In this episode Pam & Sarah discuss:

Links, Corrections, and Whatnot

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Learn if avoidance is one of your saboteurs.

Study: Increasing Saving Behavior Through Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self 

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

[00:00:00] Sarah: Why do we avoid? Why do we procrastinate? I, people will think, oh, you need a new time management system, get a new day timer. That’s not the issue. To me, the main issue is not that we’re incapable of organizing our time. We know what we’re supposed to do most of the time. It’s that we don’t wanna feel we don’t wanna do the thing that we think is gonna make us feel a certain way, which is generally, scared, vulnerable, overwhelmed.

{Intro music}

I’m curious, what do you think for you is the difference between procrastinating and avoiding, if anything?

[00:00:42] Pam: I don’t know that I’ve really thought about it. I think it may be as simple as that procrastination is the act, whereas avoidance is the theme or the cause. I think they’re so intertwined.

I don’t think that you can totally separate them, but maybe it’s that avoidance is what’s happening and procrastination is the manifestation of the avoidance.

[00:01:12] Sarah: Interesting. Yeah, that checks out. To me, when I think of avoiding, I almost think of like a deeper kind of resistance, maybe even a denial. I don’t even know if I’m ever gonna do this kind of thing.

Whereas procrastination, I tend to think of a little bit more clinical, like I have this deadline and I’m just gonna wait until the week before, the night before, the moment, before whatever it is. Whereas avoidance can be almost like completely turning a blind eye to this issue, task, feeling, situation in general.

So the way I was thinking of it, almost like a spectrum. Like from small procrastination, like going and putting something in the mailbox to like avoidance, which is like denying a problem exists to the point of you deny something for our entire lives. But I think it is like a continuum, like a, a continuum.

That’s how I was thinking of it.

[00:02:14] Pam: I can definitely see that. And I think that these things are going to present differently for different people on that spectrum. And so the way I identify as being an avoider is not necessarily on that grand scale. It’s more of that I see it show up in, in my day-to-day life more as I think, oh, I should do this thing and then immediately come up with 10 reasons why I’m not gonna do it right now.

A lot of that is procrastination, but it’s also just avoidance. It’s resistance to ever doing the thing I’m putting it off into the future, but maybe I won’t actually tackle it at any point. So it is procrastination and it’s avoidance, but it’s not huge things.

It’s not like I’m avoiding dealing with an issue in a relationship or having a difficult conversation. I’m just avoiding these things that, that I know I should be doing in my day to day.

[00:03:06] Sarah: I was also doing some digging on what are the things that I’ve avoided because I do have a history of procrastination.

As so many of us do. I don’t think I’m a massive procrastinator, but I will sometimes wait for the last minute and then feel really stressed out and use that adrenaline to push me forward. So I am familiar with that whole song and dance, but I was thinking about one big instance -and I don’t know if I ever told you about this – that I’ve avoided and it perpetuates. Like it’s still in part of my life, my relationship with this thing, which is driving.

[00:03:45] Pam: I don’t know this.

[00:03:47] Sarah: Yeah. So I avoided learning to drive till I was 35. I just…

[00:03:55] Pam: oh, you’re kidding.

[00:03:57] Sarah: No, I’m not kidding.

[00:03:58] Pam: I was expecting to hear 20,

[00:04:00] Sarah: yeah, no, 35.

And cause, because I had a fear. So again, so maybe back up. Say, why do we avoid, why do we procrastinate? I, People will think, oh, you need a new time management system. Get a new day timer. That’s not the issue. To me, the main issue is not that we’re incapable of organizing our time. We know what we’re supposed to do most of the time.

It’s that we don’t wanna feel we don’t wanna do the thing that we think is gonna make us feel a certain way, which is generally, scared, vulnerable, overwhelmed, right? So at all costs, it’s because I don’t wanna feel the way I think I’m gonna feel, I’m just gonna distract myself with a bunch of other stuff because, That’s a better choice for the moment.

So when I think about the driving, like I’ve had a, I had a, actually, I still have the fear, but ever since I was a little child, I would have these dreams about driving and I’m like in this little VW car and it’s like the old street that I used to live on with my mom in the dream.

