Do you avoid?

Funny, huh, how some folks think that avoiding challenges will bring them peace?

You know that it does not work, so how can you stop avoiding the challenge you’ve been avoiding?

Create awareness by asking, “What am I doing right now?” Throughout the day, set reminders or put little notes that remind you to ask, “What am I doing right now?” The answer might be, “Checking Facebook,” or “Switching to a new browser tab,” or “Eating some chips.” Something simple and mundane like that, but just ask yourself what you’re doing, to start to bring awareness.

Next, ask yourself, “What am I avoiding?”  Some of us, when things get difficult or uncomfortable, automatically switch to something else.  Ask what you’re avoiding: some fear, some difficult task, some difficult emotion, some discomfort, or just staying present in the current moment? Name what you’re avoiding.

Take appropriate action. Now that you’ve faced and named it, you can act like an adult and can decide what the best action is right now and one action is to:

Chunk it or separate it into smaller steps.

After dividing the problem into feasible parts, work through the easiest steps first. For example, when I am starting to create a new PowerPoint on a senior issue, I first break down the task into “gathering the research, reading the research talking to experts, pulling out the main points to cover, developing the take-aways, creating a list of resources, developing an outline, finding images,  and then creating a draft.“

Access your inner wisdom.

We all have the voice inside our heads that tells us when we are moving in a direction that we know is wrong. We need to take the time to listen to that voice. This voice, some call inner wisdom others call a conscious allows us to consider the consequences and what’ll be most helpful in the long term. By listening to this voice, you take into account your emotions, logical thinking and intuition.

Be accountable to yourself or others.

For instance, if you’re socially anxious, and have been invited to a party go and speak to two new people even if that feels scary.

Seek support.

If you don’t have the skills or knowledge you need to seek support by seeing a therapist, reading a book, taking a class or talking to a friend who has experience dealing with similar situations.

Our minds want to run from whatever discomfort, pain, the difficulty we’re facing … and this is a good strategy for temporarily not having to deal with difficulty and pain. However, this means we are at the mercy of our fears. We are like little children who don’t want to do any hard work but want the latest shiny fun thing.

Life moves on and, in the end, we usually have to deal with the challenges that we have put off, but by putting them off, some of them just get worse. Too late, we realize that it would have been better to face them early on.

Of course, not all problems will just evaporate using this method, but I can tell you that you’ll be able to face many more things as you practice this method. You’ll get better at dealing with discomfort, instead of running from it as most people do. You’ll get better at not procrastinating, and doing uncomfortable tasks and become more at peace. As if the peace you now know didn't come from earlier challenges that were faced, and mastered. Oh, you forgot about that, well that is not really that funny, is it?