes, we simply don’t go to the gym and do end up eating that dessert. So that is step 1 of the Self Audit – to bring more awareness into our own behavior to identify where we have Action Gaps.

 Whether these gaps are large or small, or simple or complex, they all ultimately result in lower self-confidence and lower trust in ourselves. These lower self-appraisals in turn impact our ability to garner trust and confidence from the people around us. Any goals we have for developing our leadership skill and ability are thereby made more difficult to accomplish. Therefore, it becomes imperative to identify these Action Gaps with the intention of working towards closing them.

 Once these Action Gaps begin to come to greater awareness, we can then start to be more mindful on closing them by either being more realistic on the planning side or more diligent on the action side, or ideally both. The goal here is greater integrity between our words and deeds, and making necessary adjustments on both ends to close those gaps. And while this seems simple in theory, there are plenty of obstacles in the way that make it difficult to make immediate changes. The main challenge we covered in that follow up post was to make a hard and clear distinction between the process of integrity enhancement vs goal accomplishment. As a reminder, Action Gap closing is much easier when approached with the former objective in mind.

 Part 2 of the Action Audit is the much more difficult and scarier proposition of directly seeking information from your friends, family, and colleagues on where they’ve seen you creating Action Gaps. We call these assessments an Action Audit 360 in that they are designed to provide a full 360 degree view on how you show up (or don’t) across multiple domains of your life and the relationships therein.

 Potential recipients of an Action Audit 360 request can include personal friends, partners, and relatives, but usually focus on professional connections such as colleagues, supervisors, and direct reports. We often “code-switch” in how we relate to different people in our lives and across different contexts, and part of the idea of the 360 degree view is to identify patterns within each of these contexts as well as the larger ones that span across them.

 For example, we may come across as warm and caring towards our employees and/or direct reports, but that same concern and care may manifest as softness and indecisiveness in how our Boss or other, more senior Leadership might view us. Or perhaps we are particularly respectful and patient with our spouse, but come across as a bit rude and contemptuous with a long-time friend.

 The point to be made here is that all our relationships are unique collaborations between us, the other person, our shared history, current context, and future expectations. Therefore it is reasonable that how we show up in each of these relationships may differ - sometimes widely, sometimes quite narrowly. However, we still have a core personality, adhere to certain principles, and have other less malleable traits and characteristics. These should be observable across multiple relationships to some degree as well.

 Through running an Action Audit 360 assessment of your Action Gaps and how they manifest in and across a wide range of your relationships you should be given some unique insight into opportunities to improve all of them. Obviously, you’ll want to make note of what specific things pop up that might be unique to a particular relationship with an eye on addressing that item within that relationship. But the bigger thing to look for is what patterns might emerge when comparing the feedback you receive from all the recipients together as a whole.

 We’ll return next week with a more detailed breakdown of how this part of the process usually unfolds, what dynamics make it a bit tricky, and provide a simple template you can use to get things started.

Action Audit, Step 2 - Closing the Gaps

My previous blog on Action Gaps ended with the suggestion that efforts to close the ones you find in yourself can be a bit trickier than they might seem at first glance. I’ll try to offer some observations on what common issues come up in the process of trying and go through my 3-step CAR process for working around them in this piece.

However, before digging in, I want to simply point out that millions and millions of words have been written about losing weight, getting control over one’s finances, and a myriad of other topics where “closing the Action Gap” has proven to be extremely challenging. It logically follows then that my 500 words below aren’t really going to move the needle here, right? Maybe, but maybe not.

I’ll start here by clarifying that my focus here is NOT at all on helping you reach whatever goal you have in mind that requires you take the missing Action step in your situation. THAT is a whole ‘nuther topic. My only focus here is helping you get greater internal integrity by asking you to track and identify where you have these Action Gaps, and then offering a simple mechanism to help you close them. In other words, this isn’t about goal accomplishment but rather about integrity enhancement.