And I’m sitting alone and I’m just a little girl and I’m driving and I realize, oh, I don’t know how to drive.

Yeah, I’m in the car and then I reach down to like push on the gas with my foot, but I can’t reach because my legs are too small. And then I’m like, like trying and then I can’t remember which one is the gas and which one is the break. And this is a dream that’s been recurring. And still to this day, I might get an anxious thought of what if I forget which one is the gas and which one is the break?

Because it’s, one of those thoughts that I’ve had so many times that my brain will be like it’s possible you will forget. So I’ve always had this fear and of course, if I were like ready to tackle it head on, there are many things I could have done. I could have gone to therapy, I could have, talked about it more, whereas I just dealt with it, not productively.

But I dealt with it and oh I’ll just suffer and feel crappy about it, and then just not get my license and take taxis everywhere or get a ride from people every.

[00:06:15] Pam: So what finally pushed you to learn to drive? Necessity?

[00:06:21] Sarah: So I had my first kid and here we were, we have a car in our family, so it was sitting in our driveway, and then I’d be pushing her in the stroller, going into the street car and the bus and getting groceries and attaching them to the back of the stroller. Which you know is

sometimes we have to do and it’s a reality, but I thought I have the luxury of having this car sitting in my driveway and I don’t know how to drive it because the fear is standing in my way. And then I wanted to have a second kid and I thought I actually don’t. It actually would be so challenging to get them to daycare, get myself to work.

This was obviously pre-Covid time, so where you actually had to leave the house on a regular basis and you couldn’t get everything delivered. Actually, now it would be way easier to be a non-driver. Not that I, I never thought of it that way, but anyway, so it was necessity. But I could have, I could’ve still avoided it and dug my heels in and been like, it’s fine.

I’ll just keep taking a taxi. Oh. And I used to have to take the car seat and clip them into the taxi. And then you’d get to the place and have to carry the car seat, which is awkward. So finally I out of a desire to be able to get around with my kids. I said, okay, I’m not gonna avoid this anymore.

And I took a bunch of steps to get my license, which was a huge deal. I was so proud. Yeah. It’s one of the most proud I’ve ever been of myself was when I got my license.

[00:07:58] Pam: So isn’t that interesting though, that those things that we avoid, those things that are so big in our lives and that loom as things that we’re afraid to do, things that seem so daunting. When we finally do them they’re the most rewarding. They’re the most productive. They’re the things that have the biggest impact.

They’re the things that can really set us free.

So we’ve been using the word avoider or avoidance, and that comes from

the Positive Intelligence Saboteurs definitions, Is that used elsewhere or is that really where you learned that term?

[00:08:39] Sarah: I think it’s just used in the same way that pleaser is. People are familiar with that and people are familiar with the idea of putting things off that are gonna feel uncomfortable that they don’t wanna do.

It’s just so common. So I think it, it’s definitely one of the particular saboteurs, but I think that it’s so common that we just wanna focus on the pleasant and live in the present moment in the most pleasant, comfortable way possible. That we wanna avoid any of those uncomfortable moments, like sitting behind the wheel and feeling nervous, but moving through it and learning the technique.

[00:09:16] Pam: So if people are listening and wondering am I avoiding things? Is this a problem for me? How would they go about determining that or discovering if this is an issue that they really need to put their attention towards, or if there’s something else that would be more productive for them to be putting time.

[00:09:35] Sarah: That’s such a good question. I think, like so many of these, so many of these issues, it really is around checking in with yourself and generally our bodies give us signals like when we are avoiding something, when we’re putting something off, whether it’s on the low or the higher end in terms of significance.

My body will feel that anxiety, and I might not be able to pinpoint it, but if I take a moment and really check in with myself, I can notice that oh this thing isn’t being addressed. So I think that the self-awareness piece is so key and the mindfulness piece.

And I think almost all of us, there’s some things that we’re avoiding. So I think it’s not even like for people to know if they’re avoiders, it’s for people to know what they’re avoiding. And and what the price is of that? What’s it costing you to avoid doing that? And if it’s a big cost, get some help to move through it.

Resistance is normal. So get some help to figure out how to take steps to move through it. Cuz otherwise it can become so big.

