The paradox of avoidance

Have you ever felt that a project/subject/task was just way too big and daunting to start?

I had a great session with St Scholastica's Year 12 girls yesterday in Sydney. After the workshop one of the cool students came up and shared that her workload was massive and she didn't know where or how to start studying. Every time she devoted time to do so, she was caught up in the enormity of the task - there was just too much to do.

Most humans put off the big things to focus on the little things.
It's easier to focus on the little things - we can tick the little things off on our lists of things to do, and we can end each day satisfied that we've achieved some things. It's nice, but ultimately not effective.

When we are confronted by a big task, we need to understand that there is a paradox associated with avoiding it.

By avoiding an important task, you are choosing not to choose to take action.

Whenever we make a choice, there are things to consider.

In the short-term, avoidance is comfortable. It allows you to procrastinate, or derive satisfaction from completing smaller, less-important tasks.

However, if you pace this decision out beyond the immediate short-term comfort, the implications are quite clear. Avoiding a big important task doesn't make it go away. In fact, it'll stick in your head, and weigh down upon you.

The more you avoid the source of your apprehension, the bigger both it and your apprehension grows.

Watch out if you hear yourself thinking: "It's okay, I work better when I am under pressure." All this does is set you up for a bucket of stress while you scramble to complete the study/assignment/project. It'll also give you a convenient bunch of alibis to choose from if you didn't perform that well, from "I just didn't have enough time" to "I would have done better if I had more sleep/didn't get sick/etc".

So, realise that by avoiding a task, your choosing to not choose to do it. And the costs of that far outweigh the small discomfort you'll have if you choose to start.

Break it down into realistic, bite-size chunks. Accept that there is no ideal place to start, but you're going to start anyway.

Make a realistic goal out of it, and realise that by starting, you'll actually save a heap of time and worry, and will likely vastly improve your performance too.