288 - Stop Sitting on the Floor: The Hidden Cost of Avoidance

You know what a five-minute task looks like when a kid doesn’t want to do it? An hour-long standoff. Socks on the floor. Full dramatic collapse. And the worst part is, that kid is also missing out on the thing they actually wanted to do — playtime they could have been having — because now they’re in a battle that didn’t need to happen.Sound familiar? Because I do it too. Not on the floor, not with the socks, but the mechanism is exactly the same. And that’s what this episode is about.Avoidance Isn’t Free. We think of avoidance as a break — a little breathing room before we tackle the hard thing. But what’s actually happening is we’re adding every undone task to a mental backpack we carry through the entire day. The gym you meant to hit. The email you’re dreading. The bill you keep not looking at. Each one is a background process running in your brain, quietly draining your energy and your focus, popping up with mild guilt every time it surfaces.Two Versions of Your Day. I walk through what it actually looks like to compare the day where you do the planned thing first versus the day where you negotiate with yourself until 10pm. The first version is done and forgotten in 30 minutes. The second version haunts you all day and you probably still don’t do the thing.The ADHD Layer. For those of us with ADHD, this pattern can run deeper — the executive function piece makes it genuinely harder to initiate tasks even when we want to do them. This isn’t laziness. But understanding the pattern is still the first step whether or not ADHD is part of your picture.Mel Robbins and the 5-Second Rule. I’m not here to reinvent something that’s already been figured out. Mel Robbins cracked this one open with a beautifully simple move: when you feel the impulse to act, count backwards from five and go before your brain builds a case against it. It interrupts the internal committee meeting before the agenda even gets distributed.Three Concrete Moves. Name it (you can’t change what you don’t see), shrink it (the first 30 seconds of a task, not the whole thing), and do the countdown. That’s it. You’re not building a system. You’re just deciding not to sit on the floor.The real payoff isn’t productivity for its own sake. It’s the rest you’ve actually earned at the end of a day where you did the thing you said you were going to do.Jill’s Linkshttp://jillfromthenorthwoods.comhttps://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallstepshttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallstepshttps://twitter.com/schmernEmail the podcast at [email protected] choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.