[00:10:52] Pam: I like that you just used the word resistance because that is one that comes up in the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. This is a book that I love. And it’s very short.

It’s a quick read and it was written for creatives or people who want to create something, but the more I have thought about what he wrote and revisited it over the years, the more I think about it as just advice for everyone. Because everything that you do, you’re creating. Whether it is your relationships, whether it is your work life, everything is something that you’re creating your reality.

He talks about resistance being the most toxic force on the planet. That’s a phrase that he uses. He says that most of us have two lives, the life we live and the unlived life within us and between those two stands, resistance. So what he’s essentially talking about is that we have that desire to do something, whatever it is, whether it’s to create something or make change in our lives, or get our driver’s license, whatever that thing is, that there’s that little voice that’s like I should do this, I wanna do this, I wanna do this.

And then very quickly, Resistance shows up and goes “no, you don’t need to do that. Here’s all the reasons you don’t need to do that. It’s, it’s going to be hard and, oh, you’ve got all this other stuff that you should be doing. Don’t do that thing.” And it very, very quickly, that voice in your head very quickly shows up and gives you all the reasons to not do the other…

[00:12:25] Sarah: Infinite reasons. Infinite reasons.

Your mind will come up with some new ones as soon as you’ve addressed the first.

[00:12:32] Pam: Exactly. And one of the things that I think I deal with a lot, and I remember working through this with you, it’s what I call productive procrastination. My big thing is budgeting.

So as soon as I have a project where I’m like, oh, I need to be doing this, but it’s hard, I don’t know how to do it. There’s all these things that make this thing hard. As soon as I’ve got one of those projects, then my brain goes, Hey, you know what you haven’t done in a little bit is balance your checkbook and make sure that your money’s all set.

[00:13:06] Sarah: Every three hours.

[00:13:07] Pam: Yeah it used to be that bad, really. And the root of that is that security is so important to me and financial security is so important. Budgeting is not a bad thing to do. It is important to manage your money and to have security, but my brain would automatically go. Oh I need to do this thing and this thing is hard and is gonna take a lot of work to, but you need to make sure that you’re safe and secure.

It would immediately make that connection and that jump. Yeah, totally. And so then I would go and check my budget.

You were

[00:13:41] Sarah: picking something that feels pleasing and soothing for you, which is your budgeting. And what I love about that example is a couple of things.

The first is the way that we avoid looks completely different for everybody because for many people, myself included though, I’m working on it. That would be the thing to avoid.

[00:14:06] Pam: I never thought about that.

[00:14:08] Sarah: Whereas you were like, that makes you feel great. For you that’s soothing. Whereas for other people that’s highly anxiety evoking.

And that would not be the thing that they go to. So I love that as an example.

And it also like highlights this, for everyone, we avoid it, we buffer or avoid in different ways. And the, whether it’s, I don’t know, we might put a value on something. It’s good, cuz some people clean also.

That’s not how I tend to avoid. But some people clean and the cleaning, the baseboards and like in the radiator with a little thing, and again, they find that soothing or other people will exercise, so these would be things that you know, are cultural belief system, we’re socialized to think most of us, that those are like positive, things. Oh my gosh. But she’s budgeting and cleaning and exercising. Whereas other types of avoidant behavior might look more like the cliche of watching TV or scrolling or eating a pizza mid afternoon, whatever it is to avoid. And that might be frowned upon, but, they’re different activities, but it’s for the same function.

[00:15:19] Pam: It does the same thing. It does it, it quells that anxiety about the hard thing. And it doesn’t really matter whether you’re doing something that we would say is good or bad because the effect is the same, which is that you’re not doing the thing. Whatever the thing is, you’re not doing the thing.

You are avoiding it. Replacing it or numbing out. Really. You’re numbing out. Yeah. Even if you’re doing something that is considered good, you are, you’re numbing or productive, you’re numbing. You really still are.

[00:15:56] Sarah: Yeah. And so how do we gauge? So in going back to your earlier question about how do I know?

Because that in fact it’s even more dangerous I would say, or more of a distraction to be doing these productive things because you could really justify to yourself. Yeah, like that while, at least I’m balancing my books and cleaning my cupboards, at least I’m or cooking.

