"It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know"
About this Quote
The subtext is behavioral: motivation is overrated, action is the lever. By reframing paralysis as a failure of execution, Robbins nudges you away from research-as-procrastination and toward repetition, habits, and accountability. It’s also a subtle power move. If the obstacle is “not knowing,” you can blame complexity, lack of resources, the world. If the obstacle is “not doing,” responsibility snaps back onto you. That’s empowering in the self-help sense, but it’s also coercive: it leaves less room for legitimate uncertainty, burnout, depression, or structural constraints.
Context matters here. Robbins emerged in an era of performance-minded self-improvement: seminars, sales culture, the productivity boom. This sentence is built for that ecosystem - quick, memorizable, and slightly confrontational, the verbal equivalent of a trainer taking the excuses out of your hands. It’s not a philosophy of life so much as a strategy for getting someone off the couch: shrink the problem to the next obvious step, then demand motion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Habits |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Robbins, Tony. (2026, January 17). It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-not-knowing-what-to-do-its-doing-what-you-know-26407/
Chicago Style
Robbins, Tony. "It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-not-knowing-what-to-do-its-doing-what-you-know-26407/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-not-knowing-what-to-do-its-doing-what-you-know-26407/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.









