Get wiser
You’re not avoiding the thing you’re avoiding.
You’re avoiding the feelings that the thing will bring up.
You’re not avoiding the responsibility you have.
You’re avoiding the parts of yourself that the responsibility will reveal.
You’re not avoiding life.
You’re avoiding yourself.
Procrastination, avoidance, denial — these are all ultimately ways to flee the “problem” of having to be you, in a specific moment, doing something you don’t want to do.
Of course, that “problem” only grows worse the more you delay it.
More importantly, it’s not actually the problem.
The real problem is believing that you’ll be okay if you can just do something else. Anything but the thing you don’t want to do.
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I learned this from books like "Eat That Frog" and "The Now Habit".
"Eat That Frog" shows how tackling your hardest task first breaks the avoidance cycle.
"The Now Habit" reveals how procrastination is actually about protecting ourselves from judgment and failure.
These aren't productivity hacks—they're insights into why we run from ourselves.
When I catch myself procrastinating, I revisit these books. Sometimes just a few key ideas can snap me back to reality.
That's also one reason why I love Accelerated. Ten minutes with these condensed summaries remind me what I'm really avoiding—and give me the courage to face it.
Still, it makes me wonder—how often do we actually escape the things we avoid?
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Think about it.
Has avoiding anything actually allowed you to escape it?
Has avoiding anything actually allowed you to escape yourself?
Don’t you always run into yourself again in another task, another challenge, another responsibility?
And do those feelings/qualities/parts of yourself go away when you don’t have to face them?
Of course not.
They’re still there.
Getting bigger. Getting scarier. Getting more shameful.
And while you’re working so hard to avoid them, your tools for dealing with them are only getting weaker.
Which makes you want to avoid them more.
And that’s a great way to live a life full of conflict, anxiety and regret.
Here’s the bad news:
There’s no way out.
Here’s the great news:
There’s no way out.
Accepting that is one of the great projects of growing up.
It’s also the first step toward freedom.
And if you’re interested in hearing how this idea played out in a listener’s life…
Check out episode #547, where we took a question from a listener who was worried that her tendency to procrastinate might cost her her dream job.
In that segment, we talked about how to stop putting things off and creating unnecessary stress and exhaustion.
We also talked about the true roots of procrastination — not just an avoidance of a task, but an avoidance of an experience. Which is ultimately an experience of ourselves.
Face the experience, and you can always face the task.
Have you found this principle to be true in your world? Struggling to make use of it?
Hit reply and tell me about it. I’m all ears!
On the show this past week
1220: Andrew Bustamante | A Spy’s Guide to Our Dangerous World Part One
1221: Andrew Bustamante | A Spy’s Guide to Our Dangerous World Part Two
1222: What Legal Steps Come Next to Stop Criminal Ex? | Feedback Friday
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