To unpack this critical distinction between goal accomplishment and integrity enhancement, let’s go over the main difference between Actions and Goals. Actions, as I am using the term here, are 1-time events. “Go to bed early tonight,” “Have a lite salad for lunch tomorrow,” and “Spend $50 or less for my brother’s birthday gift,” for example. These Actions are all singular, concrete events, occurring now or soon, and usually have very limited impact on our overall current state of being.

Goals, on the other hand, are usually all about some distant state of being. They exist in some nebulous, far off space of “eventually” and are often entirely imaginary or vaguely quantified. “Richer,” “thinner,” “happier,” etc. are all common goals I hear coming up for my clients. And they’re all invisible, immaterial, and reaching them requires steady attention and intention. Paradoxically, they often have enormous impacts on our mental health and wellbeing. It’s no wonder they can seem to feel so big, yet impossible to achieve!

The problem many people face is they correctly appreciate that Actions lead to Goals, but then incorrectly mix up all the messiness of Goals into the simplicity of the Actions. For example, they may have decided that the pathway to reaching their Goal of being “thinner” is built by taking certain Actions like eating a lite salad for lunch instead of a bacon double cheeseburger. So far, so good. But then they bring all kinds of personal drama from the past that may or may not be related to that Goal into the mix, both when planning the Action and again when it comes time to follow through. This messy mix often turns what should be a simple Action into a whole dramatic story and process, putting both one’s goal accomplishment and integrity enhancement plans into the trash.

So what’s the best way to keep things simple?

By keeping our focus entirely on the integrity enhancement part of the equation.

Remember, Action Gaps come about due to first making a plan or promise to ourselves and then not actually following through on them when the time comes to do so. This lack of connection between thought and behavior is the ONLY issue we are discussing here, and only due to the fact that it undermines our own integrity, which in turn weakens us in countless other ways.

Therefore, the solution to closing these Action Gaps comes down to doing what I call the CAR process:

1)    Commitment: Take an honest and clear-eyed look at yourself when you find yourself making those plans or promises to yourself about tomorrow. Be real here. Are you simply expressing a hope or interest? Or are you making a commitment? If it’s just a hope or interest, then force yourself to clearly move it off the table entirely or over go all in on it and turn it into a hard commitment. You may find this first step surprisingly difficult, but clear honesty here is the main point.

If you indeed want to make it a commitment, then the trick is to make the follow through Action about you keeping your word to yourself rather than it merely being a vague effort to reach some vague goal. Self-commitment is a much more powerful force than is the idea of a vague effort. 

2)    Action: When it comes time to follow up on your commitment with the required Action, take a moment to pause and clarify what this Action means to you. Framing things here primarily as a means of building trust and confidence in yourself is a much healthier motivator than trying to shame or blame your way into vague goal setting behavior compliance. This Action is all about follow through on your previous commitment, and not about some nebulous distant goal. Again, it’s not about goal accomplishment, it’s about integrity enhancement.

3)    Recognition: This third and final step is perhaps the most important part of this process. Once you have completed the Action that you committed to completing, pause just for a moment of recognition and compliment yourself on your follow through and completion of the Action. It may sound a bit trite, but I can’t overestimate the power of this step of acknowledgement and gratitude. This third step is where you are consciously bringing intention and awareness to your newly enhanced integrity. The more you can demonstrate that integrity to yourself, and then use this acknowledgment step to bring it more fully into your awareness, the more it will shine through the next time you are making a commitment to Action to yourself.

 Every time you complete a CAR integrity enhancement exercise your personal integrity increases by a small amount, and each increase begets more strength and focus you can bring to bear on the next opportunity. This increased trust in and respect for yourself can’t help but show up in your personal and professional relationships as well. All good things, right?!?

