When words and actions don't match, which one are you choosing to believe?
There comes a point in life when we have to stop listening so closely to what people say and start paying attention to what they do. And good grief, that can be an inconvenient realization.
Words are wonderful things. They can reassure us, inspire us, comfort us, and convince us that everything is going to be just fine. They can make us feel valued, appreciated, respected, loved, and understood. But words are also remarkably easy to produce. Behavior requires a little more effort, and that's where things get interesting.
I've written before about being a words-of-affirmation girl and how much a simple "thank you" can mean. And I still believe that. Words matter. They can make us feel seen, valued, and appreciated. In fact, I wrote an entire BGPD entry about the power of those two little words.
But I've also learned something along the way. Words lose their power when the behavior behind them tells a different story. Being told we're appreciated feels wonderful. Being treated like we're appreciated? That's where the magic happens.
Someone can tell us we're important while consistently making us feel like an afterthought. They can promise to support us while remaining mysteriously unavailable whenever support is actually needed. They can talk endlessly about honesty, respect, accountability, and communication while demonstrating a rather creative interpretation of all four.
And somehow, we find ourselves standing there, holding their words in one hand and their behavior in the other, trying to figure out why the two don't fit together.
Here's a thought. Maybe we're not supposed to make them fit.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
We humans are incredibly talented at explaining away behavior that doesn't align with what we want to believe. They're busy. They're stressed. They're going through something. They didn't mean it that way. They're just not good at communicating. They have a lot on their plate. And sometimes, all of those things are true.
People are complicated. Life is messy. Nobody gets it right all the time. We all have moments when our behavior falls short of our intentions. I've certainly had mine, and I suspect anyone reading this has, too.
But there's a difference between an occasional misstep and a consistent pattern. One is human. The other is information.
Sometimes we spend so much energy interpreting, rationalizing, and excusing the information that we forget we're allowed to actually use it. We replay conversations, analyze text messages, consult our trusted circle of friends, and conduct what amounts to a full-blown forensic investigation into what someone really meant.
Meanwhile, their behavior has been delivering a remarkably consistent message the entire time.
Perhaps the problem isn't that we don't understand what they're communicating. Perhaps the problem is that we don't particularly like what we're hearing.
And that, my friends, is where things get uncomfortable.
The Part Where We Have to Look in the Mirror
Before we get too enthusiastic about analyzing everyone else's behavior, there's an inconvenient little plot twist. Our behavior is a language, too.
We can say we value relationships, but do we make time for them? We can say we believe in boundaries, but do we respect other people's? We can say we want change, but are we willing to change anything about ourselves?
We can describe ourselves as thoughtful, dependable, supportive, and honest. Most of us genuinely believe those things about ourselves. But the people around us don't experience our intentions. They experience our actions.
That's a rather humbling distinction.
We might believe we're being supportive when we're actually being controlling. We might think we're avoiding conflict when we're really avoiding accountability. We might insist we're protecting our peace when, in reality, we're simply refusing to have an uncomfortable conversation.
Ouch. Apparently, these big girl panties come with a mirror.
The point isn't to beat ourselves up. It's to recognize that we're constantly communicating through what we prioritize, what we tolerate, what we avoid, what we repeat, and what we choose to do when nobody is watching.
Whether we realize it or not, people are learning who we are through the experience of being around us. And sometimes that experience tells a different story than the one we think we're telling.
Leadership Has a Language, Too
After more than 25 years working with leaders and organizations navigating change, I've watched this same dynamic play out in conference rooms, leadership meetings, and organizational transformations.
A leader stands in front of a room and delivers a beautiful message about collaboration, trust, empowerment, and the importance of people. Everyone nods. The slides are lovely. The messaging has been carefully crafted. Someone probably spent three weeks debating whether the word "empowerment" was too strong.
And then Monday happens.
Decisions get made behind closed doors. Questions go unanswered. Employees are told their feedback matters, but nobody circles back to explain what happened to it. Leaders ask people to embrace change while continuing to operate exactly as they always have.
Then someone inevitably wonders why people aren't buying in.
Well, perhaps because they've been paying attention.
Employees don't experience organizational culture through PowerPoint presentations. They experience it through behavior. They notice who gets included, who gets heard, who gets credit, who gets protected, and who gets held accountable. They notice when leaders ask for transparency but withhold information. They notice when collaboration is celebrated publicly but discouraged privately.
And they certainly notice when the message is "We're all in this together," but the decisions suggest otherwise.
You cannot communicate your way out of a credibility problem you continue to behave your way into.
This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly that successful change depends on what people actually do, not simply what organizations tell them to do. We can create the most beautiful strategy in the world, but if leadership behavior contradicts the message, the behavior wins.
Every single time.
And the fascinating thing is that leaders are often genuinely surprised when employees don't trust the message. They assume people haven't understood the communication, so they schedule another town hall, create another FAQ, or send another email explaining the same thing in slightly different words.
But sometimes the problem isn't a communication gap. It's a behavior gap.
And no amount of messaging can close a gap that leadership behavior keeps reopening.
When We Keep Waiting for the Words to Become Real
Of course, this isn't just a workplace phenomenon. It happens in friendships, families, romantic relationships, and all the complicated spaces where human beings try to understand one another.
Someone says they'll be there. Someone says they'll change. Someone says they care. Someone says things will be different this time. And because we want to believe them, we do.
Sometimes we believe them repeatedly.
We give another chance. We have another conversation. We explain our feelings another way, hoping that perhaps this time we've found the magical combination of words that will finally make everything click.