I have a friend and she openly has shared with me that she does this by cooking and she’s like a incredible cook, but, but it’s used for this sort of avoidant tendency, right? So if we have these things that are generally considered positive, we can justify it even more. So how do we know if we’re doing it when like the behavior looks different for everyone?

It’s first noticing the feeling, like what do you think, oh, I’m gonna do this thing, or I I should do this thing, or I wanna do this thing. And then you have a feeling which is unease, overwhelm, fear, and then you immediately go to something else. So that’s how you know that. So there’s that bodily awareness and then, okay, I’m gonna get a reprieve by doing this other.

[00:17:07] Pam: Yeah it’s mindfulness, which we talk about in every episode because it is so important. That awareness and that ability to check in with yourself and to catch yourself. When your brain does all these things that it naturally does, this is actually a defense mechanism. Your brain is trying to protect you from new things, scary things, hard things.

It’s not doing this to intentionally harm you. It’s actually trying to help.

[00:17:36] Sarah: Yeah, because your brain doesn’t care if launch your new project or have that conversation you’ve been putting off, but is really meaningful for you to have or repair a situation. Your brain just wants you to feel healthy and safe.

[00:17:52] Pam: Back to it being fear, resistance, being fear.

[00:17:56] Sarah: Yeah,

So say more about, yeah, the War of Art and concept of resistance and what you really took away from it.

[00:18:04] Pam: So another thing that he talks about is how we rationalize what we’re doing, which is what we were just talking about.

That we say this is productive, so it’s okay. And that rationalization is probably the most important part of this whole process that happens because you’re naturally going to think about the thing that you are avoiding and have the fear of it or the anxiety that comes up and then come up with all these reasons.

That process is going to happen no matter what, but when you start the rationalization and you start accepting your brain’s answers to all of the things you’re avoiding when you start rationalizing and say yeah, actually I do need to clean the kitchen and make dinner, and all these other things, and you start coming up with all of the the support for what you are going to do instead of the thing,

that’s when it becomes really strong and. Pressfield says, rationalization is resistance’s right hand man. Its job is to keep us from feeling the shame we would feel if we truly faced what cowards we are for not doing our work. So I think that is so powerful because again, it’s your brain trying to protect yourself from the feelings that are around the hard thing.

So if you have this project that you want to do, if you wanna write a book or whatever the thing is that you’re avoiding, and you actually. Stopped and said, oh no I’m avoiding doing that thing, and I am, I’m never gonna live up to my potential and I’m never gonna do my big dream.

And I’m a big loser and I have all this shame around it. That feels terrible. So your brain goes, oh no, you’re fine. You’re not a coward. You have no shame because you can’t do that thing because we’ve got all this other stuff over here that you have to do.

You can’t not make dinner, you can’t not budget, you can’t not clean the kitchen. How dare you even think that you could avoid all those things? Avoid the other thing.

[00:20:21] Sarah: So then what does he say is the, how do we move through the resistance or face that?

[00:20:27] Pam: There’s a lot of steps.

But I think boundaries for yourself is the biggest thing. So for me, time of day and having a schedule is important. So I’m not going to go spend three hours in the afternoon cleaning my kitchen when that is the time of day when I have scheduled to work. That’s just a boundary that I have had to set, especially because I have worked from home for the last 15 years, so it’s very easy to, walk into the other room and do the thing that w ill make me feel productive even when I’m avoiding something. So having those boundaries.

Another thing is treating whatever it is that you need to do as a real job, like treating it professionally. So if you’re trying to create something, if you’re trying to write a book, you can’t treat it like a hobby or a side thing.

You have to be disciplined about it and respect. The work that you are doing, respect yourself and respect your process and what you’re trying to create enough to give it the time that it deserves and give it the attention that it deserves.

[00:21:46] Sarah: Okay, so yeah I’m down for it. So one is really around like putting it in the calendar in a serious way so you have it in your schedule and you show up for yourself. And I think like that, those are true and great and I think that as humans we can do that and then we can still struggle to show up for ourselves.

[00:22:08] Pam: So what do we do in that case?