*As an aside, I like the CAR acronym because it’s fun to imagine this process kind of like a video game where each success gives you an upgrade in ability or weapons, but in this case, it can be fun to visualize each success giving you an upgrade to your actual car. Like, you can imagine starting with whatever car you currently have, but then imagine that each successful CAR exercise completion lets you upgrade it a bit to the next model, newer version, or even going up brand or more sporty, rugged, or whatever else feels like an upgrade for you. Having some fun with this process is helpful, and visualizing these integrity enhancements as having real world impact is a helpful way to see how it can connect with your everyday experience.  

Next week we’ll continue to explore the Action Audit framework and introduce the much riskier second step – asking your friends, family, and colleagues where they see gaps between your words to them and the actions that may or may not follow. And while this may seem a bit scary at first, it’s helpful to remember that all journeys of self-improvement begin with the “bad news” of seeing our current state more honestly.

Action Audit, Step 1 – Self Audit

Last week we talked about Action Gaps and how important it is be mindful about making sure our words and actions are fully in alignment when it comes to building trust and credibility in both our personal and professional lives. Sometimes, like in my initial example from last week, these gaps can be inadvertently created due to differences in communication styles and how we use and understand certain words and phrases. But other times these gaps are more intrinsic to how we function in general and point to deeper issues about our integrity with ourselves.

 Regardless of where they come from, these Action Gaps are costing us our social reputations to various degrees, and therefore our opportunities for growth and future success. Which brings us to the real questions - How can we start to find out where these Action Gaps might lie, and perhaps more importantly, how can we begin to close them?

 One option to address this question is by running what I call Action Audits to see where we are expressing interest in or even commitment to do something, but then don’t actually follow through when it comes time for action.

 It’s a good idea to start small here with a Self-Audit. By this I mean simply check in with yourself to see where your “present self” made a plan for your “future self” to do later. But, when later eventually comes, no actual action happened - creating an Action Gap. No need to seek any changes at this point, just be mindful of where and when you aren’t following through on a plan or promise you made to yourself, no matter how big or small it might seem.

 Often times these Action Gaps show up in our aspirations for self-care or self-improvement, such as going to the gym, skipping dessert, or staying focused on a work project during certain time frames. Yet, when it comes time to follow through, we find ourselves sleeping in instead of going to the gym, eating the dessert, and fucking around on the internet instead of focusing on our work project. It's easy to view one-off events like these as no big deal and something to “try again” tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and goes, and we still don’t follow up with external actions that match our internal plans.

 Other times these Action Gaps can create much larger and impactful problems in our lives. One example here could be in personal finances, such as saving up a certain amount of money or paying off some debt by a certain date. Another could be in your relationship, like wanting to bring up a difficult topic but then veering away when the time comes or even vowing to stay faithful only to stray as an opportunity to do so arises.

 For some people, promises like these seem trivial or minor and they break them without a second thought. For others, they are tied up in messy histories and deeper issues. However, and no matter how big or small, any and all Action Gaps have bigger costs associated with them, well beyond the simple calories burned or gained and money saved or spent.

 The much more important dynamic in play here is the issue of one’s deeper integrity. What many people fail to realize is that their trust and confidence in themselves greatly impacts the trust and confidence that other people will have in them too. In other words, self-trust creates the strong foundation necessary for other people to place trust in you. Therefore, nurturing/nourishing your confidence in yourself will naturally lead to you gaining trust and credibility in the minds of your peers and colleagues as well.

 Identifying some of your internal Action Gaps by running a fiercely honest Action Audit can be a very difficult process. Mapping and tracking your behavior can be tricky enough, but the harder part of this process really comes down to facing these truths openly and honestly. You might be surprised at how scary it can be to simply sit down with the basic facts of your broken promises and not give in to the tempting litany of bullshit excuses, rationalizations, and other defense mechanisms. But this first step of running an accurate Action Audit is the necessary prerequisite to beginning the real work of closing those Action Gaps to build up your integrity and trust in yourself.

Once you have identified where and how these Action Gaps tend to pop up in your life, then you can begin the harder work of closing them. This sounds very simple in theory. You either stop making plans and promises you consistently can’t keep, or you start being more intentional about tracking those plans and promises so that you can follow up with the right action when the time comes. Ideally, you do both, right? More effort and attention placed on both ends of the deal will indeed build up your internal integrity quickly. But… reality is never as simple as the ideal.

