Why is Avoidance So Delicious?

Plus four questions to get you unstuck

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BOOK UPDATE 👉

• I’ll be at Politics & Prose in DC, in conversation with Franklin Foer on August 12, 2026. Come celebrate with me!

• New book blurbs just came in today from colleagues at Harvard Med and Johns Hopkins—will share soon.

• Are You Okay? readers get exclusive bonuses if you pre-order your book from my website here!

Why is Avoidance So Delicious?

From age 7 to around age 13, I took piano lessons. Every week, my teacher’s car would appear in front of my house, and every week, I would bang on the keyboard for the three minutes it took her to park and walk to the front door, the only time I had touched the keys since our last lesson.

“Did you practice?” she’d ask.

“Yes,” I’d reply. 😳

I am 53 years old. And last week, I did the same thing with my physical therapist. Lydia (my wonderful PT) asked if I’d been doing my home exercises.

“I’ve done some,” I said.

Here is the honest truth: I did them at home, twice, for three minutes, until my phone rang both times. I also did them while walking up the stairwell to my appointment with her.

It’s not that I don’t care about my right shoulder. It’s not that I enjoy being laid up. It’s that avoidance is so easy—delicious even!—when there are so many other things to attend to. If putting things off weren’t so satisfying, we’d all be doing our PT exercises and flossing after every meal and going to bed in time. But we’re human.

Here’s what I think is going on: Avoidance gives us a hit of relief.

The moment we decide “not now,” the pressure lifts. We get to do the easier thing—answer the email, scroll the phone, help someone else with their problem—and feel productive while doing it. The hard thing is still there, but it’s a problem for Future You. Real-Time You gets a little dopamine hit, feeling busy and useful without confronting the thing that actually needs your attention. That’s the delicious part. Avoidance doesn’t feel like avoidance. It feels like being responsible about everything else.

The gap between knowing what we need and actually doing it is something I explore in my book. And for me that gap is filled with other distractions that make my shoulder seem insignificant. It’s time to make home PT more automatic—and not something to do “when I have time.”

Sidebar shout out to Robin Andrews Stanley who is putting me to shame! Robin wrote in the comments last week that she’s been doing her shoulder PT exercises EVERY SINGLE MORNING for 18 months. Robin has cracked the code, making her PT exercises part of her non-negotiable morning routine.

So I asked myself: How can I be a little more like Robin?

Four questions to ask yourself when AVOIDANCE creeps in

When I sat with why I keep skipping my scapula squeezes, I realized I needed to get honest with myself. Not in a shame-y kind of way, but in a curious way. Here are the questions I asked myself (and what I discovered):

1. What am I actually avoiding?

For me: I’m avoiding the exercises because there are too many other things coming at me that seem more important. Patient calls. Emails. This newsletter. The exercises feel like one more thing on the list—and they keep getting bumped because I put myself at the bottom of the list.

Which is ridiculous. Because the shoulder affects my sleep, which affects my energy, which affects everything else. The “more important” things would go better if I did the exercises. I know this. And yet.

2. What story am I telling myself?

For me: I’m telling myself the pain will magically go away. That one day I’ll wake up and it will just be... better. Magical thinking. Delusional, frankly! The shoulder is not going to fix itself. Lydia is not going to fix it either, not unless I do my part.

3. What would make this easier?

For me: I need to stop relying on memory and motivation. So, last night I printed out the PT exercises and taped them to my bathroom mirror. I taped another copy to a picture on the wall in my office. I ordered a set of 2-pound hand weights that now live next to my desk. If I can’t help but see the exercises, maybe I’ll actually do them.

4. What do I actually need right now?

For me: I need to prioritize myself while accepting that progress will be slow. This is not a one-week fix. Robin’s been at it for 18 months. I’m on week 2. I need to lower the bar (”do something”) and raise the commitment (”do it daily”).

Meanwhile, you all are in this with me. Last week’s newsletter brought in more incredible comments. A few highlights: Roxann Steinberg Whitaker finally made an appointment with an endocrinologist after years of putting it off. Janet Jeffers had been avoiding a cardiology checkup for a decade. Huge relief! Suzette Ciancio was honest: “No, I did not make my eye appointment. I will today!” And Susan LaMountain reminded me that she had surgery on one shoulder and PT on the other, and now she can’t tell the difference between them. PT works!

How is YOUR One Thing going?

Are you doing the thing? Or are you watching the proverbial piano teacher park her car? Tell me in the comments. I want to hear it—the progress, the setbacks, the “I completely forgot until I saw this email.”

And remember: April 30 at 5 pm ET, we’re going LIVE to share our stories. Bring your wins. Bring your struggles. Bring your sense of humor. (Get the link to attend here!)

We’re in this together! See you next week.

My book, Beyond the Prescription, comes out on August 11! I wrote it with you in mind.

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