I've come to believe that one of the most exhausting things we can do is keep trying to explain something to someone who already understands what we're saying but isn't particularly interested in changing their behavior.
Now, that's not to suggest every disappointment is evidence of bad intentions. People have different capacities, competing priorities, emotional baggage, and communication styles. Sometimes a conversation really does create understanding. Sometimes people genuinely need time to grow.
But growth has to show up somewhere other than the apology.
An apology without changed behavior eventually becomes another promise we're being asked to believe. And while forgiveness can be a beautiful thing, it doesn't require us to pretend the same pattern isn't happening again.
At some point, we have to recognize that we cannot communicate someone else into behaving differently. We can express what we need, establish boundaries, create opportunities for understanding, and extend compassion. But we cannot do the behaving for them.
Eventually, the question stops being, "How do I get them to understand?" and becomes, "What am I going to do with what I already understand?"
That's a very different question, and often a much harder one.
Because sometimes we already know the answer. We just don't particularly like what it means for us.
Calmfidence Means Trusting What You See
One of the things I've learned about Calmfidence, that combination of calm and confidence we build when life refuses to cooperate with our carefully constructed plans, is that it doesn't require us to have every answer.
Sometimes it simply requires us to stop arguing with the evidence.
We can pause before reacting, be present enough to notice what's actually happening, and gain perspective by looking at patterns instead of isolated moments.
We don't have to assume the worst about people or turn every disappointment into a dramatic confrontation. We certainly don't have to become cynical, suspicious creatures wandering around with emotional clipboards documenting everyone's shortcomings. That sounds exhausting, and frankly, I have enough paperwork.
But we can be compassionate without being oblivious.
We can give people room to grow without making ourselves responsible for their growth. We can recognize that understanding someone's reasons for behaving a certain way doesn't obligate us to keep accepting the impact.
And perhaps most importantly, we can stop treating every inconsistency as a problem we're personally responsible for solving.
Sometimes the most Calmfident thing we can do is quietly adjust our expectations, our boundaries, or our level of investment. We don't need a grand announcement, an emotional dissertation, or a closing argument worthy of a courtroom drama.
We simply need to decide what we're willing to participate in moving forward.
There's something incredibly freeing about recognizing that we don't have to convince people to show up differently in order to make different choices for ourselves.
We can care about someone and still recognize that their behavior isn't meeting our needs. We can respect a leader and still question whether their actions align with their message. We can love someone and still acknowledge that love doesn't magically erase a pattern that hurts.
That's not being cold or unforgiving. That's having perspective.
And sometimes perspective is exactly what we need when our emotions are doing their best to negotiate with reality.
Make Sure Your Own Behavior Is Speaking the Right Language
There's one final piece of this conversation that deserves our attention. If we're going to expect alignment between other people's words and actions, we'd better be willing to examine our own.
That means following through when we say we will, being honest when we can't, apologizing when we get it wrong, and recognizing that our good intentions don't automatically erase the impact of our behavior.
It means asking ourselves whether the people in our lives experience the version of us we believe we're presenting. Are we as available as we claim to be? As understanding? As accountable? As willing to listen?
Because we all have a story about who we are. We're loyal, thoughtful, dependable, supportive, and fair. Wonderful. But what would the people around us say based on their actual experience?
It's worth considering that sometimes we're the ones sending mixed messages.
And that's okay, provided we're willing to recognize it and do something about it. None of us is going to get this right all the time. We're human beings, not perfectly programmed customer service representatives. We get tired, distracted, overwhelmed, defensive, and occasionally a little ridiculous.
What matters is whether we're willing to notice when our behavior doesn't reflect our values and make an effort to close that gap.
Ultimately, behavior is a language we're all speaking, whether we intend to or not. Every choice, every follow-through, every broken promise, every act of kindness, and every moment of accountability contributes to the story people experience about us.
Words still matter. They can open doors, build understanding, repair relationships, and inspire meaningful change. I'll probably always be a words-of-affirmation girl. I still love a thoughtful message, a genuine compliment, and a heartfelt thank you.
But I've learned that the most meaningful words are the ones that have behavior standing behind them.
So perhaps the next time someone's words and actions don't align, instead of working overtime to reconcile the two, we might simply get curious about what the pattern is telling us. And while we're at it, we might ask ourselves what our own behavior is communicating.
Because the most important thing about learning the language of behavior isn't becoming better at reading everyone else. It's becoming more intentional about the messages we're sending, too.
And wouldn't it be nice if we could all spend a little less time deciphering mixed messages and a little more time experiencing relationships, workplaces, and lives where the words and actions actually match?
Imagine that. We'd have so much more time for other things. Like figuring out where we left our glasses, which are probably on top of our heads.
BGPD Rule
When words and actions don't match, believe the pattern, not the promise. And make sure your own behavior tells the story you want people to believe.
Give people grace, including yourself. Leave room for growth, mistakes, and second chances. But stop confusing good intentions with meaningful action, and stop translating consistent behavior into something you'd rather hear.
Because behavior is a language. And sometimes the clearest message is the one nobody ever says out loud.
The Big Girl Panties Diaries is my ongoing collection of reflections on reinvention, resilience, leadership, relationships, and the wonderfully messy business of figuring life out as we go. My forthcoming book, The Panty Stack: 365 Things We Know, Forget & Learn Again, brings these lessons together with humor, perspective, and a healthy dose of Calmfidence.
Julie Ann Whitten is an author, keynote speaker, and transformation and change advisor. She is the founder of Julie Whitten Consulting and author of The People Stack: Why Change Fails (and What Actually Fixes It), where she explores why meaningful change depends on what people actually do, not simply what organizations tell them to do.