[00:22:10] Sarah: Yeah. What do we do in that case? So let’s explore cuz I think we’ve both got some ideas on that. I have one, and I shared this with you earlier. I think this is something that really helps show up for ourselves is to have a clear vision of what we want and have that be crystal clear, right?

What do I wanna create for myself in my life, right? What do I want my future project to look like and how do I see my future self interacting with that project? Whatever it is. And that’s, this is where I see a lot of people struggle, is when they don’t have that clear vision of what they want that outcome to be.

And they don’t have a clear vision that they’re actually going to be the person in the future. Like our relationship with our immediate self can be strong, but how do we develop a relationship with the future life we want and the future? That we’re going to be I think that’s like a golden nugget for moving through the avoidance and like sitting down and doing the thing or going out and doing the thing doesn’t have to be sitting down. It’s that future self.

[00:23:28] Pam: As humans, we know that we’re really bad at that. We are, we’re so bad at that. We’re so bad. We have no tangible connection to our future selves, which is the same as… There’s been like the marshmallow study with kids where they see if they can hold out for a second marshmallow or if they just have to eat the first one right away.

And there’s so many studies about that where we’re so focused on what we can have right now that we can’t connect to our future selves. So are there tools that you know of or strategies for how to make that more tangible?

[00:24:13] Sarah: Yeah, so let’s go there and I just wanna build on what you said to really highlight how necessary it is that we cultivate that relationship.

Cuz actually I love that we’re going here in our conversation, cuz I think we’ve talked a lot about nurturing a relationship with a present self, like getting to know yourself, being in touch with yourself, notice you’re feeling. So it’s oh my gosh, this work never ends. I also need to develop a relationship with my future self.

Sorry, about that on everyone. But it’s important and it’s, and this conversation really highlights it, right? And as I was preparing for today, it really was a light bulb moment for me when I realized just how integral our relationship with our future self to overcoming avoidance. So to underscore that this one particular study, and we can perhaps share this in the show notes. The study followed individuals and had, how did it even work?

It had individuals come up with a concept of their future selves, their current selves and their future selves. And ultimately what the study revealed is that we’re so out of touch with our future selves. It’s almost as if it’son par with the self-concept, with the concept we would have of a completely different person.

So my relationship with my future self, for example, without putting in any work, would be the same relationship I would have with, for example, Matt Damon. That was the person they cited in the study. That it’s completely no relationship. And then based on that, we have, different companies leveraging that by putting your face in a machine for AI so you can see what you’re gonna look like when you’re older in order to encourage you to make retirement contributions.

Because and maybe that’s, I mean it’s manipulative, but maybe it’s for a good end. So it’s worth it. But it’s to make you realize, oh, I am gonna be old. I am getting older, and then you feel this sort of empathy for your future older self when you see that face and then that actually it’s demonstrated that will compel you to save money for her.

[00:26:22] Pam: I think in the study that they mentioned, they asked people how they would spend a thousand dollars and showed one group of an aged photo of themselves. And the other group didn’t see that. And the people who saw the aged photo said that they would invest twice as much in their retirement as the people who didn’t see the aged photo.

[00:26:43] Sarah: That’s fascinating.

[00:26:43] Pam: So just having that visual cue that I am going to age makes you make a different decision right now to help out future you.

[00:26:54] Sarah: Yeah. So how do you develop a relationship with future you in service of current, you doing the things that you wanna do? So obviously those photos are effective.

But I think there’s different visualizations. This is something that I do with individuals. I don’t remember if you and I ever did it, but there’s a visualization to meet your future. We could do a future a future session on that together.

[00:27:22] Pam: Sure, yeah.

[00:27:23] Sarah: We could do the future self visualization, but that’s one where you’re really led through a visualization where you meet your future self and envision where they’re living and who they’re with, and what activities they’re engaged in, their state of mind, their surroundings, et cetera, and then connect with sort of those images.

And then you can revisit that, right? You can find what’s resonant, what’s meaningful about that, and revisit it. There’s so many exercises. You can write letters to your future self. You can dress for your future self. You can, once you have this vision of your future self, you can make investments for her or him or them, whether that’s financial or other actions that you’re taking.