We’ll circle back to Action Gap closing next week to explore some of the factors that make it much harder than it seems and offer up a 3-step process to help you in your efforts.

Action Gaps

Back when I lived in Philly, I had a buddy I would often invite into town to join up with the rest of our friends for all kinds of activities. He only lived a short distance away, but far enough that it was more effort and planning for him to meet up for a fun dinner out, a show, or other group activity. Therefore, I would try to plan things a few days out to make it easier for all of us. Here’s how that would go:

 Me: “Hey, we’re planning on getting together on Sunday night to check out this new Thai place that opened up, do you want to join us?”

 Him: “Yeah man, that sounds good.”

 Me: “Cool, the reservation is at 6, see you then.”

 Him: “Great, thanks for the call.”

 However, when the rest of us met up at the agreed upon time and place, he often wouldn’t be there. I would then call or text to see when he was going to arrive, I would often get something like “Uh, yeah, uh, no, I don’t think I’m going to get down there tonight.” This happened with enough frequency that I began to expect him to not show up and began to preemptively call him an hour ahead of time to clarify whether he was actually going to be there or not. Sometimes he would confirm, but most often he would opt out in their “Uh, yeah, uh, no...” style. This dynamic frustrated me to no end,, and the rest of us too. It got to the point that we all joked about him always bailing out, and eventually I stopped inviting him altogether. More importantly, I also began to think less of him as a friend and began to view him with less trust and confidence.

 In spite of this particular planning dynamic, we would still see each other fairly frequently and always had a good time together. So I was confident that the underlying issue wasn’t about him simply not liking me and being too conflict avoidant to come out and say so. But what would explain this habitual yes-to-no fade over the course of a few days?

 Rather than stew indefinitely there, I eventually decided to simply ask him to help me understand how a “yeah man, that sounds good” on Thursday would morph into a last-minute cancellation or no-show. He was startled at my question, and a bit defensive at first. But once he paused and saw the pattern that I described, he responded, quite sincerely: “Well, I guess when I hear the initial offer, I am truly excited and interested in the idea of hanging out, but then I don’t really take it past that point until late Sunday afternoon rolls around. Then, if I haven’t forgotten about it or when you call to touch base, I check in with myself to see if I want to muster up the energy to drive into the city for the evening.”

 Ahh, that was quite revealing to me!

In my mind the actual question I was asking on Thursday was this: “Hey, are you able to commit right now to this plan for Sunday?”

 But to him it was more like: “Hey, what’s your general interest in this idea?”

So when he said “Yeah man, that sounds good,” I would get off the phone and mark him down as a hard yes. But he, on the other hand, would simply hang up with “maybe I’ll see those guys this weekend,” with no commitment at all in mind.

 In short, I learned that for him (and for many other people too) interest does not at all mean action. The missing piece in these conversations was bridging that gap with clarification for commitment.

 I started inviting him again after this realization, but after he would say “Yeah man, that sounds good” I would follow up with, “Cool, can you commit to this plan now or would you rather me check back in with you on Sunday?” Sometimes he would commit on the spot, but most of the time he would ask for a Sunday confirmation call. I was happy either way with this new clarity, and his Sunday decision no longer affected his credibility with me, and in turn, our friendship as a whole.

 Where in your life do you see interest being confused with commitment? Where have you downgraded folks in your circle who do the same, where their initial “yes” response to an idea or request ends up as a “no”? More importantly, where might you be answering with a “yes” at first only to show up as a “no” when it counts?

 These Action Gaps are costly – to friendships, to professional relationships, and to reputations as a whole. In short, action gaps negatively impact one’s integrity and credibility with others. Tune in next week when we introduce the concept of the Action Audit as a way to get more clarity around hidden action gaps in your life and suggest a few ways to begin to close them.