Avoidance is a Useful Signal

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A general rule of psychology? The thing you don’t want to talk about is likely the thing you *should* be talking about. The person who comes into a meeting and tells you, “I’ll talk about everything but the drinking,” likely needs to talk about the drinking.

But what lies on the other side of what this person is avoiding isn’t just small change, it’s transformational — and it’s true in business too.

The things we avoid, the things we don’t want to address, look at, do, or talk about are probably the things we should be diving into. Usually, these are things that would push us farther ahead and unlock some good, whether that is…

→ The hard discussion we don’t want to have (and hope resolves on its own)

→ The person we put off responding to

→ The task in our work we end up kicking to the end of the to-do list, every single time

Avoidance is powerful…in bad and good ways. 

While we tend to see avoidance as the thing we dread, it’s a great flag of the things we should be running more into. Because, truthfully, the things we avoid often give us information as to where we can compound our progress or make significant inroads…and where we are currently holding ourselves back.

What I find is that the most successful people I work with also have things they avoid and things they dislike — this is a common human experience. The difference, however, is that they treat avoidance as a signal and barrel through it. They get to the other side. 

Here are some ways to think about and tackle avoidance, and how to use your own red flags to 10x your progress.