Once you have that vision, then you can be more clear about those little steps that you’re doing, and then with each action or conscious sort of choice you make with this self in mind, I think that strengthens, your understanding that they exist and it feels empowering instead of just abstract and like non-existent.

[00:28:41] Pam: Yeah. And so we’ve talked about present self and future self, and now I’m gonna bring past self in. So you gotta be in touch with all yourselves. We just naturally tend to think that how things are right now is how things will stay. That’s just a normal human thing. We don’t think about change, even though change is happening constantly. It can be really helpful to look back and have a reflective practice of some sort and see how things have changed so that you can then see how things can change in the future. Because I think it can get a little bit difficult if you’re in a job that you don’t like and you are avoiding making changes to move into one that you think that you’ll like more or whatever it is that you’re interested in changing. It can be really difficult to go from, I’m in this position right now and I wanna make those changes, but I can’t actually see that they will have an outcome in the future. I can’t actually see myself in that future place. So if you can look back and say I haven’t always been where I am right now.

There, there was a point where my life was much different. So change does happen. Change can happen. I think that is really powerful for helping you connect with what future You’s potential is.

And in addition to that, it’s a really powerful tool to stop procrastination because I have found that once that thought process starts where I think, oh, I should do this, and then I very quickly go into all the reasons that I shouldn’t do it, if I stop and think about how I feel when I do the thing instead of focusing on the procrastination. I have used my piano lessons as examples in multiple episodes that we’ve done, but it’s one of those things that I enjoy it, I love doing it, and still every single time I think, oh, I need to go do my keyboard lesson, I immediately come up with five reasons not to do it. But if I think about you, remember how good it felt yesterday when you played that song? Then it’s much easier for me to go and start the lesson because I can connect with that positive feeling that I got from doing it.

[00:31:02] Sarah: Yeah, I love that. It’s true, like, your brain will still tell you no, give you all the reasons not to, but your relationship with those thoughts evolves.

It just does. It’s the same thing with exercise. My brain will still say, are you sure you want to? But I’m like yeah. Like it’s, it doesn’t feel as dramatic and meaningful. It’s just of course this is coming up. So I love that reminder.

And I also love what you’re bringing forward about looking to the past for evidence, your own personal evidence.

It’s like your own receipts of when you have made progress in your life. And that progress came from putting one foot in front of the other, many times in order to realize that goal. So looking back and reflecting and then thinking how scared did I feel at the beginning? Did I feel really scared?

Did I feel really overwhelmed? And then I still did it. And I still did it. And I still did it. And these can be really big things. Could be like my driver’s license, right? That’s an example of something that felt really scary for me and there were a lot of emotions. I was embarrassed. I was, like I felt uncomfortable whenever anyone would bring it up.

I didn’t wanna talk about it. I felt really scared. I was like petrified behind the wheel. So many feelings that physically manifested, and then 10 lessons, 20 lessons, 30 lessons later it became less scary t o do it. And then I did do it. So that’s an example for me of a time that, I can look to my past for evidence of something that I found personally really uncomfortable, that I avoided for many years and I had a positive outcome.

So then I can use that to motivate myself for something new. You have past evidence of the past when you were really scared and you had a lot of resistance and you avoided it but step by step you did it. So therefore evidence shows you can do it again.

[00:33:05] Pam: And I love that you brought up emotions because so often we think about willpower and that I should be able to do this thing.

[00:33:16] Sarah: Not it. Yeah.

[00:33:17] Pam: It’s not it.

[00:33:18] Sarah: It’s not it. It’s not it. Our brain knows, we know. Yeah. It’s like it’s our emotions. Fear. Overwhelm. It’s so powerful. That will just shut us down. Which, yeah. So how do we deal with those kinds of emotions in the moment? So if we know it, it’s not that, and it’s not just I need to get a new day timer to figure it out and have a better planning system.

It’s, that’s not it, right? On one level it is, but beyond that, it’s processing the emotion. It’s not making the emotions mean anything, like just, it’s normalizing them. I’m saying I’m willing to feel this, let it move through my body and then I’m gonna take the action anyways, cuz I know what the step is.

