The Cost of Avoidance: How Much Energy Are You Wasting by Not Facing It?

We all do it. The tough conversation with your partner you keep postponing. The scary email you keep rewriting but never send. The pile of laundry you walk past like it’s invisible. Maybe even reaching out for a coaching session to help with your personal goals *wink*. Seriously though, avoidance is one of those sneaky habits that feels good in the moment, but it ultimately costs you way more energy in the long run.

Here’s the truth: avoiding a problem doesn’t make it disappear. It just hangs around, eating away at your energy, confidence, and peace of mind. 

You might have just said to yourself: “But coach Irelynn, why does it feel so much better?”, “I don’t notice any downsides to avoiding ___”, or “avoiding my problems hasn’t steered me wrong yet!” (If you said the last one, please stop lying to yourself lol.)

Avoidance gives you instant relief. You dodge discomfort. You postpone the anxiety spike. You get to feel safe… temporarily. But that “relief” is really just borrowed time.

Doing this is a form of negative reinforcement. When you avoid something and the anxiety momentarily goes down, your brain learns, “Oh good, avoiding works!” The problem? The thing you’re avoiding doesn’t go away—it only grows. And so does your anxiety about it.

The Hidden Costs of Avoidance

Avoidance looks like it saves energy, but here’s what it actually does:

💲 - Creates mental clutter. You spend more energy worrying about what you’re not doing than it would take to actually do it. Before you know it, the day’s half gone, you haven’t eaten, and you’re still stuck in the same spot.
💲 - Strains relationships. Avoiding hard conversations creates resentment, distance, and confusion with the people that matter most to us. Holding grudges really only hurts ourselves in the long run. Air out that dirty laundry–just do it with kindness.
💲 - Creates lost opportunities. Avoidance keeps you from applying, trying, or risking—and opportunities don’t wait around forever. There will never be a perfect time, and we can only learn through failure. So what are you waiting for?
💲 - Self-doubt creeps in. The more you avoid, the more you prove to yourself that you “can’t handle it.” Give yourself the opportunity to prove that you can.

Research backs this up: chronic avoidance is linked to increased anxiety, reduced coping skills, and lower resilience (Borkovec et al., 2004). Translation: avoidance doesn’t protect you—it weakens you.

Think of avoidance like having a dozen open tabs on your computer. You may not be looking at them, but they’re slowing everything down in the background. The task you’re not facing is still running in your mental operating system, draining focus and energy you could be using for literally anything else.

That’s why avoidance doesn’t just waste time—it robs you of peace, creativity, and momentum.

Facing It: How to Break the Avoidance Cycle

So how do you stop avoiding and start reclaiming your energy? Here’s a few ways to get started:

• Shrink the task. Break the thing you’re avoiding into the tiniest step possible. “Write big scary email asking for a raise” becomes “Open laptop.” Who knows, maybe you’ll even feel like opening up your email app afterwards.

• Set a timer. Give yourself 5 or 10 minutes to just start. Often, momentum kicks in and the task feels less scary. And there is truth to the old saying: momentum breeds momentum.

• Feel before you fix. Acknowledge the discomfort: “I feel anxious about ___.” Naming the feeling reduces its grip and actually makes us feel better. If you’re alone, try saying it out loud, and pair it with a bilateral stimulation technique, like a butterfly hug, while repeating affirmations that you are safe.

• Reward the action. Celebrate every time you face something you’d normally avoid. It retrains your brain to associate courage with reward, not dread. Over time, even the big stuff—like booking that surgery or making that phone call—won’t feel so scary anymore.

• Reframe discomfort. Instead of “this is overwhelming,” try  saying something like, “this is uncomfortable, but I can handle it.” Because it’s true—you can handle it!

Final Thoughts

The facts are: Avoidance convinces you you’re conserving energy, but you’re actually bleeding it. Facing what you fear, whether it’s a conversation, a decision, or a responsibility, releases the mental hold it has on you. That reclaimed energy can now be invested in creativity, connection, and joy.

Abundance comes when you stop wasting energy on “later” and start living in “now.”

If you’re ready to stop spending your energy on avoidance and start investing it in abundance, I’d love to walk alongside you. At Soul Ascension Coaching, I help people break free from self-sabotaging cycles, reconnect with their values, and build habits that support growth and peace.

Book your free consultation with me by clicking HERE and filling out the information on my contact page + follow @lifecoachirelynn on Instagram + TikTok for more for more tools to stop avoiding and start actually living in the ‘now.’