There is a particularly satisfying moment in personal development.
The moment when everything suddenly makes sense.
“Aaaaah… so THAT’S why I do that!”
At last, we understand why we procrastinate.
Why we systematically avoid conflict.
Why certain situations send us into a tailspin.
Why we keep repeating the same relationship pattern.
Why we lack confidence in certain situations.
Why we can never say no.
Why we react the way we do.
And that realisation can bring enormous relief.
Finally, something makes sense.
The problem?
Understanding why the tap is leaking still does not fix the tap.
Understanding your behaviour is not the same as knowing how to change it
Understanding matters.
Sometimes it is even essential.
If you are trying to solve the wrong problem, you may indeed apply the wrong solution.
But there is a fundamental difference between:
identify → understand → know what to do → manage to do it → manage to do it again in real life.
And we often squash all those stages into one.
“Now that I understand, I should be fine.”
Then three days later, the situation happens again.
Someone says exactly the one sentence they should not have said.
And…
BAM.
Same reaction.
But you understood it.
Yes.
You just had not learned it yet.
“That’s just how I am”: when an explanation becomes a justification
Today we have an extraordinary number of frameworks that can help us understand ourselves better: personality tests. Medical diagnoses. Karpman’s Drama Triangle. Typologies. Neurodivergence. Attachment styles. Human Design. High sensitivity. Trauma. Atypical functioning. Family systems. Behavioural profiles. [etc.]
And these tools obviously do not have the same nature or the same level of scientific validation.
But they can share one thing in the way we use them.
We can move from:
“This helps me understand why this situation is difficult for me”
to:
“That’s just how I am, so there is nothing I can do about it.”
And then the tool that was supposed to increase our understanding paradoxically begins to reduce our room for action.
An explanation becomes an identity. Then an identity becomes fate.
A diagnosis can explain a difficulty without condemning you to helplessness
I can use my own example.
I am autistic.
So figurative language and second-degree humour can sometimes be difficult for me.
That information helps me understand why certain communication situations may require more effort.
It does not mean:
“I am autistic, therefore I can never learn to recognise irony or sarcasm.”
I can learn clues.
Observe contexts.
Ask questions.
Develop strategies.
Practise.
I may never process those signals in exactly the same way as someone for whom they are intuitive.
But understanding why something is difficult does not mean giving up on learning how to deal with it.
And of course, this is my own experience. It is not a universal description of autistic people.
Be suspicious of the word “therefore”
There is a tiny word that often deserves close attention in our explanations.
Therefore.
“I am introverted, therefore I cannot speak in public.”
“I am afraid of conflict, therefore I cannot set boundaries.”
“I lack confidence, therefore I cannot ask for a raise.”
“I have always functioned like this, therefore I cannot change.”
Sometimes the conclusion is reasonable.
And sometimes the therefore contains an enormous logical leap.
The first part may explain a difficulty.
The second turns that difficulty into an impossibility.
So one useful question is:
“Does what comes after ‘therefore’ necessarily follow from what comes before it?”
From “why?” to “how?”
“Why?” is a fascinating question.
Why do I do this?
Why do I react like that?
Why does this situation affect me so much?
But after a while, another question becomes necessary:
“How does this actually happen?”
When?
With whom?
After what?
In what emotional state?
What happens in my body?
What thought appears?
What do I do immediately afterwards?
What do I gain in the short term?
What does it cost me later?
For example:
“I don’t know how to set boundaries.”
is still very broad.
But:
“When I think a boundary may disappoint someone whose approval I am seeking, I tend to reverse my decision.”
is much more workable.
We have moved from an identity to an observable mechanism.
Knowing is not a skill
You can know exactly how an argument should be structured and still freeze when you have to speak in front of twenty people.
You can understand assertiveness perfectly and still say yes when you wanted to say no.
You can know all the principles of conflict management and still lose your temper when someone presses exactly the right button.
Because knowledge and skill are not the same thing.
A skill is developed through practice, feedback, adjustment and repetition.
That is true of public speaking, communication, negotiation, setting boundaries and many other relational abilities.
Understanding gives you a map.
Practice teaches you how to drive.
Observe → Understand → Test → Adjust
This is probably the simplest way I can describe the process I like to use.
1. Observe
Describe what happens as precisely as possible.
Not:
“I always sabotage myself.”
But:
“In what situation? With whom? What did I do? What happened just before?”
What actually happened?
2. Understand
Look for possible mechanisms.
Emotions, needs, habits, environment, beliefs, missing skills, relational context…
3. Test
Choose one concrete change.
Not:
“I am going to become more assertive.”
But:
“At my next meeting, when I disagree, I will ask a question first before explaining my objection.”
4. Adjust
What happened?
What worked?
What did not work?
What does this experience teach us?
Then repeat.
Change becomes an experiment rather than a judgement about yourself.
And sometimes the problem is not psychological
Another reason why method matters.
If I procrastinate because my task is badly defined, spending three weeks exploring my childhood may not be the most efficient strategy.
If I cannot speak up because I do not know how to structure an argument, I may need a skill, not an existential revelation.
If I am exhausted because my workload is objectively absurd, working only on my “inner resistance” may even become frankly counterproductive.
Not every problem is a wound.
Sometimes what is missing is: a method, information, a skill, organisation, a boundary, a conversation, or a decision.
And identifying the nature of the problem prevents us from spending a great deal of time repairing the wrong pipe.
Why coaching can help move from understanding to action
That is precisely where I see the value of coaching.
Not in:
“I am going to reveal who you are.”
You are already fairly well placed to participate in that investigation.
A coach’s role can be to help turn something vague into something observable.
Move from:
“That’s just how I am.”
to:
“I do this in these circumstances.”
Then:
“This seems to be what triggers the behaviour.”
Then:
“This is what I would like to be able to do instead.”
Then:
“What experiment can we build to try it?”
And afterwards, come back and look at what actually happened.
It is less spectacular than a mystical revelation.
It is also much more usable.
Understanding is not useless. It is the beginning.
I absolutely do not want to fall into the opposite extreme.
Awareness matters.
Putting a name to a difficulty can be enormously liberating.
Receiving a diagnosis can help make sense of years of difficulties that previously seemed incomprehensible.
Identifying a relationship pattern can completely change how we read a situation.
Understanding how we function can help us stop judging ourselves and start looking for strategies that are genuinely suited to us.
But then comes the question:
“Now that I know, what am I going to do with it?”
And perhaps that is ultimately the whole difference between knowing yourself and learning how to act with what you know about yourself.
An explanation can make your story more intelligible.
A method can help you write what comes next.
As the saying goes:
The past is a chapter. Not the whole story.