[00:34:07] Pam: And it’s so intertwined with all of our other issues. So for me, when I avoid something, it’s because I know that I’m maybe not good at the thing that I’m avoiding. It’s going to be hard. I’m gonna have to learn how to do something or it’s not in my wheelhouse. It’s not something that I can do and feel really awesome cuz I’m great at it. So it’s my perfectionism that is being triggered there.

Not only do I have to deal with the fact that I’m procrastinating and avoiding, I have to deal with that. I’m a perfectionist and a hyper achiever and there’s 15 things in there that are all mixed up.

Totally. Totally.

When you sit down and finally do it, it might not go that well.

Yeah. It might not. Or it might go great. We have no idea.

[00:34:54] Sarah: You have no idea. But as you’re saying, if we’re at the beginner, if we’re learning something new chances are the first few times, like going back to the driving, I had to take 30 lessons. When I went to go get my test, it was all these, teenagers, they did 10 lessons and then they showed up.

I’m like, what? But I needed that much repetition. S o if you do have perfectionistic tendencies, then it feels really bad. You’re like, oh my God, I had to do all this work to show up and do this, and stop avoiding it. And it was still hard and I still wasn’t amazing at it.

[00:35:33] Pam: I have to tell you the story of when I took a ski lesson. Because I grew up in the Midwest where everyone skied and I just didn’t. I went on a couple of ski trips as a kid, but I was afraid of the chair lift, so I never got off the bunny slope, so I never really learned how to actually ski. So when I was like 30, my sister and brother-in-law wanted to go skiing and took me with them.

So I said, I’m gonna go and I’m gonna get a lesson. So I rented all my equipment and I sign up for a lesson and go over to the lesson area and the like, head teacher comes up and he says, “Hey we’ve got a bunch of. Instructors that don’t have any students today, so we’re gonna give you a private lesson, even though you paid for a group lesson.”

And I was like, oh, this is fantastic. And then I look over at the group that I was supposed to be in, and it was all like four year olds. I was the only adult. So I think that they just did that as a like, kindness.

So I get my instructor and I tell him I’m afraid of doing this. I refuse to go on the ski lift, and if you tell me that I’m doing anything wrong, I will start crying. He’s like great, fantastic. So we go up the bunny hill, we go down straight, and he’s like great, you did great. So we go up and he like now you’re gonna learn how to turn left. So we go up and down and I turn left.

[00:36:56] Sarah: Did you get off the chairlift?

I didn’t take the chair lift. They just have a little magic carpet that takes you up the bunny slope. So yeah, I’ve still never been on a chairlift.

So I went down straight. Did that. Learned to turn left. Did that well. So we go back up and he’s like okay, now you’re going to learn to turn right.

So I’m going down and I cannot turn right. Every time I try to turn right, I just turn left again. So this poor man that I have told, if you tell me I’m not good at something, I’m gonna start crying. After multiple attempts to get me to learn to turn right, we get down to the bottom of the hill and he looks at me so sincerely and he.

“You turn left really well.”

He told the truth.

[00:37:42] Pam: He did. He did.

So all that to say that, there are hard things and sometimes they go well and sometimes they don’t. But I have found, If I just start, if I can just get over that initial resistance of my brain saying, don’t do the thing, don’t do the thing. If you just, even if you commit to five minutes of doing something, that will usually get enough momentum for you to keep doing the thing.

It’s literally just starting.

[00:38:22] Sarah: Yeah. For sure. And so now I feel like we’re moving, we’re turning left on the slope in our conversation towards okay, how do I, what do I do? I wanna, be less of an avoider. I wanna deal with my avoidance tendency in a more productive way.

So I would say building on what you said, Breaking it down into smaller steps. So instead of it having it be this big black or white thing, like I don’t do it, or I do everything. It’s what’s one small thing you could do to, move yourself in the direction of your goal.

Have this one conversation with someone. Request some help. Do five minutes of work, whatever, breaking it down into a small piece is such a great way to go, so it doesn’t feel as dramatic.

[00:39:11] Pam: Yeah. I think that’s good. I think another thing if it’s something that you can do with a buddy that’s a great way to get some accountability and some I don’t know, some good vibes. You’re doing it together, if you have a shared goal.

