We’re all very aware of depression and anxiety but there is a range of other factors that feed into those conditions that don’t often get the attention they need. Avoidance is one of the most significant factors that can impact our health and well-being. Let’s talk avoidance tactics.
When you continuously avoid a problem by pretending that a situation isn’t as it is then you are lying to yourself and doing yourself a great disservice. It’s highly likely that whilst avoiding dealing with a particular problem may give you short-term gain, there will inevitably be pain in the long term.
The first avoidance tactic that people employ is over-explanation.
We all have that friend who can talk the hind legs off a donkey by going on about the same old issue again and again. Over-explaining and talking about the problem without actually doing anything about it is an avoidance tactic. For example, if your son is disrespectful to you and continuously talks to you in a derogatory way but you make excuses for him and attempt to explain it away then it will cause longer-term problems for you.
The second avoidance tactic is denial, otherwise known as burying your head in the sand and acting as if the problem does not exist.
We must be very careful of this as it can also be linked to disassociation and this is something which will require professional help to overcome. If you are in total denial about a situation then it’s important to understand that this is a tactic that will help you to cope in the present but not in the long term. For example, if you are constantly in denial about the fact that you’re going to lose your job, yet not taking steps to do something about it, then you’re going to be creating more problems for yourself.
The third avoidance tactic to be mindful of is procrastination.
This is when you find anything else to do rather than deal with the actual situation. For me personally, I know I must be careful about my phone as I can often end up spending too much time on social media when I’ve got bigger tasks that I need to be tending to, but because I might not want to deal with them I end up just idling my time away on these platforms. Procrastination is something that you need to be mindful of as it is a form of avoidance where you don’t confront the big issue.
The fourth avoidance tactic is comparison.
By continuously comparing yourself to somebody else in a better position you are using it as an excuse not to take steps to deal with your own issues. You may be somebody who compares yourself to your older sibling and this can be detrimental. This is something that I did and it often meant that I didn’t value my own merit or my own worth because I was continuously looking at my sibling and at times wishing I could’ve been the same as them. When we continuously compare ourselves to somebody else it’s important to know that we deliberately choose somebody who’s in a better position because if we were to choose to somebody who wasn’t in the greatest position the comparison would not work. We then focus on idolising and worshipping this person to avoid dealing with the problems in our life.
The fifth avoidance tactic that people often employ is blaming others.
By blaming others and saying ‘it’s not me, oh poor me’, we don’t have to take responsibility for our own actions and it lets us off the hook. By doing this we’re highly likely to develop a victim mentality and can sometimes adopt a mindset of entitlement as well. If you constantly say ‘poor me’ then you may feel that you’re entitled to something from other people to remedy the pain that you believe you’re in.
If you continue to employ avoidance tactics in your life then you will develop self-deceit, which in turn will cause inner conflict. Inner conflict steams from trying to create an alternative reality rather than facing up to the situation you’re in which, in the long run, will cause more problems or may mean that you develop more avoidance tactics to keep in the ‘un-comfort’ of that comfort zone.
When we start to let go of our avoidance tactics and deal with the problem in hand then it will take us out of our comfort zone. This isn’t always comfortable but it’s only when we leave the comfort zone that we can begin to expand and grow and it is through this process that true change comes about.