What are you avoiding?

Last year, I was going through a divorce, finishing my second book, navigating the challenges that come with leading a business in this volatile environment, and helping my son through health issues that required more attention and advocacy than I had anticipated. None of those things felt unmanageable on their own, and I wouldn’t describe myself as overwhelmed. In many ways, I think I handled that period of my life quite well.

What I noticed, though, was a growing resistance to things that normally wouldn’t have required much thought. I’d find myself putting off conversations I knew needed to have or letting relatively simple decisions sit longer than they should have. Even small tasks started taking more effort to initiate. It wasn’t because I lacked the ability to deal with them. If anything, it was the accumulation of responsibilities that was wearing on me. I had enough on my plate that my instinct became, “Can this wait until tomorrow?” Often, tomorrow became next week.

As the months went on, I found myself wanting life to be easier than it was. Not dramatically easier, as I wasn’t looking to escape my responsibilities or walk away from the things that mattered to me. I was simply tired of every area of my life requiring something at once. Everything needed attention… the divorce, my book, my son, StoneAge… the workload was relentless. Individually, none of it felt overwhelming. Collectively, it created a low-level friction that seemed to follow me everywhere.

I had a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I felt that way – there was a lot going on. But as I examined my resistance, I realized something interesting. The things that were draining my energy weren’t always the biggest challenges. More often, they were the conversations I was postponing, the decisions I was delaying, and the realities I knew I needed to address but hadn’t done so yet. To sum it up, avoidance was stressing me out.

What Was Actually Draining Me

What caught my attention was that the biggest drain on my energy wasn’t always coming from the biggest challenges. It was coming from all the unfinished business I kept dragging from one day to the next. I’d think about something that needed my attention, decide I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it, and push it forward. Then I’d think about it again tomorrow. And the day after that. The issue itself rarely got bigger, but the amount of mental space it occupied certainly did.

The issue wasn’t the amount of work involved. Most of these things could have been handled fairly quickly. What made them draining was the fact that I never fully put them down. They stayed open in the background of my mind, resurfacing at random moments and quietly asking for attention. By the time I finally addressed them, I often realized I had spent far more energy thinking about them than the situation itself ever required.

The uncomfortable truth was that these issues weren’t becoming easier with time. They were becoming larger because I was giving them attention without giving them action. I was spending far more energy thinking about what needed to happen than actually making it happen.

The Connection I Didn’t See: What Are You Avoiding?

Around the same time, I was preparing for the launch of Talk with Trust, which meant I was spending a lot of time thinking about why people avoid difficult conversations. For years, I believed avoidance was mostly about conflict. We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, create unnecessary tension, or risk damaging a relationship that matters to us.

But what I’ve learned, both in myself and in my research, is that conflict wasn’t always the real issue; it’s uncertainty. We don’t know how the conversation will go and worry about how someone will respond. We fear the negative consequences of having the conversation, and because we are human, we want reassurance before we act.

These are the reasons avoidance becomes so tempting. We convince ourselves that waiting is responsible. We tell ourselves we need more information, more confidence, or better timing. What we’re really hoping for is certainty, but it rarely arrives. Reality still exists whether we acknowledge it or not.

What we don’t consider is the cost of inaction. Instead of experiencing a few minutes of discomfort, we spend days or weeks spinning the issue around in our heads. The problem remains exactly where it was while our energy slowly drains away.

Maybe I Was Asking the Wrong Question

There’s a general belief that stress is something to reduce or eliminate, and that sounds reasonable until you start looking at the experiences that shape a life. Building a company, writing books, raising a child, navigating the end of a marriage, and opening yourself up to love all require something from you. They ask for courage, responsibility, vulnerability, and a willingness to move forward without knowing exactly how things will turn out. Stress isn’t a sign that something has gone wrong. In many cases, it’s part of what makes those experiences meaningful in the first place.

The deeper issue had less to do with pressure and more to do with ambiguity. Every meaningful decision seemed to come with unanswered questions attached to it. There was no way to know exactly how someone would respond, whether a choice would work out, or what would be waiting on the other side of a difficult conversation. I spent a lot of time wishing for clarity when what the moment actually required was courage.

But as we all know, life doesn’t work that way. The opportunities that shape us, the relationships that matter, and the decisions that define us rarely arrive with guarantees attached. They simply arrive and ask something of us.

What I’m Thinking About Now

These days, when I feel that familiar resistance creeping in, I don’t start by looking at everything on my plate. I start by asking myself a different question: What am I avoiding? Usually, the answer appears pretty quickly it almost always has to do with something I am avoiding. That’s why I ask myself, “What am I avoiding?”

I don’t think the goal is to build a stress-free life anymore. A meaningful life comes with responsibility, and responsibility creates pressure – that’s part of the deal. The question isn’t whether stress belongs in our lives. The question is whether we’re willing to face the thing we’ve been spending so much energy trying to avoid.

Want More?

If this idea resonates with you, I explore it in greater depth in this week’s episode of The Kerry Siggins Podcast, where I unpack the relationship among goals, standards, and lasting change.

And if you’re looking to build more trust and improve communication on your team, Talk with Trust is now available for preorder. I’ll also be speaking with organizations during my book launch tour this fall, so reach out if you’d like to bring this conversation to your company or event. Reach out to me at https://kerrysiggins.com/book-kerry/