[00:39:28] Sarah: Yeah. I love that you said that because we’re talking about how bad it feels. It feels so horrible to feel scared and overwhelmed.

So if you can be with someone who makes you feel good, then suddenly you’re countering that with a positive feeling. And then we’re way more motivated by positive feelings than negative. Yeah. So it’s such a great idea.

[00:39:48] Pam: And along those same lines, you have to give yourself some compassion.

You have to forgive yourself for procrastinating or avoiding, because it’s not a fault, it’s not something that is wrong with you. That is how our brains are designed to work. So you can’t beat yourself up and you can’t think about all the things that you haven’t done. That’s not productive, that isn’t gonna help you do the next thing.

You have to just give yourself some grace and say, yep. Here’s my pattern, here’s my tendency. Here are the tools to overcome it.

[00:40:26] Sarah: Yeah, and I’m really glad you said that because it’s something that I’ll often hear from people that I’m coaching or working with, and sometimes I’ll catch myself or someone will catch me saying the same thing about myself.

So you have some kind of success and then, you counter it with, oh, but it took me so long to get here, or I wish it hadn’t taken me this long, or I still could have done. So we want to, as you were saying, celebrate all the small steps and give yourself grace, even if it’s taken 20 years to get yourself to that ski hill or crack that project that you were working on,

or begin to approach this, issue, this work issue or personal issue that’s been weighing on you. To really commend yourself. Cuz it is possible to go a lifetime without doing it. So if you decide today, then you’re winning.

Okay, so we said small pieces, not black and white, do or die, but bite size.

We talked about self-compassion. So giving yourself a lot of grace and kindness for beginning and no shame about how long it took you.

Another one is opening up to people, someone that you trust, about how you feel. I think because there are so many emotions that we’ve talked. So opening up to a friend or a therapist or a coach because sometimes it can be pretty… I’m picturing like a yarn ball right now, right?

Pretty congested. So being able to speak to someone about what’s at the heart of the yarn ball and let’s, give it some breathing space and once we open up and we name something and it’s normalized and we can have a conversation about it, then often the next steps will flow.

It’s opening the gates for action to happen. So if you’re really feeling stuck and you don’t know how to stop avoiding and you want to, then I would say definitely find someone where you can first air it out.

[00:42:36] Pam: And having those conversations is also great because you find out that other people have the same experiences, they share the same tendencies, and it can make you realize that you’re not alone.

And that this is normal and natural and everyone’s going through this. Even though you see, oh, you know so and so wrote so many books or whatever, and you’re comparing yourself to other people and what they’ve accomplished. You don’t see all of the procrastination they went through, all the avoidance they went through, and all the work that they did to complete the thing that you are comparing yourself to.

[00:43:18] Sarah: Yeah,

So all of those are good supports. Yeah. Good supports.

[00:43:25] Pam: Yeah. And more on a, I guess, spiritual level… One thing that I have found really helpful is my practice of continuing to try and dissolve the ego because the ego wants to stop you from doing new, hard things because it’s fragile and it gets embarrassed, and it gets hurt when you aren’t good at something, and so working on dissolving that and on separating from this idea of having a self and that you are somehow the center of the universe and you’re so important and that these things can hurt you in the long term. Dissolving all of that really helps to reduce avoidance.

[00:44:13] Sarah: Yeah, I love it.

It’s, know your vision. Take your vision seriously. And at the same time, don’t take yourself or your vision too seriously.

Don’t get too attached to it.

[00:44:26] Pam: Yeah. It’s funny. We’re joking that is really complicated. But at the same time, It is pretty simple that you wanna take your happiness seriously, and your fulfillment seriously, and the way you feel.

You wanna take that seriously, but the end the product, or what you are creating or what you’re doing, like that almost doesn’t matter. You don’t have to create some huge… You don’t have to write a novel or, have an album or anything like that. Just whatever it is that makes you feel alive.

Even if that’s going out and picking up garbage on the street, whatever it is that makes you feel the most alive, that is what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about breaking down that block that stops you from doing the things that are going to get you to that place where you feel the happiest.

[00:45:22] Sarah: I love it.