How to Stop Avoiding Problems & Confront Them

We all know that ignoring our problems doesn’t make them go away, but unfortunately, this is standard human behavior. Psychologists call this tendency "avoidance behavior," where we try to push away problems in the back of our mind and not think of them. But this often has the opposite effect and only makes us more anxious knowing that we have not dealt with the issue.

It is therefore clear that nothing good can come from avoidance behavior. What’s worse, we are sometimes not even aware that we are doing it. That is why I want to share my top three tips on how to realize when we are committing avoidance behavior and what we can do to stop doing it.

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1. Identify your behaviors

If you think that you may sometimes avoid doing things that you should, the best start would be to keep a journal. At the end of every day, just take five minutes to reflect if there were things you should have done but didn’t. Then try to think why you didn’t do it. Sometimes we just get too busy to get to everything in our day, but other times, we don’t do things because they cause us too much anxiety. These are the things we should address.

2. It is probably not as bad as you think

I remember when I was a student, I once didn’t have high enough marks to write a final exam, but I knew if I pleaded my case with the professor, he might take pity on me and let me write that exam. I had so much anxiety about asking him, that I didn’t do it for four days. When I finally went, he said no. I remember walking away from his office thinking that him saying no was not as bad as the four days of utter anxiety I spent building up the courage to go there. The next year, I did what I should have done in the first place: I studied harder and completed my qualification. The point that our fears are often unfounded, and that procrastination just makes everything worse.

3. Break it down

Avoidance behavior usually takes place because a problem looks so big that we don’t even want to look at it. But that is exactly what we should be doing. Whenever something seems overwhelming, the best thing to do is to take control of it. I found that the best first step towards taking control is to give the thing a name. Take a piece of paper and write down the name of your problem. Now it isn’t just some fuzzy thing at the back of your head. Next, write down all the parts of the problem that seem too big for you to handle. Together, all the aspects of your problem may seem huge, but the little parts seem like things you can do.

Aside from restricting your life, avoidance behaviors often have the opposite effect than what is desired. While in the short run you may experience a temporary sense of relief, in the long run, avoidance actually leads to increased anxiety.

People who live with avoidance are often depriving themselves of many experiences, adventures, and connections. Panic-related avoidance behaviors may be preventing you from living your life to the fullest. If you exhibit some anxiety-related avoidance behaviors, there are some things you can do to address the issue.

Now you can take active steps to tackle your problem and eat it up bit by bit.

And give yourself some credit, you are probably way more resilient than you think.