How many things are on your to do list every day? Honestly, my own is quite long. It’s normal that from time to time all you want to do is to drop it, to have a break, right? This is constructive and positive for us only if this break is under control but, most important, is made to give us some healthy space in order to get back to work with new energy.

It happens more often that we’d like to admit that this break lasts a little bit longer than it should, because we have this tendency to postpone and avoid things as much as possible so we don’t have to think about that specific one we don’t really want to do. Do you want an example? How many times do we check our messages on Whatsapp, on Facebook or any other online platform, in one day? When a problem comes up, our first and immediate reaction is to take our mind off it and do something different. How many times we told ourselves “I’ll go to the gym on Monday”? How many times we waited until the last available day to pay our bills?

There are countless examples of situations that happen every single day and take our mind off our goals. Our mind has this tendency to run away from everything that can bother her, or make her “suffer”. Avoiding to handle these problems can seem like a good strategy in that moment because we feel better, relieved, almost think that they’re gone and we are free.

Unfortunately this method only makes them grow bigger and bigger, every time we put them under the carpet they grow more, until they become so big that it’s impossible not to see them. That’s when we maximize them even more and have those thoughts like “I’ll never make it, it’s impossible!”.

Sooner or later we’ll have to face everything, so the best behaviour possible is to look them in the eye and face them. We may even discover that they were not that big as we imagined! How can we face our problems and get back on track to keep chasing our life goals? Here’s a little something called “The Face Everything Technique”. The idea is to challenge ourselves, of course, in 4 steps. Are you ready? Let’s begin:

1. Ask yourself “What am I doing now”

The first thing to do is to have the right perception of what’s happening around us, so we just have to refresh our memory during the day. Write a note on your phone, or on a post-it, you just have to have it clear and be able to see that every time you need. The question is simple: What am I doing now? You can write or type your answer, that can be anything: I’m eating an apple, I’m checking my homepage on Facebook, I’m doing the laundry. It doesn’t matter that you’re doing something important, or not, the only thing that matters at this stage is that you’re aware of what you’re doing.

2. Ask yourself “What am I avoiding?”

When the going gets tough, the tough get going right? Well, sometimes the tough tends to run and avoid the problem by trying to do something simpler instead. Did you just remember of that thing you absolutely had to do that now just became so important and you either do it now or you die? Exactly. Just ask yourself. What am I avoiding in this precise moment? What’s that thing that’s scaring me right now, that seems so difficult and it’s creating that feeling my mind hates so much and triggering the self-defence mechanism?

3. Face it

This step is easier said than done, you might ask. Actually it’s all about thinking of that problem we’re avoiding (we already found it in the previous step so this is super easy right?) and look it right in the eye. Let’s memorize every single inch of that problem, of this absolutely impossible-to- solve situation. Does it looks that big now that we’re right in front of it? I’m sure it doesn’t even look so difficult. We can take all the time we need in this step, understanding our fear, and then we’re ready to face it. After you downsized it, is it really that impossible to win it?

4. Take the right path

We understood the real size of the problem, now we can act upon it: we can decide the right action we have to do in order to solve it. Remember that now you can be sure of the benefits you’ll have after you overcome your fear and decipher it. So, why not roll up our sleeves and get to work? Are you avoiding a conversation because you’re angry? Face your anger, understand the reasons why in that moment you were not able to talk about what you were thinking about. After that you’ll be able to explain everything to that person in a constructive and calm way. 9 times out of 10 that’s a winning technique to solve verbal conflicts. Of course I’m not saying that this is the perfect method to solve all the problems we’ll have in life, but this is a good way to discover that maybe you’re able to face more bad situations that you thought.

What are you avoiding? Which fears are stopping you from reaching your goals?