The Work You Keep Avoiding

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Most people keep waiting for life to open by itself.

We want more confidence, more peace, more clarity and more freedom. But when life presents the exact doorway that might lead us there, it rarely looks the way we imagined.

It usually looks uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s finally having the conversation with your wife that you’ve been avoiding because you know once you start talking honestly, you won’t be able to pretend everything is fine anymore. You’ve rehearsed it in your head a hundred times. You know something needs to be said. Yet somehow there’s always a reason why tonight isn’t the right night.

That’s the strange thing about growth. We say we want what’s on the other side, but we keep negotiating with the doorway.

Resistance Has a Very Convincing Voice

I’ve done this plenty in my own life.

When there is something I know I need to face, my mind can suddenly become extremely reasonable. Maybe I need more information. Maybe the timing isn’t right. Maybe I should think about it for another week.

Sometimes those things are true.

But most of the time it’s just resistance wearing a nice suit.

A lot of what we call not being ready is fear doing a very good job of sounding intelligent.

The issue isn’t that fear shows up. Fear is going to show up anytime we move beyond what is familiar. The issue is when we’ve developed the habit of obeying it.

Every time we move away from the difficult conversation, the uncomfortable decision, or the part of ourselves we don’t want to look at, we reinforce the idea that avoidance is keeping us safe.

It may give us relief for the night.

It doesn’t resolve anything.

And eventually whatever we keep avoiding begins taking up more space in our lives than the thing itself.

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“The life you want may be waiting behind the work you keep avoiding.”

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The Thing You Avoid Doesn't Disappear

This is something I’m continuing to learn.

If there’s an uncomfortable truth in my life and I refuse to deal with it right away, it doesn’t magically disappear because I’m busy. It comes out somewhere else. It shows up in the way I react, in the decisions I make, or in the tension I carry around without really understanding why.

Avoidance keeps the pattern alive.

That doesn’t mean pain is somehow noble or that we should purposely make our lives difficult. I don’t believe suffering automatically makes anyone wiser.

But I do believe there are moments when the only way forward is through something we would rather avoid.

And that’s where the journey begins.

Not when you’ve eliminated the fear.

When you stop allowing the fear to make the decision for you.

Walk Toward It

This has shown up in my life in multiple areas, sport, relationships, business and this work with The Balanced Man. Most of the time the anticipation is often worse than the experience itself.

You stand outside the door imagining everything that could go wrong. Then you finally have the conversation, make the decision, tell the truth, or confront the thing you’ve been avoiding.

And suddenly there’s movement.

Maybe it’s messy. Maybe you don’t get the outcome you hoped for. But you’re no longer trapped in the same place.

Stepping up and facing it is the first move.

Because confidence isn’t built by waiting until you feel confident. Confidence is built by repeatedly showing yourself that you can enter uncomfortable situations and handle whatever comes next.

That's a very different way of living.

Instead of constantly asking, “How do I get rid of this fear?”

Maybe the better question is:

“What would I do if I stopped allowing this fear to make the decision?”

The Door Is Usually Pretty Obvious

I don’t think most of us are as confused about our next step as we pretend to be.

Deep down, we usually know.

There’s probably something in your life right now that you keep circling around. You know the conversation. You know the decision. You know the habit. You know what you need to do!

And you may have built a pretty convincing explanation for why now isn’t the time.

I’ve certainly done it.

But at some point we have to stop waiting for the doorway to feel comfortable.

The life we keep saying we want may be sitting directly behind the work we keep postponing.

And sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply stop negotiating with ourselves and walk toward it.