You had all week to make that call, or whatever thing on your to-do list you have been putting off for weeks. It takes only a few minutes, but you keep putting it off. So by now it is already Friday afternoon; it is still on your list, and every time you look at whatever it is on your list, your stomach falls out of from under you and it feels like it’s the wrong decision. So, yet again you decide to put it off; you will do it Monday, when you are fresh because you will wait until after business hours on Friday when it is no longer an option. You immediately feel relieved, and for a little bit that relief stays with you.
That little “hit” of relief is the problem in a nutshell, and it keeps you stuck in the avoidance cycle. Actually, it makes it harder and harder to overcome every time you do it. So instead of getting better while you are waiting to feel ready, you are making the feelings stronger.
Avoidance is not something wrong with you or related to lack of discipline. It is one of the most predictable things your brain does, and it works to reduce anxiety short term, which is exactly why it is so hard to stop. When something makes you anxious, and you escape it, the anxiety goes away (temporarily). Your brain notices this pattern and comes to the conclusion that the thing was dangerous, and avoiding it kept you safe. It even goes further, to say that the only reason you are safe is that you avoided it. So you have taught yourself to be more afraid of it, not less. Oops, that is the opposite of what you really want.
The loop (without the jargon)
This is the cycle I see in almost every client in some form. First, you feel anxious about something. Then, you avoid it, and you feel instant relief when you escape it. Your brain codes the situation as a "confirmed threat" or something similar because you felt better once you successfully avoided it. Unfortunately, the next time it comes up, the fear feels a bit bigger because you've taught yourself through avoidance that you were right to avoid it and that you couldn’t handle facing it. So you avoid again; that feeling of relief gets a little more addictive, and the thing you are avoiding grows into something even bigger in your mind.
That small scheduling call feels like something you can’t do, because you have built it up so much in your head. Not because it got harder, but because you trained your brain and body to treat it like a real emergency. Your brain thinks the call is as much of a threat as a bear in the woods, when we can all agree that it’s not quite the same life-or-death situation. One of these is a real threat; the other is not. I think you know which one, right?
Avoidance likes to play dress up
Most people picture avoidance as obvious things like canceling plans, not opening the email, or staying home. In reality, it’s often much sneakier. Those are examples of avoidance too, but we don’t think about the smaller things or the tasks shoved to the next week as avoidance. We think of those things as stuff we didn’t have enough time for or weren’t ready to tackle. Spoilers, it’s usually still avoidance.
Over-researching a decision instead of taking the leap and making it is also avoidance. Pause, think about it. Yes, packing your calendar so full that you never have to sit with the harder question underneath is avoidance. Asking three friends for reassurance about the same worry is avoidance. Rewriting one message six times is part of avoidance. Each of these hands you the same short hit of relief, and each one teaches your brain the same lesson: we do not face this directly. It teaches you that because the outcome of those behaviors is relief, it was the “correct” response and facing it was the wrong one. We categorize feeling uncomfortable in these situations as the wrong response.
If you are a capable, high-functioning person, I think it’s important to pay attention to this, because your avoidance is likely hiding behind a productive-looking costume. I am guilty of this one, too. It looks like diligence, and you get praise for it. That is what makes it so effective at hiding, it looks like productivity.
What breaks the cycle
Your instinct is probably to wait until you feel calm and ready, then spring into action. That order is completely backward, and the waiting is its own cute little form of avoidance. Unfortunately, waiting longer doesn’t make you feel more ready. Sorry to be the one to tell you that. You don't need confidence before you act. The confidence comes from doin git before you are ready and showing that you can succeed even when you don’t feel fully ready. Let’s be honest, that feeling of ready never actually comes and it’s usually the deadline that pushes you instead.
What actually works instead is approaching whatever you are avoiding in small doses, or if you feel like it, you can just jump in. Maybe break up the task a little, or even challenge yourself to do the whole thing. You do not have to make the terrifying call today, but maybe you find the number so you are ready to go tomorrow and put a time on the calendar so you have everything in one place with no excuses. You can write one sentence today; you don’t have to write the whole paper. The point is not to white-knuckle through the most intense version in one heroic go (although you can and then you don’t have to think about it anymore). It is to give your brain repeated, evidence that the thing it flagged as a threat is not dangerous at all. You are proving your initial interpretation wrong. That evidence has to come from experience, from actually challenging the fear or threat you built up in your head. You cannot argue your nervous system out of a fear; logic does not win here, just behavior.
And the target was never zero fear. That is a bar nobody clears. The target is to do the thing while the fear is still in the room and let the anxiety come down on its own, which it does, every time, once you stop feeding it. The first few reps are uncomfortable. That discomfort is the mechanism doing its job, and it fades faster than you expect.
If this is the pattern you keep running through
Figuring out what your own version of the loop looks like is where we are going to start with our work. Pay attention to what you reach for when the anxiety spikes. Is it the extra research, the reassurance text, the chore that suddenly feels urgent, or one of the multitude of options out there? What you reach for is what we need to pay attention to, because that is what maintains the cycle or, what breaks it if you do something different. The choice is yours for what you do next.
If you have been running this pattern for years and are tired of avoidance running your life, we can work on that (I do that with clients every day), and I would love to see you break free from those ties.
Not sure if we would be a good fit? Let's talk it through. I want you to find the person who is right for you.