What if the biggest thing standing between you and the life you want isn't a lack of motivation, discipline, or confidence... but a form of avoidance you've never recognized?
This self-assessment helps you discover the unique avoidance style that's been running in the background, how it's been protecting you, and what it's been costing you.
Everyone avoids. Yet avoidance rarely looks like avoidance.
It often looks like procrastination. Overthinking. Staying busy. Perfectionism. People pleasing. Ignoring conflict. Waiting until you're "ready." Or it can look like endless planning, keeping your options open, or taking care of everyone else first.
Once you can see the avoidance clearly, you are in the land of choice. That is where change happens.
Imagine this.
You're about to make a phone call, open an email, start a project, maybe have a difficult conversation. Then something happens. "I'll do it later."
Almost instantly, you feel a small wave of relief. The task is still there. Nothing has changed. Yet somehow, you feel a little better. That feeling of relief is the clue. What's going on there?
Most of the time, you're not avoiding the task itself. You're avoiding what the task stirs up inside you. Maybe it's uncertainty, fear of failure, fear of rejection. It could be embarrassment, overwhelm, or self-doubt. The task is simply the trigger. The feeling is what your mind is trying to protect you from.
Avoidance is one of your mind's oldest survival strategies. It's a form of protection. Each time you got away from the discomfort, your brain rewarded you with relief. That relief reinforced the strategy, making it more likely you'd use it again the next time discomfort appeared. And for a time, that strategy likely served you.
The problem develops when avoidance becomes your default response instead of an occasional strategy. You develop an avoidance "style." A pattern of behaviors that all meet the need for immediate relief. That style starts making decisions for you before you're aware you're reacting instead of choosing. That's when what once protected you starts limiting you, keeping you from the very experiences that naturally build confidence, resilience, connection, and growth.
Read the list. Check everything that triggers you, even a little.
Check all that apply.
Check the ones you work hardest to stay away from.
Identify what avoidance has taken from you.
Finish each line without thinking too hard. First words that come.
Check a few boxes in Part 2 and Part 3 first, so there's something to read back to you.
Your top avoidance style
Today's snapshot. It can sharpen each time you take it.
How your answers landed across the five kinds
The feelings you're working hardest to avoid:
What it's been costing you:
Take it again in a few days.
This is a starting point, a first look at your pattern. Over the next few days, watch yourself in real time. Notice what you recognize may be avoidance, and the feeling that shows up right before.
Then come back and take it again. Your answers sharpen as your awareness grows, and a sharper answer is a more useful one.
Have a question, a comment, or something about your own avoidance you'd like to share? I'd love to hear it.
Email me