The Knowledge-Action Gap: How to Stop Consuming & Start Living What You Know
Essay 1 in the ChaseTracker Series
Here’s a question that might hit close to home: How many episodes of Chasing Excellence have you listened to while doing exactly the opposite of what we’re talking about?
If you’re like most, the answer is “more than I’d care to admit.”
Maybe you’ve listened to us talk about the importance of sleep while also scrolling your phone at midnight. Or you’ve nodded along to a discussion about intentional morning routines while rushing out the door, coffee in hand, already behind schedule.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s the human condition.
There’s a specific type of frustration that comes with being intellectually bought into something but struggling to live it consistently. You understand the five factors of health. You’ve done the deathbed exercise. You can explain awareness, intention, and action to friends.
But somehow, between understanding and execution, something gets lost in your pursuit to chase what truly matters.
The Knowledge-Action Gap
The problem isn’t information. You have plenty of information. The problem is the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it - consistently, day after day, even when (especially when) motivation fades.
We see this constantly.
People who can articulate why training matters but struggle to get to the gym consistently. Those who understand the importance of real food but find themselves ordering takeout again. It’s not about intelligence or commitment - it’s about lacking systematic approaches to bridge the knowledge-action gap.
Think about it: You already know you should move your body regularly, eat real food, prioritize sleep, think like a warrior, and connect meaningfully with others. The question isn’t what - it’s how to make these things happen reliably on your path toward health, happiness, and living with your heart on fire.
Why Good Intentions Aren’t Enough
Most of us approach behavior change like we’re running a series of random experiments.
We try morning workouts for a few weeks. We attempt meal prep on Sundays. We download meditation apps. Each attempt feels like starting from scratch, relying entirely on willpower and motivation.
But here’s what we’ve learned from focusing on these things in our own lives for years: Environment beats willpower every time. Systems beat motivation. And consistency beats intensity.
The people who successfully live these principles aren’t more disciplined than you. They’ve simply created environments where the right choices become automatic.
The Missing System
What if the solution isn’t trying harder, but thinking systematically?
Consider how Ben approaches fitness at CompTrain New England. Hundreds of members consistently show up, not because they wake up motivated every day, but because they’ve created a system that makes showing up inevitable. The time is scheduled. The community expects them. The environment makes the choice easy.
Now imagine applying that same systematic thinking to every aspect of health and life alignment.
Instead of relying on motivation to remember your priorities, what if reviewing your core values was built into your daily routine? Instead of hoping you’ll make good choices when you’re tired and stressed, what if you’d already defined your most important daily actions and had a simple way to track them?
The Daily Tracking Approach
Here’s a practical framework that bridges the knowledge-action gap:
1. Define Your Key Actions
Using the five factors of health as your foundation - move, eat, think, rest, connect - plus your personal vision, identify 2-3 specific daily actions that, if done consistently, would compound into the life you want. Not perfect actions - sustainable ones.
2. Track Daily, Review Weekly
A simple daily tracker helps you see whether your actions align with what you say matters most, creating awareness that naturally leads to better choices.
3. Focus on Crowding Out
Like filling your plate with vegetables to leave less room for junk food, fill your day with high-value activities to naturally crowd out the time-wasters and distractions.
The goal isn’t to become a tracking obsessive. It’s to create enough awareness that your daily choices start aligning with your long-term vision without constant mental effort.
Your Next Move
If you’re tired of the gap between what you know and what you do, the solution isn’t more information or more motivation. It’s a better system.
That’s exactly why we’ve built the ChaseTracker - a tool designed specifically for our community to bridge this exact gap. It’s built around the principles we discuss on the show, with the practical systems to make them stick.
The ChaseTracker is built exclusively for the Chase Club community - because bridging the knowledge-action gap isn’t just about having the right tool, it’s about being surrounded by others doing the same work.
If you’re ready to move from consuming content to systematically living it, join the Chase Club and get access to the tool that turns everything we talk about into daily practice.
Because here’s the truth: You already know enough. What you need is a system that helps you consistently chase what matters, not perfectly, day after day, week after week.