Why you need a 'List Of Avoidance'.

There are things that you regularly avoid.

Those items that might be on your list, but that you never get to.

And if you do, it’s because you have to, not because you chose to.

Some of those things are the boring, administrative, functional stuff that seems to fill much of our lives. These things are often irritating, we do them because we must.

But others are something else entirely: they are things we avoid because they make us feel uncomfortable, they may involve some sort of conflict, tension with others, but most importantly with yourself.

They are indicators, they are signposts of what you probably should be doing.

Behind them, inside them, you will find dreams unfulfilled, ideas explored but never acted on.

You will also find promises to self made but never delivered. A contract that you signed with yourself but somehow keep breaking, keep putting off, day after day, month after month, year after year.

We construct clever barriers around them, we sweep them under the carpet, but they remain.

We jot them down in moments of deeper reflection, perhaps as a New Year approaches, or on our birthday.

They are acknowledged, but the challenge is not really accepted, not quite.

Some of them you might need to let go, they no longer serve their purpose, they are legacy ambitions, emotional baggage from a different place and time and a different you.

But others, they are the opposite, they are the things that deep down you know could be the difference. The things that if you were completely honest with yourself, are probably the biggest lever you could pull to become something else, to become someone else.

It could be the smallest of things, it could be biggest, but you know it for what it is.

The simplest way to reveal and tackle these is to keep a ‘List of avoidance.’

Separate the mundane and the functional from the significant and important.

Then check it every day.

Update it regularly.

Perhaps even start the day with it.

Just the very act of writing it down, sitting there looking at it, can make a big difference. There is no where for them and you to hide, it becomes harder for you to avoid it.

Of that list, ask:

• Why is this important?

• What are the future implications of continuing not to do it? In 1, 5, 10 years time, for you and for those that matter to you?

• Why am I really avoiding this? What does it represent that unsettles me?

• Is there anything I could do to make it easier?

• Is there one thing I could do to move closer to it being done?

• Of those people I most admire, how would they behave towards this? If I was like them just for one day, what would I do?

The very act of writing them down, of capturing in a list and consistently interrogating them, can often lead to letting go of things that no longer serve, and unlock things that might be the key to the future you.