Life coaches, counselors, therapists and people that offer personal guidance hate it when someone they have counseled ends up behaving a lot different in comparison to what they think. For many people, their thought process and their behaviors are so disparate that people close to them are baffled by it. Here are a few explanations for the seemingly weird phenomenon.
Thoughts don’t have consequences, behaviors do
The reason why people act differently to what they think is that thoughts have no consequences but actions do. Merely thinking about a situation would have no consequences but when those thoughts are put into action, they may evoke reactions from others and those consequences may snowball into more problems.
Thoughts are uncontrollable, behaviors are
One of the major reasons why people don’t always act on their thoughts is that no one can prevent thoughts from popping into their heads but they can control what thoughts they put into action. A good example of this would be thoughts about harming someone.
For example, a bad day at work might leave you with thoughts of killing yourself or your boss but acting on it might have rather grave consequences for all. In such cases, thoughts need not always be reflected in actions and the ability to control behavior despite strong thoughts is a real sign of maturity and even sanity.
Thoughts are personal to one, behaviors are dependent on others
Another big reason why some people’s thoughts and actions differ is that thoughts can remain private unless one shares them with someone else or puts them down in writing. Actions, on the other hand, leave a more obvious trail and may evoke a reaction from others. For example, thoughts about jumping a red light won’t get you a ticket from the traffic cop but actually doing so would certainly land you with a fine.
