How Long Do Your Avoidance Tactics Work?

As I stood in my bathroom I had no choice but to admit the truth. I covered my eyes in shame. Nobody could know what I hadn’t done. The shower glared in my face. It seemed to say, “you let me down.” Brown grime covered the bottom of my shower. It hadn’t been cleaned for too long.

Can you relate? Is there some work waiting for your attention that you haven’t managed to get around to accidentally on purpose?

I pulled the cleaner out and sprayed the walls and basin in repentance. It would take a good half hour for the cleaner to do it’s job. Meanwhile, I’d avoid its accusations. I’d come back and start scrubbing in a bit.

 Why not forestall as long as I could? And I knew just the way to do it: get onto Facebook, check emails, start a new post. The choices were endless. They had the capabilities of keeping me away for a long time. So I sat in my office and pretended to look busy.

It was so easy. Facebook had 29 new notifications. The emails were a mile long. I buried my head into my computer. My critique partners had sent new work to be edited too.

That was when it hit me. Critiquing and editing wasn’t so different from cleaning a shower. I avoided using critiques to edit my work as long as I could. I hid them in a folder that I didn’t have to see until I had no choice.

The problem with that is if I don’t face the work as soon as possible I won’t know to correct the same mistakes in the current chapter I’m working on. That means the problems continue to compile. We all do this in some area of our lives. It seems to be the easy way out.

It only took me a second to get up and return to the bathroom. I scrubbed. I rinsed. I scrubbed some more.

I’d learned a very important lesson. Stop avoiding the hard things. Take a deep breath and face the work now. It’ll make the work in the end easier because there won’t be any time for build up to cripple our forward motion.

So now I’m going to scrub that shower right away, and I’m going to do my best to keep up with my book editing. Will you make the same commitment with whatever work you’ve been called to do?

0 thoughts on “How Long Do Your Avoidance Tactics Work?

  1. Yes and yes, been there done that (Still doing that). I am notoriously bad on doing the housework thing. The editing is nearly as bad. Every change of season I tell myself I will change. Now with fall coming, I will join you in the pledge; I will keep up with my chores!

  2. It's great to get a head start on it with all the best holidays around the corner.

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